There is no single answer to "what should we spend per employee" because the question hides three separate decisions: who is receiving, how many there are, and how much of the kit is custom. Get those three right and the budget follows. Get them wrong and you will be comparing quotes that are not comparable.
The price bands, by tier
These are per-kit ranges, in rupees, before freight and GST. Per-unit cost falls as quantity rises — the low end of each band assumes volume, the high end assumes a smaller, richer kit.
| Tier | Per kit | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Economical | ₹450 – 1,500 | Company-wide gifting at large headcounts, event giveaways, conference bags |
| Wooden / eco | ₹350 – 2,000 | Sustainability-led programmes, ESG reporting, brands with a material story |
| Festive hampers | ₹500 – 5,000 | Diwali, New Year and year-end gifting for employees and clients |
| Cork | ₹1,000 – 8,000 | Renewable desk and travel kits; lighter, so cheaper to ship at volume |
| Tech | ₹1,500 – 9,500 | Hybrid and remote teams, engineering and product onboarding |
| Luxury | ₹1,700 – 10,500 | Clients, VIPs, board members, long-service and milestone recognition |
The five things that actually move the price
1. Quantity
This is the biggest lever, and it works in steps rather than smoothly. Below 100 kits you are buying ready-stock items with your logo applied. At 100 and above, bespoke construction becomes viable — custom box, custom insert, custom contents. The jump in what you get for the money at that threshold is larger than the jump in price.
2. Depth of customisation
A logo printed on a notebook costs very little. A custom-moulded insert, a box in your brand colour, and a printed card with each recipient’s name is a different exercise entirely. Decide early how far you want to go, because retrofitting personalisation onto a quoted kit is where budgets break.
3. Packaging
Packaging is routinely underestimated. It is also the first thing the recipient sees and the main reason a ₹900 kit can feel like a ₹2,000 one. Rigid boxes, magnetic closures, printed sleeves and tissue all cost real money. If budget is tight, spend it here before spending it on more items.
4. Contents mix
Four well-chosen items in a coordinated palette read as a considered gift. Seven mismatched items read as a clearance bundle. More items is not more value, and it costs more to source, kit and ship.
5. Freight
Transportation is charged on actuals and is not included in per-unit pricing. It varies with weight, volume, distance and how many addresses you are splitting across. A single-address delivery to one office is cheap; 400 individual home addresses across 200 pincodes is not.
If a quote bundles freight into the per-unit price, ask what happens if the address list changes. Bundled freight is usually an estimate carrying a margin, and it hides the cost of the thing most likely to change late in a gifting project: where the kits actually go.
Three worked examples
Assume 200 recipients. These illustrate how the same headcount produces very different programmes.
| Budget | Programme | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| ₹1.2L | ₹600 per kit, economical | Coordinated four-item set, logo printed, standard box, single-office delivery |
| ₹3L | ₹1,500 per kit, festive | Festive hamper, custom printed box, branded card, split across 3 city offices |
| ₹6L | ₹3,000 per kit, mixed | 180 employee kits at ₹2,000 and 20 client kits at ₹12,000, fully custom packaging |
The third example is the one most companies should copy. Gifting is rarely one audience. Splitting the budget by relationship — a solid kit for everyone, a genuinely special one for the twenty people who matter commercially — almost always beats spending the same total evenly.
Costs people forget
- GST — quoted separately, applies on the whole order.
- Freight on actuals — rises sharply with multi-address dispatch.
- Sampling — if you want to hold a physical sample before committing, allow time and cost for it.
- Rush production — compressing a timeline near Diwali costs more, when it is possible at all.
- Address collection — not a vendor cost, but the internal work of gathering 400 correct addresses is the most commonly underestimated part of any gifting project.
How to set a budget that holds
- Start from total spend, not per-head. Divide by headcount afterwards — it stops the number drifting upward item by item.
- Split the list by relationship before you split the money: all-staff, high performers, clients, leadership.
- Decide the packaging standard first. It sets the perceived value of everything inside.
- Confirm your final quantity before asking for pricing. A quote for "around 200" is not a quote.
- Ask for freight as a separate line, quoted against your actual address split.
- Leave 10% headroom. Headcounts change between briefing and dispatch, and always upward.