Create a defensible, source-backed case using illustrative workplace mental health cost estimates, transparent assumptions, and a finance-ready brief for an EAP evaluation, budget, or CFO conversation.
What you'll get: annual cost estimates based on your workforce, a sourced comparison, a CFO brief, and prep for finance questions.
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Your organization
Enter what you know. Everything is optional except headcount.
Prefilled from your earlier results, edit anytime.
CFO conversation brief
This diagnostic combines your answers with national research. It identifies costs worth investigating; it does not measure individual employees or establish what caused your organization's costs.
Where it hides
A benefit that looks inexpensive per employee
Who sees it
Your benefits team, as a flat monthly fee
This depends only on price and utilization, not company size.
(PEPM × 12) ÷ utilization, per year. Utilization is entered as a percentage.
Where it hides
Sick days and unplanned time off
Who sees it
Payroll and managers
Based on those national averages, poor mental health could account for about $1,534,000 in unplanned absences across a workforce of 2,500. This is an illustrative estimate, not a finding about your employees.
Employee count × 19% affected × 9.5 additional days × daily cost. Daily cost: $340 for mostly full-time.
Gallup, 2022: 19% of U.S. workers rate their mental health fair or poor. They average nearly 12 unplanned absence days a year, versus 2.5 for other workers. Gallup conservatively estimates each missed day at $340 for full-time workers and $170 for part-time workers.
Where it hides
Recruiting, onboarding and lost continuity
Who sees it
Talent acquisition and finance
The $533 is averaged across total headcount,not charged per departure,and is excluded from the combined total because IBI's detailed derivation is not public.
Employee count × $533 population-averaged annual turnover cost.
Integrated Benefits Institute: its nationally representative workforce analysis reports an average $533 in annual mental-health-related job-turnover cost per employee.
Where it hides
Medical claims. Mental health often shows up as physical health spending.
Who sees it
Your benefits team
Employee count × $510 population-average annual benchmark. This is already averaged across all employees, including those without claims; applying another utilization fraction would double-discount it.
Integrated Benefits Institute: mental health costs employers about $510 per employee per year in healthcare.
Combined illustrative estimate
About $2,809,000 a year.
Includes the absence and healthcare benchmarks. The $1,333,000 turnover reference remains separate.
This is not a measurement of your organization or proof of causation. Validate it against actual absence, claims, leave, attrition and benefit-engagement data. Mental health leave and lost productivity while working are not included.
Depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion a year. Every $1 invested in treatment returns $4 in better health and ability to work. (WHO, 2026; OSHA)
Workforce mix: mostly full-time. Figures are estimates based on the stated formulas and sources.
Reach people earlier. Thoughtful's randomized trial found improvements in measured wellbeing and functioning within two weeks. In customer data from a Fortune 100 insurance carrier, 48% said Thoughtful helped them address something they otherwise would have ignored or handled alone. These findings support evaluating reach and early engagement; they do not predict financial savings.
Evaluate the economics of care. Spring Health research found $2.20 in healthcare savings per $1 invested, rising to about $4.10 when modeled absence and turnover savings were included. The studied Spring Health care models differ from Thoughtful, and these results are not a projection for your organization. (Validation Institute, 2023)
25% fewer missed workdays
among employees who used care
JAMA Network Open, 2022
24% increase in productivity
among employees who used care
JAMA Network Open, 2022
1.6x more likely to stay
employees in care
JAMA Network Open, 2022; Validation Institute, 2023
14% net reduction in total healthcare costs
participants vs. a matched comparison group
JAMA Network Open, 2025
52% reduction in mental health claims costs
Validation Institute, 2025
92% of members improved or recovered
from depression or anxiety
Spring Health, 2025
The return figures come from Spring Health research and are shown as evidence for the economics of investing in care. Percentages apply to employees who used care unless noted. They are not Thoughtful outcomes, a projection, or a guarantee for your organization.
Practical next step
Validate your absence, attrition, leave, claims and benefit-engagement baselines. Then define who support needs to reach and track reach, member outcomes and the workforce measures finance already owns as separate layers of evidence.
We spend about $120,000 a year on our EAP. About 5% of employees use it, which works out to about $960 for each person it helps.
Published national benchmarks and our inputs suggest about $2,809,000 a year in possible absence and healthcare costs, mostly through unplanned absences and healthcare claims. IBI separately estimates $1,333,000 in annual mental-health-related turnover cost across a workforce this size. That population benchmark is not included in the total.
Validate actual absence, leave, claims, benefit engagement and attrition data before using these estimates in a decision.
Evaluate whether support can reach people earlier, then measure reach, member outcomes and selected workforce outcomes separately. Thoughtful research informs the reach and early-support hypothesis; Spring Health studies show the potential economics of investing in care. Neither is a projection for our organization.
Evaluate alternatives before our next renewal.
Low use doesn't mean low need. Traditional EAPs typically reach only 1–5% of employees, and the rest of the need shows up in absences, turnover, and healthcare claims instead.
Traditional EAP use has stayed in the 1–5% range for years, even with promotion. The limit is the model, not the marketing.
Peer-reviewed and independently validated research shows returns across many employers, including 25% fewer missed workdays among people who used care. And we're only asking to evaluate options, not to commit.
Illustrative estimates from published benchmarks and your inputs suggest about $2,809,000 a year in possible costs, mostly through unplanned absences and healthcare claims. This is an illustration, not a measure of your actual costs or their causes.
Finance teams respond to figures they can check. Your brief shows every assumption and source behind the illustrative estimates.
Use it yourself
Take the illustrative estimates and supporting assumptions into budget planning or a finance conversation.
Saves a Word copy of your brief, or copies it as text.
Bring in an advisor
A broker or consultant can test the assumptions against available claims, leave and workforce data.
You send this yourself and attach the downloaded brief. Thoughtful does not contact anyone on your behalf.
Work through it with Thoughtful
Want help putting this into context?
Sense-check the illustrative assumptions and prepare for questions from finance.
A member of the Thoughtful team can help you interpret what you found, identify questions to bring into your next conversation and explore what may be worth looking at more closely.
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