Do you know the story of the Greek king Sisyphus? He famously cheated death, and the gods punished him by forcing him to roll a rock up a hill for eternity—which, to be honest, sounds kind of like the annual process of creating an employee wellness program budget.
Every year, you have the same seemingly impossible task: Give employees all of the wellness perks they want and need with a pool of money that’s always shrinking.
The good news is that it’s possible. With the right strategy, you can squeeze all of the most essential benefits into your budget, get it approved, and set your company up for success. Rolling that rock up the hill is well worth it—especially this year.
According to the SHRM 2026 Mental Health Snapshot, employees are struggling with their mental health at work more this year than last year. Their jobs make them feel:
Employers also say that their teams value health-related benefits more than any other perks they offer right now. In SHRM’s 2026 Employee Benefits Survey, 88% rated them as “very important” or “extremely important.”
If you budget strategically, you can help employees with their mental health, deliver on the benefits that matter to them, and get a strong return on investment (ROI) for your company. The tricky part is that Aon predicts employer health care costs will rise 9.5% in 2027, meaning insurance will likely take up an even bigger chunk of your funds than usual.
So how do you choose the most impactful benefits and stick to your budget? Don’t think of it as spending less—think of it as being more thoughtful about where your wellness dollars go. We’ll walk you through it step by step.
Before you look ahead to 2027, look back at how your wellness program has performed this year. Ask yourself questions like:
Gathering this information will help you create a data-backed 2027 plan that you can present to your company’s leadership team. The more data you have showing your program is popular and impactful, the more likely your CFO will be to approve any extra funds you might need.
If you’re not sure about things like participation rates and employee satisfaction, don’t worry. That’s where step two comes in!
Surveying your team is an easy way to find out what they think about your current program, identify which benefits might be missing, and see if current wellness trends are a good fit.
Julie Schweber, SHRM-SCP, a lead specialist working in HR Knowledge Solutions, told The FruitGuys that “CEOs are investing in wellness solutions that support fitness, mental health, and financial wellbeing” right now. But which of those areas do your employees care about?
To find out, ask your team things like:
Make sure to include a list of your current wellness benefits, too, and ask your team which of those benefits they knew about. You might be surprised by their answers! While you’re at it, you can also use these employee appreciation questionnaire templates to ask your team how they’d like to be appreciated in 2027.
Now that you have data on your employee preferences, it’s time to make sure you’re clear on your company’s wellness priorities. Venita Devine, head of operations and people success at The FruitGuys, uses this strategy when she budgets each year.
“HR really is in service of both the employees and the company, so tying wellness to business goals will strengthen your case for more budget and more benefits,” she said. “It will also help you organize and prioritize how you’re putting the program together.”
Start with the umbrella areas where you really want to improve and work backward to specific wellness priorities. Here are a few examples.<br />
To increase productivity, prioritize:
To increase retention, prioritize:
To increase employee engagement, prioritize:
Note: Your wellness program can help support these goals, but you should also factor in things outside of the program, like wages, workloads, your company’s mission, and paid time off.
Once you choose your priorities, look into benefits and programs that support them. Here are a few examples.
As you’re brainstorming possible programs, make sure you think about options at every price level. Small, low-cost perks can make just as big of an impact as expensive, grand gestures—especially if your employees use them!
The adage “go big or go home” doesn’t apply to employee wellness program budgets. As you’re choosing your programs and perks, remember to consider benefits that they could use every day but don’t cost too much, like gym membership discounts, virtual fitness and wellness classes, and healthy snacks for the office.
“Providing fresh fruit and healthy snacks can be a simple, cost-effective strategy to support employee wellness, productivity, and engagement while reinforcing a culture of care and wellbeing,” Schweber said.
Looking for more affordable wellness ideas? See our guide to starting a workplace wellness program on a budget.
Before you decide to add a new benefit to your wellbeing program for employees or keep an existing one, make sure the benefit is:
“Accessibility is really important,” Devine said. “At The FruitGuys, we have remote employees, onsite employees, and people with different native languages. It’s important to include options for everyone, and that’s where a variety of benefits comes in. If a particular benefit isn’t accessible to one group, ask yourself, ‘Are we considering other ways to keep them engaged and offer them wellness and learning?’”
Once you have a pool of benefits that meet your criteria, you can move on to the next step.
It’s time for the intimidating part: Actually allocating your budget. Odds are you already have a number in mind, either based on what you spent last year or a recommendation from your CFO. But even if you’re coming up with the budget from scratch, there’s a clear place to start.
Medical, dental, and vision insurance will probably be your biggest expenses, so factor them in first. But remember that you can get creative to counterbalance rising costs. Consider shopping around for different carriers and plans or pointing employees toward existing programs that deliver value at a lower cost.
“Nearly one-third (31%) of large employers currently offer, or plan to offer, at least one non-traditional medical plan in 2027, such as a high-performance network or variable copay plan, and another 38% are considering one of these approaches,” Schweber said.
As you allocate funds across your benefits, remember that some benefits have a recurring cost (like weekly office fruit delivery), while others will be a one-time expense (like an end-of-wellness-challenge celebration). Make sure your budget accurately reflects those costs across the calendar or fiscal year.
You can use these simple formulas to check the cost per employee for your entire wellness program or for individual benefits.
Annual wellness budget ÷ number of employees = annual wellness spending per employee
Individual benefit cost ÷ number of participating employees = cost per participant
To figure out the number of participating employees, rely on 2026 data for benefits you’re considering bringing back or make an educated guess based on what you know about your team.
As you choose which benefits to prioritize financially, keep what you learned from employee surveys in mind. You’ll likely get better results from spending $10,000 on two perks your employees truly value than on five or ten perks they rarely use.
Have you ever bought a kitchen gadget that you were sure would change your life, then tucked it in a drawer and forgotten about it? Your wellness program is kind of like that gadget: It’s only helpful if your employees know about it and use it.
Leaving the analogy behind, that’s also the only way to ensure your program sticks around and gets funding year after year. But it’s also a bigger ask than you might think.
According to SHRM’s 2026 Mental Health Snapshot, more than half of US workers (55%) have rarely or never used their company’s mental health benefits. You can avoid adding to that statistic by making a plan for employee outreach and sharing it along with your budget. Here are a few strategies to consider.
A Wellhub survey of 1,500 CEOs found 82% believed their programs deliver a positive return on investment (ROI)—which is great news for your pitch! But to see if your company is actually in the majority, you have to track your results. Start by choosing your key performance indicators, deciding how you’ll track participation rates for your programs, and saving the data you gathered in your employee survey so that you can compare it to next year’s.
For more specific tracking tips, check out this guide to tracking the ROI of your wellness program.
Whew, that was a lot! To recap, here’s a quick list of steps to take as you plan your employee wellness program budget for 2027.
Analyze your 2026 wellness spending
Survey your team to find out which benefits they value
Connect wellness priorities to your business goals
Choose programs and perks based on your priorities
Consider low-cost, high-participation wellness benefits
Evaluate possible benefits to find the best fits
Allocate your budget across wellness benefits
Start with essential health care costs
Consider recurring vs. one-time costs
Analyze the cost per employee
Plan your employee outreach
Create a plan to track your program’s ROI
Good luck rolling your rock up the hill. Unlike Sisyphus, we bet you’ll actually make it!
1. How much should you spend on an employee wellness program?
There’s no one-size-fits-all amount to spend on employee wellness. Some companies spend less than $100 per employee per year, while others spend hundreds per year on incentives alone. Your budget will depend on the size of your company, whether wellbeing is a priority, and what you can ultimately convince leadership to approve.
2. What should an employee wellness program budget include?
Employee wellness budgets often include health care coverage, fitness benefits, mental health benefits, and financial benefits.
3. How do you calculate an employee wellness budget per employee?
To break down your budget into a per-employee cost, use this formula: annual wellness budget ÷ number of employees = annual wellness spending per employee.
4. What are affordable employee wellness benefits?
A few affordable benefits include discounted gym memberships, virtual classes or apps, and fresh fruit and healthy snacks for the office. Check out our guide to starting a workplace wellness program on a budget for more employee wellness ideas.
5. When should companies plan their employee wellness program budget?
A lot of companies start planning in the fall for the following year, especially if they use a calendar-year budget. Check with your company’s leadership team to see what timetable they’d prefer.
6. How effective are employee wellness programs?
There’s mixed evidence on how effective wellness programs are, but 82% of CEOs surveyed by Wellhub said they believed their programs delivered a positive ROI. To see if your program is effective, make sure to track it.
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