Rewards budget calculator
Plan a year of recognition and celebration rewards for your team, per person and in total, and turn it into coins per kudos.
How much should you budget for rewards?
Celebrations
What each person gets once a year.
Rewards budget a year
$9,750
$195 a person a year · $813 a month for the team
Running rewards for a whole team? OrgaNice gives people coins for kudos and surveys in Slack, and they trade them for the rewards you pick.
Anniversaries count everyone, so new hires make this an upper bound. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
How to use the rewards budget calculator
Enter how many people are on the team and the recognition allowance per person a month.
Add what each person gets for a birthday, a work anniversary and any other yearly gifts.
Optionally add the average salary, the kudos a person gets a month and what a coin is worth.
Read the yearly budget, the share of payroll and the coins per kudos, and copy the result or a link to it.
Rewards budgets at a glance
A rewards budget is what you set aside each year to recognize and celebrate your team. This calculator adds up a monthly recognition allowance, birthday and work anniversary gifts, and any other yearly rewards, per person and for the whole team.
How to calculate a rewards budget
Yearly budget = people × (monthly allowance × 12 + birthday gift + work anniversary gift + other yearly gifts).
For 50 people with $10 a month for recognition, a $25 birthday gift and a $50 anniversary gift, that's 50 × ($120 + $25 + $50) = $9,750 a year, or $195 a person.
Yearly rewards budget by team size and monthly recognition allowance, with a $25 birthday gift and a $50 work anniversary gift per person.
How much to spend on recognition per employee
There's no standard amount, but a rule of thumb you'll often see is about 1% of payroll. For someone on $60,000 that's $600 a year, far more than the $195 above. Small, frequent recognition matters more than the size of each reward, so many teams start lower and raise the allowance once people use it. Open Payroll and coins in the calculator to see your budget as a share of salary.
Turning the budget into coins
In a points or coins program, the monthly allowance is what people earn through recognition. Divide it by how many kudos a person usually gets in a month and by what one coin is worth: with $10 a month, 4 kudos and $1 a coin, each kudos is worth 2.5 coins. Then price each reward at its cost in coins, a $25 gift card at 25 coins. In OrgaNice you set this up under Settings › Rewards.
Ideas for what to spend it on
Gift cards are the easy default, but extra time off, team lunches, learning budgets and charity donations work too. For more, see staff appreciation gifts and employee recognition ideas. To see what losing people costs by comparison, try the employee turnover calculator.
Turn the budget into a rewards program
Learn moreA budget is only a number until people can earn and spend it. Most rewards programs stall on the admin in between.
OrgaNice gives people coins in Slack when they receive kudos, complete their profile or answer a survey, at the rates you set.
They spend the coins on rewards you add, and you approve requests in one place, so the budget turns into recognition people actually see.
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Learn moreFrequently asked questions
Anything else? Email us at hello@organice.app
A common starting point is $5 to $20 per person a month for everyday recognition, plus a gift for birthdays and work anniversaries. With a $25 birthday gift and a $50 anniversary gift, that's $135 to $315 per person a year. A rule of thumb you'll often see is about 1% of payroll: $600 a year for someone on $60,000.
Three parts: a monthly allowance people earn through peer recognition, the yearly celebrations (birthdays and work anniversaries), and anything else you give every year, such as holiday gifts. Set aside the cost of running the program too, like the tool you use and shipping for physical gifts.
For peer recognition, yes: an equal monthly allowance per person keeps it fair and simple. Work anniversary gifts often grow with tenure, such as more at 5 and 10 years, so the calculator's anniversary amount is best read as an average.
People earn coins for things like receiving kudos, then spend them on rewards priced in coins. Pick what one coin is worth, and you can price every reward from its real cost. In OrgaNice you set the coins for each action and add the rewards in Settings.
Divide the monthly allowance by the kudos a person typically gets in a month and by the value of a coin. With $10 a month, 4 kudos a month and $1 a coin, each kudos is worth 2.5 coins. Check it after a month or two and adjust if people earn much faster or slower.