Office Plant ROI Calculator

Your workplace

Number of employees

Office days per week

Business metrics

Use my business figures

Average annual salary: $78,532
Revenue per employee: $444,342
Net profit margin: 8.5%

Canadian benchmarks · CAD. Sources and context

Your plant budget

Starting amounts are examples, not a quote.

Initial setup (CAD)

Monthly care (CAD)

Adjust assumptions 15% productivity increase in the study · 35% of work affected · Some existing plants

Productivity reference

The Exeter task study reported 15% in one short-task experiment, not an annual gain.

Calculation approach

Use my own work coverage

Applies the reference to 35% of in-office work. Planning assumption.

Existing greenery

Reduces the reference by 5%. Planning assumption.

Optional financial conversion

Capacity converted to financial value (%) (optional)

Only enter a share if you have a credible way to turn that capacity into cost savings or additional financial value. This is your assumption.

Please enable JavaScript to calculate your estimate. You can still read how the model works below or talk to JOMO about your office plant plan.

Your office plant ROI estimate CAD · year one

Potential annual productivity value

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Salary-weighted capacity, not cash savings.

First-year plant cost: —
Capacity-based return: —
Break-even task uplift: —

Capacity and plant cost

Illustrative capacity value

First-year plant cost

Capacity value less plant cost: —
Annual care budget: —
Capacity-to-cost ratio: —

Revenue-based profit scenario

An alternative way to value the same productivity scenario using revenue and net margin.

Illustrative annual profit value: —
Return on first-year plant cost: —
Setup payback after care: —

Revenue × the selected uplift × net margin, adjusted for attendance, work coverage and existing greenery. Average net margin is a planning proxy for incremental profit. This alternative is not added to capacity value.

What’s behind this estimate

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Reference × work coverage × office attendance × environment = modelled annual effect.

Applied to annual salary for capacity, and to annual revenue × net margin for the separate profit scenario. Work coverage and environment adjustments are planning assumptions; average net margin is a proxy for incremental profit.

Let's talk about your space

Estimates are provided for planning purposes and reflect the selected inputs and assumptions. Actual outcomes will vary with your workplace, tasks and plant design. Productivity gains and financial returns are not guaranteed.

How this estimate works

This calculator helps you explore how improved task performance could compare with the cost of bringing plants into your office.

It shows two ways to value the same scenario:

Productivity value: potential additional work capacity, valued using salary. This represents the value of work capacity rather than cash or payroll savings.
Profit scenario: an alternative estimate using revenue per employee and net profit margin. The two values are shown separately and are not added together.

Your estimate accounts for team size, office attendance, the share of work affected and existing greenery. These adjustments help you explore a scenario suited to your workplace.

Canadian wage and business benchmarks provide starting figures. The salary benchmark is $78,532, based on annualized 2025 full-time average weekly wages. Revenue per paid job is $444,342 and aggregate net profit margin is 8.5%, based on 2024 corporate totals. These broad national figures can be replaced with your own salary, revenue and margin to make the estimate more relevant to your business. Wage source; corporate source.

First-year plant cost includes setup and 12 months of care. Returns compare each scenario’s value after first-year plant cost with that cost. Setup payback compares setup cost with monthly profit value after care; it is available when monthly profit value exceeds monthly care cost.

The calculation

Capacity value = employees × annual salary × (office days ÷ 5) × work coverage × task uplift × environment multiplier.

Profit scenario = employees × annual revenue per employee × (office days ÷ 5) × work coverage × task uplift × environment multiplier × net profit margin.

Calculation approach sets work coverage: Optimistic 100%, Realist 35% or Sceptic 10%, with a custom share available. Existing greenery adjusts the incremental uplift by a relative reduction of 0%, 5% or 15%. These weights are planning assumptions. Percentages are converted to fractions in the calculation.

Optional financial conversion uses the share of capacity you select as an additional, separate scenario. The financial calculation focuses on task performance and assigns no savings to wellbeing, sick leave, retention or air quality.

What the research can tell us

Research provides useful starting points for exploring how greenery can contribute to the workplace.

Exeter · 15% task improvement. Nieuwenhuis and colleagues reported improved performance on specific office tasks in one experiment. Results varied across settings, including a separate call-centre experiment with no measured productivity improvement.
Washington State · 12% faster response. Lohr and colleagues found quicker reaction times on a short computer task when plants were present. This finding relates to task response speed among mostly student participants in a windowless lab.
Illustrative · 8% task improvement. An additional planning assumption for comparison, rather than a published study result.

Research also points to benefits beyond task performance. A Dutch workplace study found improvements in workspace attractiveness, satisfaction and some comfort measures. Those benefits are presented separately without assigning financial savings.

The calculator uses task findings as references for annual scenarios. Work coverage and existing-greenery adjustments are planning assumptions.

Office plant ROI calculator

Business metrics

Calculation approach

Existing greenery