So what does an all-hands employee retreat really cost?
You can do it more or less cheaply, for sure. But I found this post from Jason Fried at 37 Signals insanely useful.
Across geographies from Miami to Amsterdam and more, here were their fully-burdened costs:
So, we do these full-company meetups twice a year in different cities around the world.
We fly everyone in, we hang out for a week.
People are often curious how much these cost, what we budget, how different cities compare.
Here's a look at real numbers from the last 6 meetups… pic.twitter.com/P0BKLPBOvT
— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) November 1, 2024
As you can see, Hotels and Flights are the biggest expense, about 85%. Not a surprise.
For SaaStr Annual, our fully-burdened cost to produce the event is about $1,000 per attendee. Europa is around $800.
That excludes hotels and flights though, but it’s not that far from what it costs 37 Signals to bring their teams together for smaller events when you back out those costs.
Not cheap. In fact, often not really cheaper than having an office.
But IMHO, worth it.
And do your 2025 Team Retreat in SF Bay around 2025 SaaStr Annual on May 13-15! We have a big discount pass if you are bringing 10+ team members, so let us help inspire and train the team, too!
