Most US employers spend somewhere between $50 and $300 per employee per year on wellness. The survey average sits at $275, and the most common band in a large 2025 survey was $101 to $200. The right number for your company depends less on the average than on what you count, which problems you are trying to solve and whether you can show finance the math.
This guide gives you the benchmarks, explains what they include, and walks through a way to set a budget you can defend.
TL;DR
- The average employer well-being budget was $275 per employee in 2024, including program costs and incentives.
- In a 2025 IFEBP survey, 32% of US organizations spent $101 to $200 per worker and 26% spent $51 to $100.
- Benchmarks mix program fees, incentives and sometimes vendor costs, so compare like with like before you copy a number.
- Finance accepts a budget that starts from your own claims baseline and shows baseline × expected impact = projected savings.
- Evidence on returns is mixed, so tie spending to measurable chronic-condition and claims outcomes, not participation alone.
Table of Contents
- The benchmarks at a glance
- Why the same benchmark means different things
- How employer size changes the number
- What belongs in a wellness budget
- A simple way to set your per-employee number
- Defending the budget to finance
- What the evidence says about returns
- Common budgeting mistakes
- Our perspective
- See what a no-upfront-fee program could look like
- FAQ
- Sources
The benchmarks at a glance
Published figures come from different surveys with different definitions. Here is what the most useful US sources report.
| Benchmark | Figure | Source year |
|---|---|---|
| Average employer well-being budget per employee | $275 per year, steady year over year | 2024 |
| Organizations spending $101 to $200 per worker | 32% | 2025 |
| Organizations spending $51 to $100 per worker | 26% | 2025 |
| Mid-market employers (under 5,000 employees), per-employee spend | $294, up 60% | 2022 |
| Large employers (20,000+ employees), average total well-being allocation | $11 million | 2022 |
| Employers citing no dedicated wellness budget as a barrier | 21% | 2025 |
The $275 figure comes from a 2024 Business Group on Health and Fidelity survey of 160 employers, and it covers program costs plus associated incentives. The distribution comes from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP) 2025 workplace wellness survey, which found 32% of organizations at $101 to $200 per worker per year and 26% at $51 to $100. The same report notes that 21% of respondents named a lack of dedicated wellness budget as a barrier.
The two sources look different but fit together. An average pulled up by large employers with rich incentive programs lands above the middle of the distribution. A typical mid-sized employer without a heavy incentive layer often spends less.
Why the same benchmark means different things
Before you put any number in a slide, check four things about it.
What is counted. The $275 average includes incentives. If your plan has none, the comparable figure is lower. If your benchmark excludes incentives and you add them, you will look like you are overspending.
Who is counted. Some surveys count every eligible employee. Others count participants only. A $300 per participant figure is a very different budget from $300 per eligible employee when participation is 30%.
Who answered. Surveys by large employer coalitions skew toward bigger, benefit-rich organizations. A company with 200 employees and a lean HR team should not assume it needs to match them.
What year. The 2022 mid-market jump to $294 per employee, reported in the Fidelity and Business Group on Health 2022 survey, reflects post-pandemic catch-up. Use it as context, not as a target.
How employer size changes the number
Size changes the budget in two ways: the per-employee amount and the structure.
Large employers allocate in the millions. The 2022 survey put the average for employers with 20,000 or more employees at $11 million. At that scale, per-employee cost is spread across many programs, and a dedicated well-being team often manages vendors.
Mid-market employers, those under 5,000 employees, reported per-employee spending of $294 in the same survey. They tend to buy fewer, broader programs and rely on their broker or benefits advisor for design.
Smaller employers frequently have no separate wellness line at all. The wellness spend sits inside the benefits budget or the HR operating budget, which makes it easy to cut and hard to measure. If that is you, creating a visible line item is the first step, and it is the step that turns wellness from a perk into something you can report on.
For a deeper look at how pricing models vary, see our guide to wellness program pricing benchmarks and budgets.
What belongs in a wellness budget
A budget that only lists vendor fees understates the real cost and overstates the return. Build it from these blocks.
- Program and vendor fees. Per-employee-per-month fees, platform fees and any condition-specific programs, such as diabetes, hypertension or musculoskeletal care.
- Incentives. Gift cards, premium contributions, HSA deposits and similar rewards. Incentives are often the largest single line, so track them separately.
- Communications and engagement. Campaigns, onboarding, events, and the staff time to run them.
- Administration and integration. Eligibility files, data feeds, reporting, and the internal hours spent managing vendors.
- Measurement. Claims analysis, surveys and a baseline study. Budget for it up front, because it is the item most often cut and the one finance cares about most.
- Contingency or phasing. A reserve for a second-year expansion if the first-year pilot works.
Two cost pressures sit outside the wellness line but shape it. The Business Group on Health 2025 employer health care strategy survey names pharmacy costs and GLP-1 medications as major drivers of rising spending, with 96% of employers concerned about their long-term cost. A wellness budget that ignores these will not touch the claims that are growing fastest.
A simple way to set your per-employee number
Start with outcomes, then price them. A top-down benchmark gives you a number nobody can explain. A bottom-up build gives you one you can defend.
Step 1: Establish your cost baseline
Calculate total plan spend, cost per employee and a two-to-three-year trend. Garner Health advises this baseline as the foundation for measuring the financial impact of any new benefit. Add your top condition categories from claims: cardiometabolic, musculoskeletal, behavioral health, maternity.
Step 2: Choose two or three priorities
Pick the conditions or behaviors that drive your claims and your absence. Generic programs spread the budget thin. Targeted programs concentrate it where the cost is.
Step 3: Price each priority
Get quotes by priority, with the fee structure spelled out: flat fee, per-member-per-month, or performance-based. Ask what is included in the number and what is billed on top.
Step 4: Add incentives, communications and measurement
Use your benchmark band as a sanity check here, not as the starting point.
Step 5: Compare to the benchmark bands
If your total lands inside $100 to $300 per employee, you are in the mainstream. If it lands well above, be ready to explain which claims categories justify it. If it lands well below, check that you have not left out measurement.
A worked example
This is an illustration with assumed numbers, not a Hadaco price. Take a company of 500 eligible employees.
| Line | Per employee per year | Annual total |
|---|---|---|
| Condition-focused programs | $120 | $60,000 |
| Incentives | $60 | $30,000 |
| Communications and engagement | $25 | $12,500 |
| Measurement and reporting | $20 | $10,000 |
| Contingency | $15 | $7,500 |
| Total | $240 | $120,000 |
At $240, the budget sits close to the $275 survey average and inside the IFEBP's most common bands of $101 to $200 and above. Multiplying the survey average of $275 by 500 employees gives $137,500, which is the figure a finance leader may quote back to you. Know why you are above or below it.
Defending the budget to finance
CFOs do not argue with benchmarks. They argue with assumptions. Garner Health's guidance is that finance leaders discount projections they cannot rebuild, so the case should show baseline × expected impact = projected savings, with independent sources behind the impact assumption rather than vendor claims alone.
In practice, that means:
- Show the baseline in dollars. Plan spend, cost per employee, the trend.
- Name the claims categories you are targeting. Not "improve health," but "reduce avoidable spend in cardiometabolic conditions."
- Use a conservative impact range. Low, expected and high cases, with the low case still defensible.
- Commit to a reporting cadence. Quarterly reporting gives finance a checkpoint before the year closes. Our guide on how to prove quarterly savings to finance with claims data lays out what to show.
- Link spend to risk. Mercer-scale projections and Business Group on Health surveys show health costs rising for several years running, which makes a flat benefits budget a decision to absorb more risk, not a neutral one.
If you are building the case from scratch, our overview of corporate wellness ROI for HR leaders covers the framing finance tends to accept.
What the evidence says about returns
Be realistic here, because finance will be. The research is mixed, and the programs that deliver tend to share design features.
A three-year randomized controlled trial at a large US employer found that a wellness program improved self-reported health behaviors but did not produce statistically significant changes in clinical outcomes or total medical spending over that period. The researchers, Song and Baicker, conclude that expectations should be realistic about how fast and how broadly financial results appear.
Other studies of programs with a clearer clinical target report positive returns. A 2015 evaluation of the Well at Dell program found an overall ROI of 2.48 in 2011, with most savings from the health risk assessment and wellness component. A 2021 study of the Real Appeal digital weight-management program reported a 2.3:1 return over three years, with participants showing 12% lower medical expenditures than matched controls.
The pattern is useful for budgeting. Programs aimed at a specific, costly condition, with measured outcomes, have the stronger case. Broad programs measured by participation alone have the weaker one. That is why the measurement line in your budget matters as much as the program line.
Our article on how wellness programs reduce employee healthcare costs goes through the mechanisms in more detail.
Common budgeting mistakes
- Funding incentives, not interventions. Incentives raise participation, but participation is not a result. Make sure the larger share reaches programs that change health outcomes.
- Buying many point solutions. Fragmented vendors multiply fees, data feeds and employee confusion. Consolidate where one program can cover several needs.
- Skipping the baseline. Without it, any later savings claim is an opinion.
- Setting the budget once a year and forgetting it. Review it against claims at least quarterly, and adjust.
- Treating the budget as a perk. When costs rise, perks get cut. Cost-containment programs with measured results stay funded.
For the wider context on cost pressure, see our look at employer healthcare trends to plan for in 2026.
Our perspective
We see the same pattern in budget conversations with HR and finance teams. The question starts as "what do other companies spend?" and it should end as "what will this spend change in our claims?"
Benchmarks are a floor for the conversation, not a plan. A company can sit squarely at the average and still waste the money if the dollars go to activity that never touches its largest cost categories. A company below average can do well if its spend is aimed at the conditions that drive its claims.
That is why we build programs around evidence-based interventions for chronic disease, preventive care, mental health and engagement, and why we layer them on top of your existing benefit plans instead of replacing them. Nothing about your carrier or plan design has to be disrupted.
We also think the budget should carry no upfront risk for you. Our programs come with no upfront fees, and our fees are tied to demonstrated savings and engagement outcomes. A savings estimator shows you the projected impact before you commit, and quarterly reporting shows you the results afterward. Employers working with us often see an average of $451 per employee in savings in the first year, which is our own reported figure and will vary by workforce.
When finance can rebuild the math, the budget stops being a negotiation about perks and becomes a plan.
Gene
See what a no-upfront-fee program could look like
If you want to pressure-test your own numbers, Hadaco's population health programs are built for mid-sized and large employers that want measurable claims savings without disrupting current plans. You can use the savings estimator to model your workforce, then book a consultation to walk through the baseline with our team.
Benefits advisors and brokers are welcome too. We support both employers and the advisors who guide them.
FAQ
How much should a company spend on wellness per employee?
Most US employers fall between $50 and $300 per employee per year. The 2024 survey average was $275, and the most common bands in the 2025 IFEBP survey were $101 to $200 and $51 to $100. Use those ranges as a check and set your own number from your claims baseline and priorities.
Does the wellness budget include incentives?
In the Business Group on Health figure, yes: the $275 average covers program costs and associated incentives. Other surveys define it differently, so confirm what a benchmark counts before comparing it with your own spending.
Is a wellness program worth the cost?
It depends on the design. A three-year randomized trial found no significant change in total medical spending, while studies of targeted programs such as Real Appeal and Well at Dell reported positive returns. Programs aimed at costly conditions with measured outcomes make the stronger case.
How do I justify a wellness budget to my CFO?
Bring a cost baseline, a named set of claims categories, and a conservative impact range, so finance can rebuild the math themselves. Add a reporting schedule, ideally quarterly, so results can be checked before year end.
What if we have no dedicated wellness budget?
You are not alone: 21% of employers in the IFEBP survey named that as a barrier. Start by creating a separate line item, even a small pilot, so spending and outcomes can be tracked together.
Sources
- Business Group on Health and Fidelity 2024 Employer Well-being Survey
- IFEBP 2025 Workplace Wellness and Financial Education Survey Report
- Fidelity and Business Group on Health 2022 survey
- Business Group on Health 2025 employer health care strategy survey
- Garner Health: how to build a business case for a new benefits program
- Three-year randomized trial of a workplace wellness program
- Evaluation of the Well at Dell health management program
- Real Appeal return on investment study