Guide · Kids’ birthday gifts
Why $25 isn’t the right birthday gift number anymore
Every page on this subject repeats the same figure for a classmate’s gift: $25. It was printed in February 2023, and nobody repeating it mentions that. Three years of inflation already ate part of it.
The short answer
Reviewed, USA TODAY’s product-testing desk, is the only outlet that publishes real dollar figures for a kid’s birthday gift, and its numbers were printed in February 2023. sourcedFederal price data shows those dollars have lost about 10% of their purchasing power since. The $25 “sweet spot” for a classmate is closer to $27 today. The $100 ceiling for a close friend’s child is closer to $110. sourced
The numbers, in the source’s own words
Reviewed’s guidance, published and last updated February 24, 2023: sourced
“$25 is the sweet spot—no matter the relationship. You can’t go wrong if you spend around $20 to $30.”
“You can spend up to $100 on the child of a close friend or relative.”
“Budget for at least $100 when it comes to gifts for your own children.”
Those three figures are quoted, unchanged, on nearly every page that ranks for this question. None of them mention the date.
What actually changed since 2023
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI-U series (sourced) averaged 304.702 across 2023 and stood at 333.918 in July 2026 — a factor of 1.10. Applied to Reviewed’s three figures:
- Classmate sweet spot: $25 in 2023 dollars → about $27 today.
- Close friend’s child, ceiling: $100 in 2023 dollars → about $110 today.
- Own children, floor: $100 in 2023 dollars → about $110 today.
Two dollars doesn’t sound like a headline. But it’s the same gap every flat-quoted figure on the internet carries, and a child attends far more birthday parties a year than an adult attends weddings in a decade — the gap compounds across a lot of toy-aisle Saturdays, not one.
What this doesn’t mean
- It doesn’t mean Reviewed got it wrong. The figures were accurate the day they were printed. The problem is every page that repeats them without a date, not the original reporting.
- It doesn’t mean $27 is a rule.The carried figure is still just a restatement of a $20–$30 band in today’s dollars — round to whatever’s easy to hand over.
- It doesn’t mean age and guest count don’t matter more. The Emily Post Institute’s own guest guide — one guest per year of age, plus one — means a party three times that size is a party where the per-gift expectation is genuinely lower, regardless of what the sticker says.
So what should you actually spend this Saturday?
The kids’ birthday gift calculator carries Reviewed’s figures forward to today’s dollars, folds in the guest-count adjustment, and flags gifts that fail federal choking-hazard labeling for a child under eight — before you get to the register.
Work out the gift →Sources
- Reviewed (USA TODAY) — How Much Money to Spend on a Kids’ Birthday Gift — Brigitt Earley, updated February 24, 2023. The three dollar figures quoted above.
- BLS — CPI-U, U.S. city average, all items (series CUUR0000SA0) — the 2023 annual average and July 2026 figure used for the carry.
Informational only. This guide reports Reviewed’s published figures and the federal index used to carry them forward. It isn’t a verdict on what any specific gift should cost. Last reviewed: August 2026.
More on how KindHow separates a source from a house call: the published methodology. Every guide is listed on the guides index.