Key Takeaways
- Home office stipends are the most commonly offered remote perk, provided by 56% of employers
- Average total remote perk spend is $3,000 to $5,000 per employee per year when stipends, wellness, and L&D budgets are combined
- Employees rank mental health support, flexible scheduling, and home office funding as their top three priorities - employers spend most on stipends and equipment
- Remote workers who receive meaningful perks are 50% less likely to leave and 73% more loyal to their employers
- Remote perk budgets average $3,000 to $5,000 per employee per year, compared to $6,000 to $10,000 for in-office benefit packages
The conversation about remote work perks used to be simple: give people a laptop and maybe reimburse their internet bill. That era ended.
By 2026, remote perk programs at serious employers have grown to rival traditional office benefit packages in complexity. Companies competing for distributed talent manage budgets that span home office equipment, wellness allowances, mental health subscriptions, learning stipends, coworking memberships, and annual team retreats. The average fully remote company now tracks seven or more distinct perk categories.
The data on what companies spend, what employees actually value, and what any of it does to retention is now detailed enough to act on. This article pulls current numbers from SHRM, Owl Labs, Buffer, Gallup, Mercer, and Gartner.
What counts as a remote work perk in 2026?
Remote work perks are benefits that cover costs or experiences employees give up by working outside an office. That definition has expanded since 2020.
The original framing was cost reimbursement: help remote workers pay for what the company would have provided in an office. A desk, a chair, a fast internet connection. The framing most employers now use is closer to total work experience: what does the company provide to make remote work as good as, or better than, being on-site?
That shift changes the list of what counts. The categories employers now track most often:
- Home office stipends: one-time setup allowances and recurring monthly allowances for furniture, hardware, and accessories
- Internet and phone reimbursements: broadband and mobile costs, either as separate line items or bundled into a monthly allowance
- Wellness and mental health benefits: gym memberships, meditation apps, mental health platform subscriptions, therapy reimbursements
- Learning and development budgets: online courses, conference attendance, certifications, books and subscriptions
- Coworking memberships: access to shared office space for employees who cannot or do not want to work from home every day
- Meal and snack programs: stipends for food, coffee, or meal delivery that replace catered office lunches
- Team retreat and offsite budgets: company-funded gatherings to replace lost in-person time
Some employers add pet insurance, home cleaning services, or childcare subsidies. The seven above appear consistently across benchmark surveys.
Most-offered remote work perks in 2026
Home office stipends
56% of U.S. employers offer some form of work equipment reimbursement or home office allowance as of 2025, according to employer benchmarking data. Among fully remote organizations, that number passes 75%.
SHRM's 2025 Employee Benefits Survey puts the average annual home office allowance at $891 across all employers, though that figure blends token amounts with more generous programs. The real range is wider: one-time setup stipends typically fall between $1,000 and $1,500, while monthly recurring allowances average $150 per month ($1,800 annually).
74% of companies have formalized hybrid work policies as of 2025, up from 42% in 2022 (Gartner). That formalization has pushed more employers to create documented stipend policies with defined caps rather than handling remote expenses ad hoc.
Wellness and mental health benefits
Mental health benefits saw the sharpest increase of any remote perk category between 2022 and 2025. 91% of large employers now offer some form of mental health benefit, including EAP programs, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness and SHRM data. The challenge is depth. Broad EAP access is technically a mental health benefit, but so is a $2,400 annual therapy reimbursement. The category ranges from token to substantive, and most employers are toward the token end.
Among dedicated remote-focused mental health perks:
- 49% of companies offer mental health app subscriptions (Calm, Headspace, BetterHelp, or similar) as of 2025
- 38% provide therapy or counseling reimbursement beyond basic EAP coverage
- 29% include a dedicated wellness stipend usable across fitness, mental health, and self-care
Gallup research consistently shows that mental health support has the strongest correlation with sustained employee engagement of any single benefit category. Employees who rate their employer as supportive of mental health are 35% more likely to report high engagement scores.
Learning and development budgets
L&D allowances are the fastest-growing perk category among remote employers. Buffer's 2025 State of Remote Work report found that 52% of remote workers receive some form of professional development support, up from 39% in 2022.
Mercer's 2025 Global Talent Trends report found that companies with L&D programs see 34% lower voluntary attrition than those without. For remote workers specifically, development budgets do something an office cannot easily replicate: they compensate for the informal learning that disappears when there are no hallways to walk down.
Typical L&D allocations among companies offering them:
| Company size | Median annual L&D budget per remote employee |
|---|---|
| Small (under 100 employees) | $500 to $1,000 |
| Mid-size (100 to 999 employees) | $1,000 to $2,000 |
| Large enterprise (1,000+ employees) | $1,500 to $3,500 |
Internet and phone reimbursements
Broadband reimbursement is the most underutilized remote perk given how universal the underlying cost is. Only 28% of companies with remote support programs cover internet costs directly, despite every remote employee paying that bill every month.
The gap is administrative, not philosophical. Reimbursing a monthly internet bill requires receipts, creates taxability questions, and needs an accountable-plan structure to stay tax-free. Many employers skip the friction by rolling broadband support into a flat monthly allowance employees can spend as they want.
Where internet stipends exist as standalone benefits, the average reimbursement is $83 per month. Phone reimbursements, more common in sales-heavy organizations, average $60 per month when offered separately.
Coworking memberships
22% of employers offer some form of coworking or third-place workspace support, a share that has grown as hybrid work has created a new category of employee: people who want to leave home offices without returning to a company building (Gartner 2025).
This perk is disproportionately valued by employees in dense urban areas where home square footage is limited. Owl Labs' 2024 State of Hybrid Work report found that 31% of remote workers in major metropolitan areas rank coworking access in their top three most-wanted perks.
Monthly coworking memberships typically run $100 to $400 depending on location and tier. Employers that provide them either offer a monthly stipend in that range or partner with coworking networks like WeWork, IWG, or Industrious for negotiated rates.
Meal and retreat budgets
Meal stipends and food perks are the in-office benefit most commonly replicated for remote employees. 34% of fully remote companies offer some form of meal or snack stipend, typically $50 to $150 per month, according to Owl Labs benchmarking.
Team retreats have become standard at fully remote companies past a certain size. Buffer's 2025 data shows 78% of fully remote companies now run at least one annual offsite gathering. The average annual retreat budget among fully remote companies with 50 or more employees runs $1,500 to $2,500 per person per year. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to the cost of office space that would need to serve the same people year-round.
Average spend per remote employee on perks
Calculating total remote perk spend is harder than it looks because the most expensive line items often live in different budgets. Equipment purchases sit in IT. Retreat costs hit events or G&A. What remains in the benefits ledger understates the real investment.
The spend for a mid-size company with a reasonably complete remote perk program:
| Perk category | Typical annual spend per employee |
|---|---|
| Home office setup (one-time, amortized over 3 years) | $400 to $600 |
| Monthly allowance (ongoing) | $1,200 to $1,800 |
| Wellness / mental health stipend | $400 to $800 |
| L&D budget | $500 to $1,500 |
| Coworking (where offered) | $1,200 to $4,800 |
| Meal stipend | $600 to $1,800 |
| Team retreat allocation | $1,500 to $2,500 |
| Total (without coworking) | $3,600 to $7,000 |
Mercer's 2025 Global Talent Trends benchmarking puts average total remote-specific benefit spend at $3,000 to $5,000 per employee per year for companies with structured programs, excluding base tools and equipment.
For comparison, traditional in-office benefit packages in the U.S. average $6,000 to $10,000 per employee per year when commuter benefits, office catering, gym access, and facilities costs are included. Remote perk programs cost less per employee, even generous ones, because real estate and physical infrastructure costs are gone.
What employees value most vs. what employers offer
The ranking of what employees want and what employers provide does not line up, and the gaps are consistent enough across surveys to be worth designing around deliberately.
Employee perk preferences (2025 surveys)
Owl Labs' 2025 survey of 2,000 remote workers:
- Flexible scheduling (ability to set own hours) - 84% rate as very important
- Mental health support (therapy, wellness apps, EAP) - 76% rate as very important
- Home office funding (stipend or equipment) - 71% rate as very important
- Health insurance quality - 69% rate as very important
- Professional development budget - 62% rate as very important
- Internet/phone reimbursement - 58% rate as very important
- Coworking access - 41% rate as very important
- Meal stipend or food perks - 37% rate as very important
Buffer's 2025 State of Remote Work adds something worth noting: when asked which single benefit they would give up last if the company had to cut, 43% of remote workers chose flexible scheduling. Not pay. Not health insurance. Flexible scheduling.
What employers actually offer (2025 benchmarking)
Ranked by adoption rate across U.S. employers:
- Home office equipment/stipend - 56% of employers
- Health insurance (including for fully remote) - 88% of employers
- EAP / basic mental health access - 74% of employers
- L&D budget - 52% of employers
- Internet/phone reimbursement - 28% of employers
- Wellness stipend (dedicated, beyond EAP) - 29% of employers
- Coworking memberships - 22% of employers
- Meal stipends - 34% of fully remote companies
The gaps
The misalignments that stand out:
Mental health: 74% of employers offer EAP access, but only 38% offer therapy reimbursement above EAP levels, and 29% offer a dedicated wellness stipend. 76% of employees rate mental health support as very important. The gap between surface-level access and substantive support is where most employers underperform against employee expectations.
Flexible scheduling: The top employee priority costs employers nothing to grant, which makes it strange that 30% of companies increased their in-office requirements in the past year. This is a policy gap, not a spending gap, and it is the most reversible one on the list.
Internet reimbursement: 58% of employees want broadband covered. 28% of employers cover it. Every remote employee pays this bill every month. The administrative friction that stops employers from addressing it - accountable plan setup, receipt collection - is a solvable problem.
Impact of perks on retention and engagement
Retention
Remote workers who receive meaningful perks - defined here as support in at least three categories beyond basic health insurance - are 50% less likely to leave their jobs compared to remote workers receiving only token benefits. That number appears consistently across Owl Labs, Gallup, and SHRM longitudinal studies.
73% of remote employees say perks and benefits increase their loyalty to their employer, according to Owl Labs' 2024 data. The loyalty effect is strongest for perks that address daily friction. A bad internet connection is an irritant every working day. An employer who eliminates it signals something different from one who ignores it.
Gallup's 2025 data puts the attrition cost in concrete terms. Replacing an employee costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary when recruiting, onboarding, and productivity loss are included. At a median U.S. salary of $65,000, that is $32,500 to $130,000 per departure. A $3,000 to $5,000 annual perk investment that cuts attrition probability in half has an obvious payback.
SHRM's 2025 Employee Benefits Survey found that 68% of employees cite benefits and perks among their most important factors when deciding whether to stay, up from 60% in 2022.
Engagement
The engagement data from Gallup's 2025 State of the Global Workplace complicates a simple perks-drive-engagement story. Fully remote workers show higher engagement scores globally (31% engaged versus 23% for on-site workers), but the drivers are not straightforward.
What the research does show is that perks addressing the specific failure modes of remote work - isolation, stalled development, physical discomfort - produce stronger engagement effects than perks that simply reproduce office experiences on a screen.
- Mental health support correlates with a 35% increase in sustained engagement scores (Gallup)
- L&D access correlates with 34% lower voluntary attrition and higher engagement among remote workers who feel their career is moving (Mercer 2025)
- Coworking access shows the strongest per-dollar engagement effect among employees in high-density urban areas who report loneliness as a challenge
For more on what drives engagement in distributed teams, see our remote employee engagement statistics.
Attraction
27% of remote workers consider their perk package a non-negotiable when evaluating new roles, according to Buffer's 2025 data. That means the absence of meaningful perks disqualifies an offer from serious consideration for more than a quarter of the candidate pool before compensation is even discussed.
Owl Labs found that 70% of workers would take a pay cut to keep flexible work arrangements. That willingness to trade cash for flexibility is evidence that perks carry real dollar value for employees, not a discounted version of it.
Remote perk budgets vs. in-office benefit costs
Many employers assume remote perks are a net cost increase over office operations. The numbers say otherwise.
| Cost category | In-office (per employee/year) | Remote (per employee/year) |
|---|---|---|
| Real estate and facilities | $7,000 to $15,000 | $0 |
| Office equipment (shared) | $500 to $1,000 | $400 to $700 (amortized) |
| Commuter benefits | $200 to $600 | $0 |
| Catered food / snacks | $500 to $1,500 | $0 to $1,800 (meal stipend) |
| Gym / wellness | $200 to $500 | $400 to $800 (wellness stipend) |
| IT support (on-site) | $600 to $1,200 | $400 to $800 |
| Benefits excl. health insurance | $9,000 to $19,800 | $1,200 to $4,100 |
Global Workplace Analytics estimates employer savings from remote work at $11,000 per employee per year when real estate and absenteeism effects are included. A comprehensive remote perk program at $3,000 to $5,000 per employee per year still produces a net savings of $6,000 to $8,000 against in-office costs. The budget to offer more perks is already in the savings column; most companies just have not looked at both figures in the same spreadsheet.
Gartner's 2025 HR benchmarking data shows that only 41% of companies have formally compared their in-office and remote benefit program costs. Most employers are managing remote perk budgets in isolation, not against the real estate savings they have already captured.
For context on the tools spending side of the remote cost picture, see our remote work tools spending statistics.
Remote work perk trends by company size
Perk generosity and program structure vary substantially across company sizes, in ways that matter for recruiting.
Small businesses (under 100 employees)
Small employers are most likely to offer one-time equipment allowances and least likely to have structured ongoing programs. When they do offer perks beyond equipment, L&D budgets and mental health app access are the most common categories, partly because they are inexpensive to administer.
62% of small companies now run some form of lifestyle spending account (LSA) with a median value of $1,200 per year, usable across home office and wellness categories (Benepass 2025). LSAs have grown popular at this size because they replace a complex perk menu with a single flexible budget.
Mid-size companies (100 to 999 employees)
This segment shows the widest variation. Companies that committed to remote work after 2020 tend to have layered programs with stipends, wellness benefits, and L&D access. Companies that shifted to hybrid reluctantly may offer only ad hoc equipment support.
Mid-size companies are also most likely to show the offer-versus-desire gap. They have enough budget to offer something meaningful but often have not audited which perks employees want versus which ones HR can administer without adding headcount.
Large enterprises (1,000 or more employees)
Large employers are most likely to use formal, vendor-managed perk platforms like Benepass, Compt, or Forma. Enterprise programs tend to be more generous in absolute dollar terms but more constrained in how employees can use the money.
74% of large companies have formalized hybrid work policies as of 2025 (Gartner), and most have corresponding documented benefit policies for remote employees.
Tech sector
Tech companies lead on remote perk generosity across all size tiers. Home office budgets of $2,000 to $5,000, annual L&D allowances of $2,500 to $5,000, and coworking memberships are standard expectations at competitive tech employers. The combination of talent market pressure and distributed-first culture has made tech the upper boundary for what a perk program can look like.
Key remote work employee perks statistics: summary table
| Metric | Data point | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Employers offering home office stipend | 56% | Employer benchmarking 2025 |
| Fully remote companies offering home office support | 75%+ | Industry benchmarking |
| Average annual home office allowance | $891 | SHRM 2025 |
| Average one-time setup stipend | $1,000 to $1,500 | Industry benchmarking |
| Average monthly recurring allowance | $150/month | Industry benchmarking |
| Employers offering EAP / basic mental health access | 74% | SHRM 2025 |
| Employers offering mental health app subscriptions | 49% | SHRM 2025 |
| Employers offering dedicated wellness stipend | 29% | SHRM 2025 |
| Employers offering internet/phone reimbursement | 28% | Employer surveys 2025 |
| Employers offering L&D budget | 52% | Buffer 2025 |
| Remote workers receiving L&D support | 52% | Buffer State of Remote Work 2025 |
| Employers offering coworking membership | 22% | Gartner 2025 |
| Fully remote companies offering meal stipend | 34% | Owl Labs 2025 |
| Fully remote companies running annual retreats | 78% | Buffer 2025 |
| Employees rating flexible scheduling as very important | 84% | Owl Labs 2025 |
| Employees rating mental health support as very important | 76% | Owl Labs 2025 |
| Remote workers saying perks increase loyalty | 73% | Owl Labs 2024 |
| Lower attrition with meaningful perks | 50% lower | Multiple studies |
| Employees citing benefits as factor in staying | 68% | SHRM 2025 |
| Average total remote perk spend (structured programs) | $3,000 to $5,000/year | Mercer 2025 |
| Companies with formalized hybrid policies | 74% | Gartner 2025 |
| L&D programs correlation with lower attrition | 34% lower | Mercer 2025 |
| Companies formally calculated remote vs in-office costs | 41% | Gartner 2025 |
What this means for employers in 2026
The offer-versus-desire gap is fixable for most employers without a major budget increase. Internet reimbursement requires implementing an accountable plan, not significant new spend. Flexible scheduling is a policy decision that costs nothing to grant. Mental health support beyond token EAP access does cost money - but it is what employees weight most heavily in loyalty decisions, which makes it the highest-ROI line on the perk budget for most companies.
Perks that address daily friction tend to outperform lump-sum payments in retention data. A $100 per month allowance that removes recurring internet and phone stress is worth more in practice than a $1,500 one-time check that employees spend once and forget. The monthly payment is a recurring signal; the one-time payment is not.
The budget arithmetic matters here too. If your company has captured $11,000 in annual savings per remote employee from reduced real estate and absenteeism, a $4,000 perk program costs less than half of that savings. Most companies are not putting those two figures next to each other, which is why many offer minimal remote perks while sitting on the budget to do more.
For more data on the remote work picture broadly, see our remote work statistics 2026 roundup.
Sources
- SHRM 2025 Employee Benefits Survey
- Owl Labs State of Remote Work 2024 / 2025
- Owl Labs State of Hybrid Work 2024
- Buffer State of Remote Work 2025
- Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2025
- Mercer 2025 Global Talent Trends Report
- Gartner 2025 HR Benchmarking: Hybrid and Remote Work Policies
- Gartner 2025: Formalizing Hybrid Work Policies
- Benepass 2025 Benefits Benchmarking Report
- Global Workplace Analytics: Remote Work Cost Analysis
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): Workplace Mental Health Report 2025
- Benepass / Compt LSA benchmarking data 2025
- FlexJobs Remote Work Survey 2025
- Management Science: "Remote Work Arrangements, Perk Satisfaction, and Employee Retention" (2024)
- World Economic Forum: Future of Jobs Report 2025
- IRS Publication 463: Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses (Accountable Plans)
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the key findings in the remote work employee perks data?
Remote work perks data shows home office stipends, internet reimbursement, and mental health benefits rank highest among distributed employees, with total perks packages averaging USD 3,000-8,000 per remote employee annually at leading firms.
How should businesses use remote work employee perks benchmarks?
Benchmarking your remote perks package against industry medians helps total rewards teams identify gaps causing offer rejections or attrition and prioritize the highest-ROI perks additions.
How can businesses improve their remote work employee perks performance?
Companies maximize remote perks ROI by pairing equipment and stipend programs with virtual assistant support for expense tracking and benefits administration, reducing management overhead that erodes employee experience.