Welfare, fringe benefits in SMEs up 90% in one year
According to the Amilon Observatory, there are signs of a strong acceleration in small and medium-sized enterprises: an average of 170 euro of fringe benefits per employee. Last year it was 90 euro. 52% of employees' choices fall on spending and petrol, a figure that is up by 7% on 2024
Corporate welfare is also growing in small and medium-sized enterprises, where the Amilon SME 2025 Observatory has recorded a 90% increase in the sums disbursed in one year, in the wake of the regulatory push that has progressively incentivised the use of fringe benefits, making them an instrument that is also accessible to smaller companies, and the cultural leap of recent years that has created a new entrepreneurial awareness. That is, that employee welfare becomes a lever to foster productivity, loyalty and attractiveness. Although this is true above all for Northern Italy and less so for the Centre and South of the country, according to the picture that emerged from the Amilon SME 2025 Observatory, which analysed the digital reward and incentive solutions of a panel of 5,000 VAT numbers on the B2B platform GiftCardStore, an e-commerce portal specialising in the distribution of digital fringe benefits for small and medium-sized enterprises. "The trend tells more than just a market dynamic: it indicates a cultural change in the way SMEs choose to support and value their people. It is a bottom-up welfare model that starts close to the workers and grows together with the companies, becoming more and more widespread, solid and aware," analyses Federico Corticelli, Head of Marketing & E-commerce at Amilon.
The growth of fringe benefits
The figures speak of a 90 per cent growth in the amount that companies pay out to employees in the form of fringe benefits: from EUR 90 in 2024 to EUR 170 this year. Also on the rise is the average order of companies, which has increased by 80% over last year. In addition, the number of companies providing these benefits is growing by 25%. With a retention of 36% year on year. At the sector level, it is the manufacturing sector, which includes engineering, electrical equipment, textiles, components/automation, and food, that is the main user of digital fringe benefit solutions with 45%, followed by business services (training, consulting, IT, catering and communication) with 25%. In third place, both with 8%, are the trade and healthcare sector and non-profit organisations. These percentages confirm that interest in fringe benefits has now spread well beyond the service-intensive sectors. Corporate welfare is no longer, therefore, only a prerogative of large corporations: SMEs are now also driving its evolution, thanks also to the spread of digital platforms that have made the provision of fringe benefits simpler, more immediate and accessible
The choice of goods and services
Among goods and services, more than 52% of choices are concentrated between groceries and large-scale distribution, which drains almost a quarter of spending (26.4%, up 4% on 2024), while another quarter is drained by petrol and mobility (25.8%, up 3% on last year). These figures describe an evolution of welfare towards an everyday utility dimension, where fringe benefits are used to support essential household consumption. It is a trend reflecting the impact of inflation and an increasing focus on primary expenditure management. In third place are e-commerce marketplaces (16%), followed by electronics shops (8%) and fashion and accessories (7%). "Workers' choices show a well-established trend: corporate welfare has become a concrete tool to support purchasing power," Corticelli comments. The use of fringe benefits is increasingly oriented towards essential goods and services, a sign of a new awareness in the use of available resources. It is a change that companies are accompanying with advanced and immediate digital tools, capable of responding to people's real needs'.
The territorial split
From a geographical point of view, there is a strong split: within the panel of companies analysed, the North groups 83% of the VAT parcels with the Centre at 10% and the South at 7%. This distribution reflects both the concentration of production activities in the northern districts and a more mature level of familiarity with the use of digital tools for the management of fringe benefits where the greater grouping of SMEs in the North drives the adoption of digital incentive solutions.
