A team of fifteen is not a small version of a team of five hundred. At five hundred you are buying a logistics exercise and the gift is necessarily generic. At fifteen you can give something specific to each person — and that is the only real advantage a small team has, so wasting it on branded diaries is the mistake worth avoiding.
Why the standard corporate gift fails
The branded diary, the branded bottle, the hamper. They fail for a reason that has nothing to do with quality: the logo makes it about the company, not the person.
An employee receiving a branded object understands they were given a marketing asset. It is not offensive, it is just inert — and at fifteen people, inert is a choice rather than a constraint.
| 500 people | 15 people | |
|---|---|---|
| Practical ceiling | Generic, logistics-led | Specific, person-led |
| What works | A good hamper, well chosen | Something about their actual year |
| Branding | Expected | Optional, and usually better left off |
| Per-head budget | ₹300–800 | ₹500–1,500 |
The three occasions genuinely worth spending on
Not every occasion needs a gift. These three do the most work.
A departure after real tenure. Someone leaving after four years. This is the single highest-return corporate gift there is, and the standard answer — a card everyone signs — is genuinely poor. Twenty colleagues contributing one photograph and one specific line produces a record they keep for a decade.
A team milestone. Shipping the thing, hitting the number, surviving the year. A record of the project — the whiteboard, the late evenings, the launch — is unusual enough to land and cheap enough to justify.
Diwali, if you do it properly. Diwali corporate gifting in India is enormous and almost entirely interchangeable. Something specific to the year the team actually had is the one version that gets remembered.
Personalised gifts by occasion →
What to give
| Idea | Suits | Ours |
|---|---|---|
| A farewell book, one line per colleague | A departure | 16–24pp, ₹599–699 |
| A record of the project or year | A milestone | 16–32pp, ₹599–899 |
| Print sets for desks | A whole team, individually | ₹270 each |
| A card deck of the year | A team that likes an object | From ₹999 |
| A diary, unbranded | Something genuinely used | ₹699–1,299 |
Flat ₹70 delivery per address, anywhere in India — which matters when a distributed team needs fifteen separate deliveries rather than one.
Distributed teams
Most small teams are now partly remote, and this changes the maths more than people expect.
Ship individually, to home addresses. Shipping fifteen items to an office for someone to redistribute means a second round of postage, delay, and two people who never collect theirs.
Collect addresses early and privately. This is the step that runs late. Ask three weeks out, not three days.
₹70 per address, flat. No metro pricing, no surcharge for a remote pin code.
Lead times, honestly
5 to 14 days from order to doorstep, 5 to 12 to Delhi NCR. We dispatch once a week, on Mondays, so ordering by a Friday rather than over a weekend can save a full week.
For a bulk order, add time for the two things that always run late: collecting addresses and collecting contributions if colleagues are supplying photographs or lines. Three weeks total is comfortable; Diwali season needs more, because everyone in the country is ordering at once.
The personalised gift buying checklist →
GST and invoicing
Give us your GSTIN before the order is placed, not after — adding it to an invoice after payment is not something any seller should do casually.
Whether your business can claim input tax credit on goods given as gifts depends on your registration and how the gifting is recorded. That is a question for your accountant, and we deliberately do not publish rates or thresholds here because they move with the Finance Act.
When we are the wrong supplier
Above about a hundred units. A hand-design process is not what large-volume gifting is for. A bulk vendor will beat us on unit price and turnaround, and we would say so.
When you need it branded prominently. We can include a logo, but the whole argument above is that logos work against what makes these land. If branding is the requirement, buy a good branded object from someone who does that well.
When it is next week. There is a design and proofing stage before anything prints.
When the team is new. A personalised record of a team that formed four months ago has nothing to record. Buy something good and ordinary.
Frequently asked
What is a good corporate gift for a small team in India? Something specific to the year the team actually had, rather than a branded object. For a departure, a book with one photograph and one line from each colleague.
How much should we spend per person? ₹500 to ₹1,500 for a team of 10 to 50. Below ₹400 a well-chosen ordinary item beats a thin custom one.
Can you deliver to individual home addresses? Yes — flat ₹70 per address to any pin code in India. For distributed teams that is usually better than shipping in bulk to an office.
How far ahead should we order? Three weeks, including time to collect addresses and any contributions. Diwali season needs longer.
Can we get a GST invoice? Yes — send your GSTIN before placing the order. Whether you can claim credit on it is a question for your accountant.
Part of our guide to gifting for large teams. See also: corporate gifting budget per employee and branded vs personalised corporate gifts. See also: farewell gifts and group gifting and the buying checklist.
For teams and bulk orders: Corporate & bulk gifting · Photo magazines from ₹499 · All 11 keepsakes