ROI estimator
What is remembering people worth to you?
People stay where they feel seen. Customers come back where they feel remembered. Put in your numbers and see what consistent celebrations are worth, using conservative assumptions you can check.
Example: 250 staff
$28,998
estimated yearly value
Peoplewisher Starter
$95.88
per year, billed yearly
Pays for itself after
1 day
with 3% of leavers kept
The research
Small moments, measurable results.
Recognition isn’t a perk. It’s one of the cheapest retention levers you have, and the evidence is consistent across employees and customers.
45%
Well-recognised employees were 45% less likely to have left their organisation two years later.
52%
of employees who quit say their manager or organisation could have done something to keep them.
0.5–2×
a person’s annual salary is what it can cost to replace them, before lost morale and know-how.
65%
Employees getting high-quality recognition were 65% less likely to be looking for another job.
481%
more transactions per email from birthday emails than from standard promotional emails.
5–25×
more expensive to win a new customer than to keep an existing one, depending on the industry.
Where the value comes from
Four ways celebrations pay for themselves.
Fewer people walk out the door
Every person who stays saves a recruiting, hiring and ramp-up cycle. Gallup puts that at half to twice a salary. Being remembered on their day, every year, is one of the simplest ways to show someone they matter.
HR gets its hours back
No more spreadsheets of birthdays, cards passed around the office or last-minute messages. Peoplewisher remembers every date, writes the message, makes the graphic and sends it on time.
Customers come back to buy
Birthday emails drive far more transactions than standard promotions (Experian). A warm message with a small offer gives customers a reason to return on the one day they’re most open to it.
Loyalty compounds
Keeping customers is cheaper than winning new ones, and loyal customers spend more over time (Bain, HBR). Celebrations keep you in their life between purchases, without another sales email.
Methodology
How we calculate it.
No black box. These are the exact formulas the estimator uses, so you can check them, change them, or rebuild them in a spreadsheet for your finance team.
- Every result is reduced by 10% to stay conservative.
- Customer value counts profit (after margin), not revenue.
- Peoplewisher cost uses yearly billing at today’s prices.
- The three-year view repeats year one; it doesn’t assume growth.
Employees & teams
- Turnover you avoid
- people × turnover % × leavers who stay % × salary × replacement cost % × 0.9
- Admin time you get back
- HR hours a month × 12 × hourly cost × 0.9
Customers & members
- Profit from birthday purchases
- customers × reachable % × buy % × order value × margin % × 0.9
- Profit from customers you keep
- customers × churn % × kept % × yearly spend × margin % × 0.9
Return and payback
- Return
- yearly value ÷ yearly Peoplewisher cost
- Pays back in
- yearly cost ÷ (yearly value ÷ 365) days
Sources: Gallup & Workhuman (2024), Gallup (2019), Experian via Litmus, Bain & Company, Harvard Business Review (2014). Research figures describe associations observed in those studies; your results will depend on your people, offer and follow-through. This estimator is provided for planning purposes only and is not financial advice.
Make the case
Taking this to your team?
Everything you need for the meeting where someone asks, “but what’s the ROI?”
Copy your summary
A plain-English paragraph with your numbers and sources, ready for an email or slide.
Back to the estimatorSee why teams switch
What Peoplewisher does differently from spreadsheets, calendars and email tools.
Why PeoplewisherWalk through it with us
Bring your numbers. We’ll help you build a celebration plan your team can run in an afternoon.
Book a demo Is this a guarantee?
No. It’s an estimate built from your numbers and published research. We take 10% off every result to stay conservative, and every assumption is visible and editable so you can match your own data.
Why does the return look so high?
Because losing a person is expensive and Peoplewisher isn’t. Replacing one employee can cost half to twice their salary (Gallup), while Peoplewisher Starter costs about $96 a year for up to 500 people. Keeping just one person usually pays for many years.
Isn’t a birthday message too small to change whether someone stays?
On its own, maybe. But recognition works through consistency: being remembered, on time, every year, by name. That’s exactly what slips when it depends on someone’s calendar. That’s why our default assumes only 3% of would-be leavers stay, far below the 45% Gallup and Workhuman measured for well-recognised employees.
Which numbers should I use for my team?
Your HR system or payroll will give you headcount, average salary and voluntary turnover. For replacement cost, Gallup suggests about 40% of salary for frontline roles, 80% for technical roles and 200% for leaders and managers.
What does Peoplewisher cost in this estimate?
We use yearly billing: Free up to 50 people (email only), Starter at $7.99 a month for up to 500 people, and Scale priced per person above that. If you add SMS, we add $0.011 per text. See pricing.
Can I share the result with my team?
Yes. Use Copy summary to paste a plain-English summary into an email or deck, or Copy link to share the estimator with your numbers already filled in.
Get started today
Let Peoplewisher take care of your celebrations.
Tell it who matters once. It remembers, writes, designs and sends, every time, on time.
- Free to start
- No credit card
- Ready in 3 minutes