Free stipend & benefits tools
for HR teams
Plan a smarter stipend or LSA with free calculators, policy builders, and benefits benchmarks. Size your budget, compare program models, draft a policy, and see how your benefits stack up against other companies.
Built by Compt using real benefits data and the same expertise behind our flexible benefits platform.
8 tools. Free to use. No login required. (really)
Start here
Start with the two questions most teams need to answer first: what should our program look like, and how does it compare?
Build
Stipend & Lifestyle Spending Account Policy Builder
Answer a few questions about your program and get a draft stipend policy covering eligibility, budgets, categories, reimbursement rules, and tax considerations.
- A draft policy with eligibility, budget, category, and reimbursement rules
- Taxability guidance by category
- A checklist of decisions to finalize before launch
Benchmark
Benefits Benchmark Tool
See how your stipend budget, categories, and participation compare with companies of your size and industry using Compt’s benefits benchmark data.
- Where your budget per employee sits versus the median
- Which categories similar companies fund
- A shareable summary for leadership
Calculators
Quick calculators for answering the numbers questions behind your benefits strategy.
Stipend program cost
For sizing a program and choosing how to deliver it.
Stipend Paycheck Cost Calculator
Compare the cost of paying a stipend through payroll versus reimbursing eligible expenses, including employer and employee tax impact.
About 2 minutes
Perks Vendor Cost Calculator
See what you’re spending across individual perks vendors and compare it with the cost of consolidating into one flexible stipend.
About 3 minutes
Workforce cost
For building the retention case before you build the program.
Employee Retention Rate Calculator
Work out your annual retention rate from headcount and departures, and see how it compares to industry averages.
About 1 minute
Cost of Employee Turnover Calculator
Estimate what each departure costs in recruiting, ramp time, and lost output, and what that adds up to per year.
About 2 minutes
Restaurant Industry Turnover Cost Calculator
The turnover calculator with restaurant-specific wage, tenure, and hiring assumptions built in.
About 2 minutes
Cost of Delay Calculator
Estimate the potential cost of delaying a stipend program based on turnover and retention assumptions.
About 1 minute
Turn the plan into a program.
These tools help you make the decisions that shape a stipend or LSA: who’s eligible, what’s covered, how much to offer, and how the program should work.
Compt takes those decisions and turns them into a program employees can actually use, with policy controls, reimbursement workflows, payroll-ready reporting, and integrations with the systems your team already uses.
Our benchmark tools use Compt’s benefits data, and our policy guidance reflects the same program design expertise behind the platform.
Common questions
How much should a lifestyle stipend be?
There isn’t one standard stipend amount. Budgets vary by company size, industry, program type, and funding cadence. In Compt’s 2026 benchmark data, average annual budgets ranged from about $649 per employee at companies with 1,000+ employees to about $1,675 at companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Use the Benefits Benchmark Tool to compare your budget with companies like yours.
Is it cheaper to put stipend in paychecks or reimburse them?
Reimbursement can be more cost-efficient than adding a stipend directly to payroll, depending on the program and tax treatment. Payroll stipends may create employer payroll tax costs and employee tax withholding, while reimbursement-based programs only pay out when employees actually use the benefit.
The Stipend Paycheck Cost Calculator lets you compare the two approaches using your own headcount and budget.
What should a stipend policy include?
A stipend policy should define who is eligible, what expenses qualify, how much employees can spend, when funds are available, how reimbursement works, receipt deadlines, and how taxable expenses are handled.
The Policy Builder walks you through each decision and produces a draft you can review internally.
Do I need to give you my email to use these tools?
No. You can use the tools on this page without creating an account or filling out a form. Some tools may give you the option to email yourself your results, but that’s optional.
How often is the benchmark data updated?
What's the difference between a stipend and a lifestyle spending account?
A stipend is a budget an employer gives employees for a specific purpose or set of purposes. A lifestyle spending account, or LSA, is a flexible employer-funded benefit that can cover multiple lifestyle categories under one program.
In practice, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The right structure depends on what you want to fund, how much flexibility employees should have, and how you plan to administer reimbursements.
You’ve planned the program. Now see how easy it can be to run
Take a look at how Compt handles the day-to-day work behind flexible stipends and LSAs.