Running a yoga teacher training: pricing, payments and cohorts

The format decides your cost structure, your price and who can sign up:

Residential intensives are the most profitable when full and the riskiest when not, because almost every cost is fixed. The rest of this guide focuses on them, but the payment and cohort advice applies to every format.

A four-week residential training pays lead trainers, guest teachers and the venue for a month whether 12 or 24 students come. Those fixed costs dominate. A worked example with 24 places at $3,200 tuition including accommodation:

At 18 students the training makes about $3,600 after 25% income tax; at a full 24, about $15,300. With 12 students it loses about $10,800. That spread is why trainings need a realistic enrolment target before you commit to a venue. Try your own numbers in the pricing calculator.

Work through the same steps as any retreat, with a few training-specific lines:

• Trainer hours. Lead trainers, assistants and guest specialists (anatomy, philosophy) for the full contact hours.
• Course materials. Manuals, books, assessment, certificates.
• Accreditation. If your graduates will register with a body such as Yoga Alliance, your school usually needs to be registered with it and meet its standards, which can carry fees. Check the body's current requirements.
• Scholarships. If you offer reduced places, count them as a cost, not as lost revenue you can ignore.

Then decide the minimum enrolment at which you'll run the training, and the date you'll decide by. Tell students both. A training that might be cancelled is fine; one that's cancelled with two weeks' notice is not.

Many schools ask for a short application before taking money. It protects the cohort and stops refund requests from people who weren't ready. Keep it short:

• How long they've practised, and how often
• Why they want to train, and whether they plan to teach
• Injuries, health conditions or pregnancy you should know about
• Language level, if the training isn't in their first language

Reply within a few days. Then send accepted students a booking link with a deposit that holds their place, and a deadline for paying it. Applications that wait weeks for an answer turn into students who booked elsewhere.

Tuition is often the biggest purchase a student makes that year. Spreading it makes the decision possible, and charging it automatically makes sure it gets paid. A student enrolling on 15 January for a training starting 1 October, with a $500 deposit and the final payment due 21 days before:

Seven monthly payments fit before the 10 September cutoff. Students who enrol later get fewer, larger payments, which is a good reason to open enrolment early. More in how automatic installments work, or try your own dates in the deposit schedule calculator.

Trainings have more at stake than a holiday retreat, so put the rules in a student agreement accepted at booking:

• Deposit: non-refundable if it pays for early commitments, and said clearly.
• Deferral: students who can't come can move to a later cohort, often for a small fee, up to a set date. It turns most refund requests into bookings.
• Refund tiers by days before the start, matched to when you pay the venue.
• Attendance and assessment: what a student must attend and complete to receive the certificate, and what happens if they miss days.
• Conduct: when you can ask a student to leave, and whether anything is refunded.
• Health: a waiver and health declaration, signed before arrival.

The second cohort is much less work than the first if you copy it: same rooms, prices, policies and emails, new dates. Keep early-bird deadlines and promo codes relative to each start date so they move with it.

Space cohorts so marketing for the next one starts while the current one is filling, and keep a waitlist: students who miss one cohort are the easiest enrolments for the next. On MyRetreatDesk Pro, the cohort calendar shows every training by month and duplicates one to new dates.

International students need time for visas and flights, so open enrolment earlier and set the final payment further ahead. Collect passport and arrival details at booking: some countries require the accommodation to register foreign guests. In India this is Form C, filed by the accommodation provider. See Form C for retreat organizers.

Visa rules for courses vary by country and change often. India's e-Tourist visa, for example, covers short-term yoga programmes but excludes courses issued with a qualifying certificate. Point students to the official government visa site for the country you're teaching in rather than advising them yourself.

• Format, dates, fixed and per-student costs, and the break-even enrolment
• Go/no-go number and the date you'll decide by
• Application questions and how accepted students book
• Deposit, refund tiers, deferral rules and the student agreement
• Enrolment opening date, early-bird deadline, final-payment date
• Passport, arrival, dietary and roommate details collected at booking
• Venue contract: who registers foreign guests, meal times, room allocation
• The next cohort's dates, so you can announce them on the last day