Everybody asks this question and almost nobody answers it directly, because the honest answer depends on who is receiving the gift and why. Here is the direct version anyway, with the reasoning, so you can adjust it.
The short answer
- Broad employee sends: $55 to $85 a person
- New hires and milestone recognition: $75 to $135
- Named clients whose renewal matters: $115 to $215
- Executive and board relationships: $250 to $400
- Event and conference follow-up: $55 to $85
Why the bands look like this
The number is not really about generosity. It is about what the gift signals, and signals break in both directions.
Below roughly $50 a corporate gift reads as procedural. Not offensive, just forgettable, and forgettable is the only truly wasted outcome — you have spent the money and bought nothing.
Above roughly $200, without a specific named reason, it starts to read as either an apology or an obligation. Recipients begin wondering what is being asked of them. That is the opposite of the intended effect.
The band in between is wide because the variable is not budget, it is specificity. A $70 gift sent the week something happened, with a note naming what happened, outperforms a $200 gift in December addressed to nobody in particular. Every time.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Companies concentrate the entire annual gifting budget into one December send. It is the most crowded week of the year, the most expensive week to ship, and the week your gift is competing with fifteen others for the same shelf.
Four $70 gifts spread across the year do more for retention than one $280 gift in Q4. Same money, four times the touchpoints, and each one lands in a week where nothing else is competing for the moment.
Check the recipient can accept it
This catches people out constantly. Many enterprises, and nearly all public sector, healthcare and financial services organisations, cap the value of a gift an employee may accept — commonly between $50 and $100, sometimes lower.
Sending a $300 box to someone who then has to declare it, return it, or explain it to compliance creates work and quiet embarrassment for the person you were trying to thank. When in doubt, ask your contact directly or stay under $75. It is a completely normal question and asking it makes you look considerate rather than cheap.
What the budget should not include
Do not count shipping, branding or the card as part of the gift value in your own head. The recipient does not see those costs and they do not register as generosity. Budget them separately or you will end up with a $55 box in a $75 line item and wonder why it underwhelmed.
Where the money is best spent
Given a fixed budget, spend it in this order: fewer and better items, then the note, then packaging, then quantity. Padding a box to make it look generous is the most common way to waste a gifting budget, and recipients can tell immediately.
Practical version: at $75 you can buy three genuinely good things or seven mediocre ones. Buy three.
More on this on corporate gifts under $100 and corporate gift boxes, or send a brief with your headcount and we will tell you what your budget actually buys.