The hello/goodbye calculator
What UK employers actually spend on welcomes and goodbyes
NO HIDDEN PRICES
Clear, transparent pricing with no surprise costs.
LOW MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITY
Order only what you need, with no need for large volumes.
NO ARTWORK ORIGINATION FEE
We do not charge extra to set up your artwork.
NO HIDDEN PRICES
Clear, transparent pricing with no surprise costs.
LOW MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITY
Order only what you need, with no need for large volumes.
Day one looks very different depending on where you work and what you do.
A new starter at a London finance firm might walk in to a desk setup worth upwards of £2,500. The same role in the North of England, closer to £1,800. The leaving gift on the other side of that career? Usually a whip-round that tops out around £140 for the whole team.
Use the tool below to see how your sector and region compare.
What companies spend when they say hello
Estimate the welcome kit and onboarding gifts a new employer might put together for you.
3yrs
Estimated welcome kit value
£0
What you might receive
Estimated total value
£0
Estimates based on typical UK employer spending. Actual gifts vary by company and budget.
Five things we've learned about onboarding gifts
The first 90 minutes matter more than the first 90 days
One in three new hires leaves a job inside their first 90 days. Research from BambooHR and Enboarder suggests 70% decide whether a role is the right fit within a month. The welcome kit is the first piece of evidence that a new starter gets about how the company treats people.
A £30 branded item beats a £100 voucher
Branded items consistently outperform generic vouchers worth three or four times as much. Price gets forgotten, what sticks is the evidence that someone made a decision.
Onboarding budgets have overtaken event freebies
The fastest-growing category in our order book is now onboarding packs. Companies have worked out that a new hire uses their welcome bag every day for a year, while a conference delegate bins their lanyard before they've left the car park.
Sustainability is reshaping what goes in the box
Reusable water bottles, recycled stationery and longer-life merchandise are replacing single-use freebies across almost every sector. Scope 3 reporting is part of the reason. The other part is that employees notice, and talk about it on Glassdoor.
Remote and hybrid starters need more, not less
A well-packed welcome box that arrives at someone's home before they start does more for day-one engagement than anything the company could put on a desk. It also tends to make it onto LinkedIn, which does the employer brand no harm at all.
Onboarding spend has climbed quickly over the past five years and most employees have no idea what sits in the procurement budget for their first day.
Thinking about your own welcome pack?
Most of the packs we build for clients sit between £15 and £45 a head, depending on what's inside. Gift sets with a branded notebook, pen, water bottle, tote and a few stationery pieces start at around £12. Tech-led packs with a branded backpack, power bank and bottle come in closer to £30 to £45.
We hold a low minimum order quantity, waive artwork origination fees, and design packs in-house if there's no one on your side to do it.
You can browse the full branded onboarding gifts collection below, or send a brief to the team and we'll put a costed proposal together within two working days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Anything that lands on a new starter's desk (or arrives at their home) to mark their first day. Most welcome packs include a branded notebook, a pen, a reusable water bottle or mug, a tote or backpack, and a small personal touch such as a handwritten card or a named item. Tech-led packs add headphones, a power bank or a charging cable.
UK benchmarks sit between £25 and £55 per head for the gift element (excluding hardware like laptops and phones). Premium sectors and senior roles push higher. The welcome gift calculator on this page gives you a rough steer by sector and region.
Yes. Around a third of the packs we ship go directly to new starters' home addresses. We can handle variable address lists, bulk ordering with staggered dispatch, and branded outer packaging.
Most orders ship within 10 to 15 working days of artwork sign-off. Rush turnarounds are possible for urgent starters and we'll flag timescales upfront.
Our partners
