Employee Birthdays · Costa Mesa, CA
Employee birthday gifts
that land on the actual date.
Most companies buy birthday gifts for employees the way they buy office supplies — one at a time, late, by whoever remembered. Set a per-person budget once instead and the boxes follow the calendar: a hand-packed box arrives at each person's home on their date, with a card that uses their name.
Boxes from $65. Send the dates once; nobody chases them again.
Marking more than birthdays?
This page is the birthday calendar. Work anniversaries, promotions and everyday appreciation run from employee appreciation gift boxes and new hires from new hire welcome gifts. Most companies run birthdays and anniversaries off one brand brief and one invoice.
Why programs survive and purchases do not
The four reasons a birthday program dies
Someone has to notice the date. A birthday in a group channel on the Monday after is worse than nothing, and the person who used to catch them has a day job.
Send the dates once. We hold the calendar and prepare each cycle ahead of the date, so a birthday on the third does not depend on anyone remembering it on the second.
Every birthday becomes a small purchase: choose something, raise a card, expense it, and do it again next week forever.
Set the per-person budget once — $65–$109 covers the usual band — and the choice is made for the year. One invoice, not fifty receipts.
A gift card says the company spent money. It does not say anyone thought about it, and in the US it is usually taxable to the recipient regardless of amount.
A hand-packed box with a card that uses the person's name reads as attention rather than payroll. The tax treatment of a modest physical gift is commonly different from a gift card's — your accountant will confirm which applies.
Half the team is remote, so the office cake is a photograph of other people eating cake.
Individual home-address fulfilment is how every order on this site works, not an upgrade. A distributed team is the normal case.
Set it once
Employee birthday gift ideas, in three budget bands
Pick the band, not the gift. These are the Signature boxes our birthday programs run on — a starting price per box, ground shipping included. Many companies set one band for everyone and a fuller box for a milestone year.
Signature Collection
The Little Treat
From $65
- Ground shipping included
- Custom branding quoted separately
A better snack break, beautifully packed—familiar favorites with a playful, elevated twist.
Request Pricing
Signature Collection
Golden Hour Sips
From $79
- Ground shipping included
- Custom branding quoted separately
An alcohol-free apéritivo for the end of a good week — sparkling mixers, something salty, something sweet.
Request Pricing
Signature Collection
Couch Cinema
From $109
- Ground shipping included
- Custom branding quoted separately
Movie night without leaving the couch — a soft throw, a bowl for the popcorn and the sweets that go with it.
Request PricingEvery price includes standard tracked ground shipping in the contiguous United States, whether the order goes to one address or each box to its own recipient. Custom production, Alaska, Hawaii and international destinations are quoted on top and confirmed before packing. Custom and logo-branded boxes start at 50 boxes.
Products shown represent the current curation. If an item becomes unavailable, any proposed substitution will be of equal or greater value and will be confirmed before fulfillment.
How the buying works
Two ways to send one box on one date
Gifts arrive one at a time. The purchase is what happens up front, and which of these fits depends on how many birthdays a year you are marking.
Reserve the year
Annual Corporate Gifting Program
Reserve from 50 gifts for the year. We prepare and store them in Costa Mesa and ship each one on its own as the dates come up, with 7 days' notice. From 100 gifts a year, every gift is 15% below its regular per-gift price.
This is the route for a company marking most of its headcount: a 100-person team is 100 birthdays, which is a program, not fifty small orders.
See the annual program →Batch the calendar
Managed Monthly, on your list
Send the month's or the quarter's birthday list on an agreed date and we prepare that run. Orders start at 12 boxes, so a smaller team batches a quarter of dates into one order rather than ordering a box at a time.
Custom boxes built to your brief, or anything carrying your logo, start at 50 boxes.
See recurring programs →Non-branded boxes are packed within 72 hours and normally ship tracked ground, arriving 1–5 business days after packing — which is why a birthday run is prepared ahead of the dates rather than on them.
Questions
Employee birthday gifts, answered
What are good employee birthday gift ideas that are not a gift card?
Something the person would have chosen for themselves, hand-packed, with a card that uses their name. Our birthday edit of the Signature Collection runs in three budget bands — The Little Treat (from $65), Golden Hour Sips (from $79), Couch Cinema (from $109) — each hand-packed in Costa Mesa, CA. Shipping is included, and contents follow the current curation with any substitution confirmed before fulfillment.
How much should a company spend on an employee birthday gift?
Most birthday programs we run land in the $65–$109 band per person, ground shipping included — generous enough to be felt, modest enough to repeat every month without a budget conversation. Setting one per-person figure for the year is what makes the program survive its first busy quarter.
Can you send one box per birthday? We do not want to order in bulk.
Gifts go out one at a time; the purchase is what happens up front. A one-time order starts at 12 boxes, so the way to send a single box on a single date is the Annual Corporate Gifting Program: reserve from 50 gifts for the year, we store them, and each one ships on its own with 7 days' notice. From 100 gifts a year every gift is 15% below its regular per-gift price. A team with fewer birthdays than that batches them instead — a quarter's dates in one order of 12 boxes or more.
How do you know when each employee's birthday is?
You send the dates once, as a spreadsheet: name, shipping address, and the date. Day and month are enough — we do not need the year. We hold the calendar and prepare each cycle ahead of the date; when your roster changes, send a replacement file. That is the entire maintenance burden, and there is no HRIS integration to build.
What about people who would rather not have their birthday marked?
Mark them in the list and they are excluded, and we handle later opt-outs on request. A birthday someone did not want announced is worse than a birthday missed, which is why the opt-out column exists before the first send rather than after a complaint.
Can we put our logo on a birthday box?
Light co-branding on the card or ribbon is the usual choice, and our recommendation: a birthday gift that looks like merchandise reads as merchandise. Custom and logo-branded boxes start at 50 boxes. Branded production also adds lead time, confirmed in your quote before you approve anything.
How long does a birthday cycle take to produce?
Standard non-branded orders are prepared in 72 hours. Custom branding adds production time, confirmed in your quote before you approve anything.
How are the boxes delivered?
Southern California orders of 50 boxes or more are hand-delivered by our team at no delivery charge, on the day preparation completes. Anything outside Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties ships tracked ground, and so do smaller orders as a rule — though a small local order on a tight date can often go the same day, hand-delivered free, confirmed in writing first.
Is a birthday gift taxable to the employee?
In the US, gifts to employees are generally treated as compensation unless they qualify as a de minimis fringe benefit, and cash or cash-equivalents such as gift cards are typically taxable regardless of amount. A modest physical gift is often treated differently from a gift card, which is one reason companies choose one over the other. Confirm the treatment for your situation with your accountant or payroll provider. The three rules everyone calls "the gift rule", side by side, are in our guide: Are employee gifts taxable? Gift cards and de minimis rules.
This is general information, not tax advice — confirm the treatment of any gifting spend with your accountant.
Related
Read next
Employee appreciation gift boxes
Work anniversaries, promotions and everyday recognition, run off the same date file.
Recurring programs
Managed Monthly, billing, and the six-stage cycle.
Annual Corporate Gifting Program
Reserve the year's gifts from 50; each one ships on its own date.
A gift program that lands on the date
What has to be true operationally for a date-driven program to work.
Appreciation gift ideas people actually keep
What gets kept, and what goes in a drawer.
Milestone gifts beyond the plaque
Long-service recognition that is not an engraved award.
Get started
Request pricing
Request birthday-program pricing
Tell us your headcount, the per-person budget you have in mind, and whether people are in one office or spread out. We reply within one business day. Orders start at 12 boxes; an annual program reserves from 50 gifts.
Program guides
More on gifting programs
- An Employee Appreciation Gift Program Without a Platform
This guide covers how to structure employee gifting with no platform needed. Non-branded boxes are packed within 72 hours; orders start at 12 boxes.
- An Employee Gift Program for a 50 to 200-Person Company
This guide covers how to build an employee gift program, what tiers cost, and how the IRS $25 per-recipient deduction cap affects your budget.
- Corporate Gifting Program Cost: A Year of Gifts, Priced
This post breaks down what a corporate gifting program actually costs across a full year, including the IRS $25 per-recipient deduction cap.
- Corporate Christmas Gifts for Clients: Reserve Once, Gift All Year
Corporate Christmas gifts for clients: reserve the year's gifts once, send in December and beyond. Order branded boxes by Nov 20, non-branded by Dec 14.
- How to Set Up an Employee Gift Program (Without It Becoming Someone's Second Job)
Most companies accumulate a gifting programme rather than deciding on one. The failure modes — no owner, a December-only budget, stale addresses, branding lead times discovered too late — and how to set one up that survives a real year.