Free live workshop · Wed Aug 12
Why your retreat isn't selling
Eight years of sold-out retreats, never a dollar spent on ads. I'm opening the spreadsheets to show you what makes a retreat profitable, including the year I got it wrong by $6,226.
10:00–11:30am PT · 90 minutes · replay included
Everyone who attends live gets my retreat budget template.
The retreat fantasy goes like this
You find a gorgeous house. You announce it. It fills.
You get paid well to do work you love, somewhere that feeds you too.
This is my eighth year hosting them. That's not what happens.
So instead of telling you how it works, I'm going to open my actual spreadsheets and show you.
The retreat I'm running three weeks from now has brought in $46,700 with one spot left. My last completed retreat brought in $51,906 and cleared $26,041 in profit. I've spent $0 on advertising in eight years of doing this.
You'll see the line items. Venue, catering, guest healers, producer, gift bags. What I estimated against what I actually paid. Where I got it wrong, and what it cost me to find out.
You might be somewhere in here
You've had the idea for a while. You've priced it roughly, maybe found a venue you love, maybe built the page.
Or you launched three months ago and you have two deposits and a feeling in your stomach you'd rather not name.
Or you already ran one. It was beautiful, people cried, someone said it changed their life — and afterward you couldn't work out whether you'd actually made any money.
Or you haven't started, because some part of you already suspects it won't fill and you'd rather not find out.
I've been all four.
What we're covering
The real economics. Venue, catering, guest facilitators, producer, supplies, t-shirts. Estimated against actual. Retreat pricing is the most secretive corner of this industry — everyone posts the photos, nobody says what the house cost.
How to read your own budget. My catering line looked like it blew past estimate by $2,000 last year. It hadn't — my chef had repackaged her pricing and the money moved between two rows. Read categories, not line items, or you'll panic about a number that isn't real.
The expenses almost nobody counts. Your own room and meals. Your travel. Processing fees. Planning hours. The income you don't earn during the weeks you're preparing and the days you're away. If you break even on the retreat but lost three weeks of client work to run it, you didn't make money — you moved it around.
How to price it so people buy up, not down. How I structure room tiers, why flexible configurations protect your ceiling, and how I build scholarship pricing into the model without giving up the margin.
Why most retreats don't sell. This is rarely the marketing and rarely the price. It's that a retreat sits near the top of an offer ladder and most people launch one as their first rung — then conclude nobody wants what they're offering.
How I fill mine without ads. I've spent $0 on advertising in eight years. I'll show you what I do instead.
You'll leave knowing whether a retreat is your next move, or whether something needs to come first.
Wednesday, August 12 · 10:00–11:30am PT
90 minutes, live. Replay goes to everyone who registers.
[Save my seat →]
Bonus: Live attendees get my budget template
The same spreadsheet structure I've used for eight years — every category, including the four that blew up my 2023, so you can build a full budget before you commit to a venue instead of discovering the gaps in month three.
Blank and ready to use. It goes out after the workshop to everyone who attends live.
This is for you if
You're a coach, healer, therapist, or teacher who's been thinking about hosting a retreat.
Or you've launched one and it isn't selling the way you thought it would.
Or you've run one, and afterward you couldn't work out whether you'd actually made any money.
Who's teaching this?
I'm Ana Lilia. I've hosted retreats for eight years and every one has sold out. The last one brought in $51,906 and cleared just over $26,000, and I've never spent a dollar on advertising to fill one.
I've built a million dollars in sales in five years, and I've run my own coaching and breathwork practice for a decade. My work has been covered by NBC, WebMD, the Los Angeles Times, and Harper's Bazaar.
Before this I spent fifteen years as a commercial actress — over a hundred commercials, and a very thorough education in rejection.
I'm a first-generation Mexican American. I built all of it without a roadmap or anyone who looked like me to copy, which is most of the reason I teach it now.
Case Study:
From 0 Sales in 6 Months to a
Sold-Out $24,000 Retreat
The Client
Viridiana Rodriguez | Therapist & First-Time Retreat Host
The Problem
Viridiana spent 6 months promoting her debut wellness retreat with zero conversions. Despite having a transformational offer, her messaging wasn't connecting on social media, leaving her feeling stuck, unclear, and unsure how to market a high-ticket event.
The Shift
During her very first strategy call, we overhauled her messaging, refined her offer positioning, and built a clear conversion strategy designed to communicate the deep value of her retreat.
The Results
Instant Momentum: Unlocked her first 2 high-ticket sales immediately following her initial strategy call.
Sold Out: Fully booked all 8 spots for her debut retreat.
$24,000 Total Revenue
4 Private Rooms at $3,500
4 Shared Rooms at $2,500
Internal Transformation: Shifted from overwhelmed to moving with total clarity, marketing confidence, and a repeatable blueprint for hosting future events.
In Her Words:
"Before working with Ana, I had been trying to market my retreat for six months with zero sales. I needed clarity and structured feedback for such a massive undertaking. Right after my first call with Ana—where we reworked my messaging and strategy—I immediately made my first two sales!
I went on to completely sell out my debut retreat for a total of $24,000.
Ana's coaching was inspiring, practical, and empowering. I walked away with the exact mindset, confidence, and strategy I needed to market and deliver a high-ticket retreat. If you need direction and real results, this is it."
— Viridiana Rodriguez, Therapist & Retreat Host
Questions
What if I can't make it live? Register anyway and you'll get the replay. The budget template only goes to people who attend live, so come if you can.
I've never hosted a retreat. Is this too advanced? It's better to see the real numbers before you commit to a venue than after. Most of what goes wrong with retreats is decided months before anyone launches.
Will you really show your actual spreadsheets? Yes. Both of them, on screen, with the mistakes in.
Save my spot