Baby shower gift calculator

Methodology

This tool runs the Kindhow Scale, version 1.0: a baseline plus a stack of adjustments you select. Each line is tagged sourced when a publication backs that exact figure, and house judgment when the reasoning is ours. There is no third tag, and no line on this site is unlabelled.

The formula

baseline           the published band for how well you know the parents
  × region         BEA regional price parity, as a share of the US average
  − sprinkle       30% if this is a second or later baby
  + multiples      40% if there is more than one
  − hosting        half if you're throwing it, a quarter if co-hosting
  − not attending  a quarter of the baseline
  − travel         8% of what getting there costs you, capped
  − handmade       35% if you're making it, because your hours count
  ─────────────
  = subtotal
  ÷ group size     if several of you are going in together
  ─────────────
  or, if the group already picked something:
    item price ÷ group size, compared against the subtotal above
  ≈ rounded        to $5 / $10 / $25 steps, by size (lib/giveable.js)

Baselines — and where they stop being sourced

This is the part worth reading, because it is where this page differs from our wedding gift calculator. For weddings, The Knot publishes a recommended dollar figure for each tier of relationship, so our baseline is genuinely sourced. For baby showers, nobody does. What exists are bands: U.S. News, citing etiquette experts, puts a coworker at about $30 and reports most guests landing between $50 and $100.

So the first four tiers below take an edge or the midpoint of a published band, and they are tagged sourced with the band quoted on the line. The top tier is tagged house judgment, because U.S. News says a gift for a sibling or best friend can run “into the hundreds” and that is not a number. We could have written $150 and let it look researched. Saying which of your lines is not sourced is the entire point of this site.

Which baby this is

A sprinkle is not a smaller shower, it is a different one. The Emily Post Institute uses the word for a second-or-later party precisely because the family already has most of the durable things a baby needs. The distinction is theirs; how far it moves the number is ours.

Adjustments — house judgment

None of these figures come from a study, because no study measures them. They are our reasoning, published here in full so you can argue with them. If you think throwing the shower should cancel the gift entirely rather than halve it, you now know exactly which number to disagree with — which is more than any other page on this subject will give you.

When the group has already picked something

Emily Post is explicit that a group pooling for a large item — a stroller, a car seat — is normal and appropriate. What no guidance anywhere gives you is whether the number the group chat landed on is fair for you. So when you enter what the item costs, the tool stops dividing its own subtotal and divides the item instead, then shows both: your share of the real item, and what the model would have put you at giving alone. If those two are within 15% of each other we call the ask fair. Otherwise it says by how much it is over or under, and leaves the decision with you.

Regional price level

The bands come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parities for 2024, released in February 2026. The US average is 100 by construction. The states named in each band are the actual top and bottom of that year’s table.

What this tool will not do

• It will not pretend the baselines are better sourced than they are. Four of the five tiers sit inside a published band and say which one. The fifth is ours and is labelled ours. Every competing page on this query states a range as if someone measured it per relationship. Nobody has.
• It has no opinion about your budget. There is no line here telling you to be more generous, and no comparison to what the other guests are spending. If money is tight, spend less; the arithmetic is not a verdict.
• It is US-only. Every band and index here is American, and baby shower customs vary enormously elsewhere — in several traditions the celebration happens after the birth, not before it, and this model does not represent them.
• It does not know the registry. A target price is not a gift. If the registry has one $40 thing left and eleven $200 things, the tool cannot see that, and what is actually still available beats anything a model computes.
• It does not know your family. A standing arrangement, a gift you were given when your own child arrived, or parents who have asked for nothing all outrank this.

Sources

• U.S. News & World Report — How Much to Spend on a Baby Shower Gift, According to Experts — the published spending bands the first four baselines sit inside.
• The Emily Post Institute — Baby Showers: Welcoming the New Baby — that a second-or-later party is a sprinkle, and why.
• The Emily Post Institute — Baby Shower Gifts and Registries — that a group pooling for a large item such as a stroller or a car seat is normal, and that registries are appropriate but belong on an enclosure rather than the invitation.
• Babylist — Baby Shower Etiquette Trends for the Modern Era — that cash funds are now a normal registry option, which is why cash is one of the gift forms here.
• U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities, 2024 — the regional price bands.

Informational only, not professional advice. The Kindhow Scale is a published model, not a standard, and the lines marked house judgment are our reasoning and nothing more. Last reviewed: August 2026. Scale version 1.0. Figures that come from a publication are re-checked against their source on a monthly cycle; when one moves, the version number moves with it.