How this is calculated
Break-even is fixed costs divided by contribution margin. The contribution margin is your ticket price minus the costs that exist only because a particular guest came.
The split between fixed and variable is the whole trick. Fixed costs — the venue, the teacher, your own fee — do not move when a guest cancels. Variable costs — their food, their transfer, their card fee — disappear with them. Most retreat budgets list costs by category instead, which looks organised and cannot answer the question.
Why your own fee belongs in fixed costs
Untick the box above and watch the break-even fall by several guests. That lower number is what most retreat budgets produce, and it is the reason so many first retreats end with an exhausted organizer and no money. A retreat that covers its costs but pays you nothing has not broken even — it has cost you a week of unpaid work plus several months of planning.
Why the calculator warns you at two-thirds capacity
A retreat that only works when every place sells is not a plan, it is a bet on a launch that has not happened yet. If your break-even sits above roughly two-thirds of capacity, the calculator says so and tells you the price that would fix it — because raising the price is usually easier than finding three more guests.
The full reasoning, with a worked example and the phases either side of this decision, is in the retreat planning guide.
This is one screen of what we're building
Amoenia keeps the budget, the break-even and the run of show in one place, and updates them as bookings arrive. In development.
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