Methodology

Where the spending figure comes from

The benchmark is from Empower's "Going Rate" research: an online survey of 2,202 Americans aged 18 and over, run 19–21 August 2025 and weighted to be nationally representative. It reports $55.65 as what respondents say they spend on an adult's birthday gift, and $83.03 for a child's.

It is a mean, not a median, because that is what the survey publishes. We keep the two apart everywhere on the site and never substitute one for the other: a small number of very large gifts pulls a mean well above the middle of the distribution, so treating a mean as a median would quietly inflate what looks normal.

Why there is no figure per relationship

This is the most important thing on the page. Search for what to spend on a partner, a sibling or a colleague and you will find confident figures — $100 for a partner, $25–50 for a close friend, $15–25 for a coworker. We could not trace any of them to a survey. They appear on pages that cite each other, and the trail ends there.

Empower's survey, the one credible national source we found, splits its results by adult versus child — not by relationship. So a per-relationship breakdown does not exist in published data, and every page that prints one is either quoting an unsourced page or making it up.

We could have filled a ten-row table with plausible amounts and no one would have questioned it. Instead the site shows one row, labelled as the national figure for any adult, and says plainly that it is not specific to your girlfriend or your father. A number you can check beats ten you cannot.

Why prices are ranges, not exact figures

An exact price stops being true within weeks. A site that promises dated, verified numbers and then publishes exact prices starts lying quietly — the date stays honest while the number goes stale, which is worse than having no number at all because it looks precise.

So each idea carries the band it falls into and the date we last looked. Where a price is genuinely published — an official subscription price, for instance — we link it and say so. Where it is not, the band is our own estimate of what the category costs, and the page says that too. The distinction is marked on every idea.

Why every idea says when it is wrong

Gift lists consist of entries that are all, without exception, the perfect gift. That is what makes them useless: a list where nothing is ever a bad idea carries no information. Every idea here has a section on when not to buy it, and that section is a required field rather than an optional courtesy.

The practical consequence is that some ideas never get published. If we cannot say who a gift is wrong for, we do not understand it well enough to recommend it, and it stays out.

What this does not cover

We do not track individual product prices, run affiliate links, or claim to know what any specific person wants. The spending benchmark is US data and does not transfer to other countries. And a recipient page is only published once it has at least four checked ideas — a list of one or two does not answer the question it claims to.