Gift reciprocity calculator

Methodology

This tool runs the Kindhow Scale, version 1.0 — with one difference from every other tool on the site. The baseline here is not an etiquette figure. It is your own number, the amount somebody actually gave you, carried forward by the Consumer Price Index. That makes line one of this ledger the most solid sourced line KindHow has: the index is published by the federal government, and the arithmetic is the one thing the CPI exists to do. Everything under it is ours, and says so.

The formula

what they gave you    the amount, in the year they gave it
  × CPI now / CPI then  BLS CPI-U, annual average vs. the latest month
  ─────────────
  = in today's money
  ± occasion            the ratio between two published averages, applied by us
  ± who's giving        half again for a second name on the card
  ± closeness now       a quarter, either way
  ─────────────
  = subtotal
  ≈ rounded             to $5 / $10 / $25 steps, by size (lib/giveable.js)

The carry-forward — sourced

We use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, all items, not seasonally adjusted — series CUUR0000SA0, the same series behind the BLS’ own inflation calculator. A past year uses that year’s twelve-month average. “Today” uses July 2026 at 333.918, because a single recent month is the newest figure that exists — there is no annual average for a year that hasn’t finished.

One honest wrinkle worth naming: the 2025 annual average the BLS publishes is an eleven-month one. October 2025 was never collected, because of that year’s lapse in appropriations. We use their figure exactly as published rather than patching it, and we would rather tell you than not.

The occasion at each end — house judgment

If their gift was for a wedding and yours is for a baby shower, carrying the amount across unchanged overshoots, because those two occasions are not the same size of gift. The two averages below are published. Using the ratio between them to move a gift from one occasion to the other is our call — no publication has studied that question — so the tool tags that line house judgment even though both figures in it are sourced. Where an occasion has no published average, the line renders at $0 and says so, rather than borrowing a number measured for something else.

The rest of the adjustments — house judgment

None of these come from a study, because no study measures them. They are our reasoning, published in full so you can argue with a specific number rather than with a vibe.

What this tool will not do

• It will not tell you a gift is a debt. Nobody is owed a gift, and the Emily Post Institute is clear that there is no rule about how much to spend. This calculator answers “what would the same gift be today” because that is the question people are actually stuck on — not because an invoice is outstanding.
• It does not price the gift they gave, only the money. If they gave you a thing rather than cash, put in what it cost. The CPI moves the whole consumer basket; a specific object — a stroller, a KitchenAid, a piece of jewellery — may well have moved differently, and this tool does not pretend to know by how much.
• It is US-only. The index is the U.S. city average, and the two occasion figures are American publications. Neither travels.
• It does not know what has happened since. A hard year, a new baby, a much bigger or much smaller income at either end — all of that beats anything a model can compute, and none of it is in here.

Sources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, all items — the index behind every carry-forward on this page. Annual averages and the current month are read from the BLS public API, series CUUR0000SA0.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — CPI Inflation Calculator — the BLS’ own consumer-facing version of the same calculation, if you want to check ours against it.
• The Knot — How Much to Spend on a Wedding Gift — the average wedding gift, used as one half of the occasion ratio.
• U.S. News & World Report — How Much to Spend on a Baby Shower Gift, According to Experts — the baby shower band, used as the other half.
• The Emily Post Institute — Choosing a Wedding Gift — that there is no rule about how much to spend, which is why nothing here is framed as an obligation.

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. The CPI figures are re-checked against the BLS series on a monthly cycle — the current-month index moves every month by design, and the tool is stale the moment it stops being updated, which is why the period it uses is printed on the line itself.