Guide for hosts
Retreat contracts, deposits and payment plans
A retreat contract and a deposit do the same job from two different directions. The contract spells out who owes what and when. The deposit makes that real before anyone has booked a flight. Put both in place before you open registration, not after your first guest asks what happens if they have to cancel.
What should a retreat contract cover?
A retreat contract should state the full price, the deposit amount and due date, the payment schedule, your cancellation terms, and what the guest agrees to by signing (usually a travel insurance requirement and a release of liability). Put the price and the schedule in writing even for a small group of friends. A contract isn't a sign of distrust. It's the document that tells both of you what happens when something doesn't go to plan, which on a trip with a fixed date and a fixed number of seats, eventually it will.
Two pieces hosts forget most often: who's responsible for a roommate's share if that roommate drops out, and what happens to the seat if a guest simply stops responding. Spell both out before you need the answer, not while you're mid-launch trying to remember what you meant to say. If you want the whole sequence, contract included, in one place, The Other Half is our free checklist that walks every stage of planning a retreat in order.
Why take a deposit at all?
A deposit turns "I'm interested" into "I'm in." Without one, you end up holding seats for people who were never going to show up with the rest of the money. On the podcast, I talked about watching this happen with my own guests: if you don't ask for enough upfront, "people don't have enough skin in the game. They'll just disappear. You'll never see them again." A deposit isn't about the money itself so much as what paying it tells you about who's actually coming.
That cuts both ways, too. Ask for too much too fast and you'll scare off a guest who would have paid you in full by the time the trip rolled around. As I put it on Episode 3 of the podcast, "there's a sweet spot... where they're invested and they're going to give you the rest of it." Finding that number is part art and part arithmetic, and it starts with knowing what you owe your own vendors before a single guest pays you anything.
How much should the deposit be?
Your deposit should cover roughly what you have to pay out to vendors and your venue before the trip happens, plus enough that a guest feels committed to showing up. The right number depends on your price point, your venue's own deposit terms to you, and how far out you're launching. There's no single figure that works for every retreat, which is exactly why I don't hand out one here. Sizing the deposit is covered on the Library's Money, Pricing & Profit shelf, along with the budget tools how to plan and run a retreat points you toward before you ever get to this step.
Should the deposit be refundable or non-refundable?
I run non-refundable deposits, and plenty of hosts do. It protects the money you've already committed to vendors on the guest's behalf. The piece that makes it fair to the guest, and what you pair a non-refundable policy with, is covered in your retreat cancellation policy. Decide your refund terms before you write a single contract, because it's one of the first things a serious guest will ask about.
How do payment plans work?
A payment plan breaks the remaining balance into a few scheduled payments, all due before the retreat starts, never after. That last part matters more than it sounds like it should. As I said on the podcast, "you have no guarantee that you're going to get their money if you allow them to pay you after the retreat. That's just bad business in my opinion." On my own intake form, guests check a box acknowledging the cancellation policy, and right below it they see exactly when each remaining payment is due: "they're all due before the retreat happens."
How many installments you offer is up to you and your own cash flow. Some hosts do two payments, some do three or four spread over months. What doesn't change, whatever the number, is the deadline: every dollar is collected before departure, so you're never hoping a guest pays you back for a trip they already took.
How do you keep guests paying on time without chasing them?
You keep a payment plan on track by staying in touch after the sale, not by sending a bare invoice every two months. On Episode 3, I talked about building a short onboarding sequence that starts the moment someone signs the contract: a welcome email that lays out every payment date up front, a group Zoom call before the trip so guests start recognizing each other, and small touches in between, a packing list, a note about the venue, sometimes something as simple as a piece of mail. None of that is about decoration. It's about a guest who feels engaged with a trip that's a year out being a guest who keeps paying on time, instead of one who goes quiet on you until the final invoice bounces.
A retreat sold a year ahead is a long runway for a guest to lose the thread, which is exactly why hosts who ignore this piece see the most missed or late payments. You don't need an elaborate system, just a plan you actually follow, mapped to the same payment dates that are already sitting in your contract.
What happens if a guest misses a payment?
Your contract already answers this, which is exactly why you wrote it before you needed it. A typical approach gives a short grace period, a reminder, and then release of the seat if payment still hasn't come through, so you can resell it instead of eating the cost of a no-show on a trip with a fixed headcount. Build your actual cancellation and resale terms into your cancellation policy so your contract and your policy say the same thing.
Do you need a lawyer to write your contract?
You don't need a lawyer for every retreat, but it's worth having one look at your contract template once, before you use it on your first guest. I had a mentor early on who told me, "If you're going to spend money in the beginning, I would recommend hiring a lawyer and an accountant," and that's held up. None of this is legal or tax advice. A local attorney and accountant can tell you what your contract, your refund terms and your business structure actually need to hold up where you live and where you host. Your first contract doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need someone with the right license to look at it once, and it's worth revisiting that review every time your business changes shape, a new country, a bigger group, a co-host joining you.
Once your contract and deposit structure are set, the next piece is making sure guests know exactly what they're agreeing to if the trip or a guest has to pull out, which is where your cancellation policy and retreat insurance and liability waivers pick up. If you're pricing the whole trip for the first time, pricing a retreat covers the budget work that has to happen before any of these numbers mean anything.
Questions hosts ask
Is a retreat deposit refundable?
I use a non-refundable deposit, and plenty of hosts do. The way to make that fair to your guest, pairing it with a travel insurance requirement, is covered in your retreat cancellation policy.
How many payments should a retreat payment plan have?
However many fit your own cash flow and your guests' budgets, commonly two to four. The one rule that doesn't bend is the deadline: every payment is due before the retreat starts, never after.
Do you need a written contract for a small retreat?
Yes, even for eight guests who are mostly friends of friends. A written contract is what tells everyone, including you, what happens if a payment is missed or a trip has to change, instead of leaving it to memory after the fact. Group size doesn't change what's at stake. A small retreat still has a venue deposit on the line and a set of vendors expecting to be paid.