Guides for hosts
Hosting experiences and workshops: from one afternoon to a business
An experience can be an afternoon, a weekend workshop, or a week away, and whether you already call yourself an experience host or you're only now working out how to run a workshop, the business underneath is the same: seats, a date, and a price that covers the costs. Teach a pottery class on Saturday mornings or run a five-day retreat and the size changes. The job doesn't.
How do you start hosting experiences?
Start with the format you can actually deliver well, not the one that sounds most impressive on paper. From there:
- Decide the guest it's for, specifically enough that you could describe them in one sentence.
- Set a price that covers what it actually costs you, including your own time.
- Choose where people will find it: your own page, a marketplace listing, or both.
- Plan how you'll bring the same people back for the next one. Getting the word out once you've decided that is the whole job of retreat marketing, scaled down to one session instead of a whole week.
Get those four right and the rest is mostly logistics. Skip any one of them and you'll feel it later, usually as a room that's half full or a price that doesn't leave you anything once you add up your own hours.
Experience, workshop or retreat: what's the difference?
Length and what's included are what separate the three, not how good the content is. An experience is usually one session lasting a few hours, with no overnight stay. A workshop runs a few hours to a full day or weekend and is typically built around teaching a specific skill, often one you can repeat on a schedule. A retreat is multi-day, with lodging and meals built into the price, and it's the most there is to plan.
A workshop is often the cheapest way to find out whether people want what you're thinking about building into a retreat. You can run one in an afternoon, see who shows up and what they ask about, and decide whether a multi-day version is worth the planning before you put down a venue deposit. If that's where you end up, how to plan and run a retreat picks up from there.
Your own page or a marketplace listing?
Both work, and many hosts use both. Your own page means you control the price, the terms, and the relationship with a guest who comes back for a second one, but you have to send every visitor to it yourself. A marketplace listing, something like Airbnb Experiences, puts you in front of people who weren't searching for you by name, but you're working inside someone else's page, someone else's terms, and someone else's search. Those terms and any fees are specific to the platform and change over time, so read the current ones straight from the source before you build a business around them rather than going on what used to be true or what someone told you.
Running a class through a marketplace can also mean you're responsible for local permits, insurance or a business registration, depending on where you live and what you're teaching. That varies by city and country, and this isn't legal, tax or insurance advice, so check with a licensed professional in your area before you lean on a marketplace listing as your main source of guests. If what you're selling ever includes flights or a travel package rather than just the session itself, that's also worth a conversation with a licensed travel advisor.
If you want company while you work through any of this, the Guild's Community membership comes with weekly office hours and the Library of resources behind it.
Every guide in this section
- Hosting experiences, from Airbnb Experiences to your own. The fuller version of the page-versus-marketplace question above.
- Turning a workshop into a business. What changes once a workshop stops being a one-off and starts being income you plan around.
- How to run a workshop people remember. What actually makes a few hours feel worth the price, beyond the content itself.
- How to teach a class, in person or online. Teaching inside an experience or a retreat, not teaching in general.
Members' experiences
Some of what members are already hosting, experiences and workshops as well as full retreats, is on members' trips. It's worth a look before you assume your idea is too small or too niche to be its own thing.
The Residency puts five days around your experience or workshop, in person, January 14 to 18, 2027, at Lakemore in Traverse City. It's built for retreat hosts and experience hosts both. You leave with your founder's video filmed, your price and budget set, and a plan to fill your seats, the same work you'd do for a retreat, sized to what you're actually running. See what you leave with.
Questions hosts ask
What is an experience host?
An experience host runs a paid session built around a single sitting rather than an overnight stay: a class, a tasting, a hike, a workshop. It's the same underlying job as hosting a retreat, a fixed number of seats, a date, and a price, just a shorter and usually less expensive version of it.
Can a workshop become a business?
Yes, once it repeats on a schedule and the price covers your time and not just the room and materials. Many hosts run a workshop once or twice first, see whether people come back or refer someone else, and only then settle on a regular price and calendar. Some stay a sole proprietor; some move to an LLC or a separate business account once the income is steady. This isn't legal, tax or insurance advice, so talk to a licensed professional about what's right for your situation. Turning a workshop into a business goes further into it, and the wider retreat business hub covers budgets, pricing and the business side that applies here too.
How much should you charge for a workshop?
Add up everything it actually costs you to run, including materials, the space, and your own prep and teaching time, before you decide what's left over is worth charging for. The full approach to setting that number, including what changes between a one-off and a repeat workshop, is on retreat pricing.