Guide · Direct bookings & marketplaces
Direct bookings vs retreat marketplaces: when each pays off
By MyRetreatDesk team · Updated · 4 min read
Short answer
A marketplace commission is worth paying for guests you would never have reached yourself. It is expensive for guests who already know you: students, your mailing list, past guests. Most organizers do best with both: a marketplace listing for discovery, and their own booking page for everyone who comes through their own work.
Key takeaways
- The marketplaces we checked charge 14–15% of the whole booking, collected from the deposit.
- Judge a marketplace by its cost per new guest, not its headline commission.
- Commission paid on people who already follow you is the expensive part. Send them to your own page.
- Track where every booking came from; without that, you can't tell whether the marketplace is earning its fee.
- Read each marketplace's rules on pricing elsewhere and off-platform bookings before you set prices.
How retreat marketplace commissions work
Marketplaces list retreats for free and earn a commission when a guest books. Two examples, from their own host pages as of October 2026:
| Marketplace | Commission | How it's collected |
|---|---|---|
| BookRetreats | 15% standard on the total booking, including extras booked later; 20–30% optional for a ranking boost | From the deposit the guest pays on BookRetreats, plus a 3% processing fee; you collect the balance |
| Retreat Guru | 14% of the total retreat price | The guest pays it as the deposit; you collect the rest yourself |
Because the commission is charged on the whole price but collected from the deposit, the deposit you receive can be small or even nothing. On a $1,000 booking with a 20% deposit, BookRetreats' own example sends the host $44 of the $200 deposit; the rest of the money comes when you collect the balance yourself.
What it costs over a year
Three typical organizers, all paying 15% and assuming half their marketplace guests would have found them anyway:
| Small | Medium | Large | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retreats × guests × price | 2 × 8 × $900 | 3 × 12 × $1,500 | 4 × 18 × $2,500 |
| Bookings per year | $14,400 | $54,000 | $180,000 |
| 15% commission | $2,160 | $8,100 | $27,000 |
| …on guests who already knew you | $1,080 | $4,050 | $13,500 |
| MyRetreatDesk Starter (1.5%, paid by guests by default) | $216 | $810 | $2,700 |
| MyRetreatDesk Pro ($199/month, 0%) | $2,388 | $2,388 | $2,388 |
Card processing applies whichever you use, so it's left out. The question isn't “marketplace or not”. It's “which guests am I paying commission on?” Run your own numbers in the commission calculator.
Judge it by cost per new guest
A commission is a marketing cost. Like any marketing cost, it's only worth it if it brings guests you wouldn't have had, at a price you can afford.
To get these numbers, ask every guest how they found you, and add a “first heard about us” question to your booking form. It takes a season to get useful data, and it changes how you spend money.
What the commission buys
- Discovery. Travelers search marketplaces by place, style and date. If you have no audience yet, that traffic is hard to replace.
- Trust. Reviews on a site travelers already use help a new organizer get booked.
- Pay on results. You pay only when someone books, which suits a first retreat with no marketing budget.
- Late fills. A listing can sell the last few beds to people searching close to the dates.
What it costs besides the commission
- Commission on your own guests if they find and book you through the marketplace instead of your own page.
- Less control over payments. Deposits, balances and refunds follow the marketplace's process as well as yours.
- Pricing rules. Some marketplaces have rules on charging less elsewhere or adding their commission on top. Check before you set prices.
- Off-platform rules. Retreat Guru, for example, invoices hosts its fee for marketplace participants who book outside the platform. Know the rule before you move a guest to your own page.
- Ranking you don't control. Where commission level, reviews and response time affect ranking, your visibility can change without you changing anything.
Which channel for which retreat
| Your situation | Lean towards |
|---|---|
| First retreat, small or no audience | Marketplace listing, plus your own page for friends and students |
| Strong mailing list or studio community | Your own booking page; marketplace optional |
| Destination retreat in a popular place, guests search by location | Both: marketplace for discovery, direct for repeat guests |
| Teacher training with an application process | Your own page; applications don't suit marketplace checkout |
| Last few beds unsold 6 weeks out | Marketplace or a waitlist offer to past guests |
Running both channels
- Have your own booking page with rooms, prices and payment plans, and put the link everywhere you talk to your audience.
- Send your audience there: newsletters, Instagram, your studio, past guests. Don't send them to your marketplace listing.
- Keep the marketplace for strangers. Treat its commission as a marketing cost and add it to your break-even.
- Track where bookings come from. If most marketplace guests turn out to be people who already knew you, move them back to direct.
- Reward direct bookings with something marketplaces don't restrict, such as a referral credit for bringing a friend.
On MyRetreatDesk your booking page can also sit inside your own website with the booking widget (Pro), and referral codes give past guests credit for each friend they bring.
Building your own demand
Direct bookings only work if people know about you. The channels that consistently work for retreat organizers:
- An email list. The people who open your emails are the people who book. Announce dates to them first, with the early-bird.
- Past guests. Your cheapest bookings. Give them first access and a referral reward.
- Partners. Studios, teachers and wellness businesses whose audience matches yours. A shared retreat or a referral code costs less than commission.
- Search. A clear page for each retreat (what, where, when, who it's for, price) can rank for “yoga retreat in [place]” over time.
- Content. A short video of a real session or a guest's story does more than a polished ad.
Written by MyRetreatDesk team
We build MyRetreatDesk, booking and payment software for retreats, workshops and teacher trainings. Our guides come from how the product handles deposits, installments, failed payments and group bookings for organizers.