Retreat Guru

What Retreat Guru does

Retreat Guru operates a two-sided global online marketplace connecting individuals seeking transformative experiences — including yoga, meditation, plant medicine, and wellness retreats — with the retreat centers, teachers, and centers offering those experiences. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Nelson, Canada, the company curates 4,000+ retreat centers, 10,000+ teachers, and 10,000+ listings accessible to a self-reported community of 500,000+ retreat-goers, drawing approximately 1M+ unique annual visitors and 1.4M+ page views. The platform is web-based and accessible globally across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Africa.

The company runs two product lines. The core Retreat Guru Marketplace is a web-based discovery and booking platform that surfaces retreats by topic, location, price tier, and rating, and it extends into online experiences beyond in-person retreats. The complementary Retreat Guru RMS is a Retreat Management System — separate software used by retreat centers for booking, registration, and operational management — which is sold to hosts and creates adjacency between marketplace demand and SaaS supply-side tooling. No proprietary AI/ML capabilities, APIs, SDKs, third-party integrations, or patent portfolio are disclosed; the stack reads as a standard curated marketplace plus a vertical SaaS module.

Retreat Guru's revenue comes almost entirely from a marketplace commission: retreat hosts list for free with zero upfront advertising costs, and the company charges a 14% commission on the total price of verified bookings sourced through the platform, collected as a deposit at the time of booking. Revenue is therefore tied directly to platform-sourced GMV. The company monetizes demand-side attention through top-of-funnel content marketing (a blog covering yoga, meditation, plant medicine, trauma, and burnout topics), organic search, organic social, and editorial coverage in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times; it also offers host-side professional services to optimize listings. The company is privately held, founder-led by Cameron Wenaus (CEO & co-founder) and Deryk Wenaus (CTO & co-founder), with CPO Sari Harrison and CFO Harumi Kambara; it has raised approximately $1.42M in disclosed funding since 2014, with the last round in March 2018.

Name

Retreat Guru

Legal name

Retreat Guru

Website

https://retreat.guru

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Retreat Guru operates a two-sided global marketplace connecting retreat-seekers with 4,000+ wellness centers and teachers offering yoga, meditation, plant medicine, and transformative retreats, monetizing via a 14% booking commission and offering RMS SaaS for hosts.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Travel Marketplace

NAICS

Tour Operators (561520), Other Travel Arrangement and Reservation Services (56159)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900), Services-Management Services (8741)

akta.pro primary industry

Wellness, Spa & Retreat Travel Agencies (THAKAFAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Wellness Retreats & Immersions (Multi-day, Digital Detox, Mind-Body Programs) (THAJAHAB), Yoga & Meditation Experiences (Studio Classes, Guided Meditation, Mindfulness) (THAJAHAA)

Keywords

• Retreat marketplace
• Wellness retreats
• Retreat booking platform
• Retreat management software
• Transformative experiences

Headquarters

HQ city

Nelson

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Marketplace Commission: Retreat Guru charges a 14% commission on the total price of retreats when guests find and book through their marketplace. The commission is collected as a deposit from participants at booking time. Hosts receive the remainder of the retreat balance through their normal registration process.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Retreat Guru operates a global online marketplace that connects retreat seekers with retreat centers, teachers, and hosts offering yoga, meditation, plant medicine, and wellness retreats. The platform lets hosts list retreats for free and earns revenue by charging a 14% commission on bookings made through the marketplace. It also offers Retreat Guru RMS, an integrated retreat management software solution for retreat centers to streamline bookings, registrations, and operations.

Product overview

Retreat Guru operates as a two-part platform: the core Retreat Guru Marketplace for retreat-seekers to discover and book transformative experiences (yoga, meditation, plant medicine, wellness retreats), and the complementary Retreat Guru RMS (Retreat Management System) for retreat hosts to manage their business operations. The marketplace features 4000+ retreats worldwide, while the RMS is an all-in-one software solution for retreat center management.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Retreat Guru RMS: Retreat Management System - a fully integrated and unified software solution built exclusively for retreat centers to streamline operations

Products and services

• Retreat Guru Marketplace A curated global online marketplace where retreat seekers discover, browse, and book transformative experiences including yoga, meditation, plant medicine, healing, and wellness retreats listed by retreat centers and teachers worldwide. Hosts list unlimited retreats for free, and the platform retains a 14% commission on bookings made through the marketplace.
• Retreat Guru RMS (Retreat Management System)

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Airbnb Experiences: Broad incumbent travel marketplace extending into hosted experiences and retreats — comparable discovery and booking UX, with vastly larger capital base and brand.
• Mindbody: Large SaaS platform for wellness and fitness businesses (studios, spas, retreats) — comparable customer base of retreat/wellness operators and competes for the RMS software layer.
• GetYourGuide: Global tours and experiences marketplace with a growing wellness/retreat category — comparable two-sided marketplace mechanics and consumer-facing booking flow.
• Viator: Major experiences marketplace owned by Tripadvisor — competes for the same discovery-and-book intent across wellness, tours, and immersive travel.

Emerging players

• ClassPass: Subscription platform giving users access to wellness and fitness classes and studios — overlapping wellness-consumer persona and emerging retreat-style programming.
• Vagaro: Booking and management software for salons, spas, and wellness businesses — adjacent software layer comparable to Retreat Guru RMS for retreat centers.

Direct peers

• BookYogaRetreats: Niche retreat marketplace focused on yoga, meditation, and wellness experiences — comparable inventory, comparable traveler audience, and similar booking/listing economics.
• Tripaneer: Specialized marketplace for wellness retreats, yoga retreats, and teacher training — directly comparable niche retreat-booking marketplace with similar supplier base.
• WellnessRetreats.com: Specialist wellness retreat booking platform operating a curated marketplace for health and wellness retreats globally — competing head-on for the same retreat-seeker demand pool.
• BookRetreats: Another global online retreat marketplace where retreat centers list and travelers book wellness retreats — directly comparable two-sided marketplace model with similar commission-based monetization.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/retreatguru
• Facebookfacebook.com/retreatguru
• Instagraminstagram.com/retreatguru

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Retreat Guru