An Employee Assistance Programme is an external service many employers hire to support their employee’s mental health, through access to a free helpline or counselling and other benefits depending on the provider.

The programme offers confidential, anonymous, and secure counselling to the staff, since it’s an external service many employees feel safer to use it, than other mental health support internal to their companies.

These services will help employees find advice and support, that will help them deal with their work related or non-related problems.

An EAP is a smart investment for companies since it’s proven to be a cost-effective approach that helps solve in advance issues that could end in a short or long term absence. It is also proven that  that for every £1 spent on an EAP, UK employers see an average ROI of £8.00 (October 2021).

Are EAPs free?  

An EAP is a free service for the members of staff of a company. This benefit is covered by the organization, paying usually a fee per employee or per counselling sessions.

Making the use of the service completely free for the employees.

How much does an EAP cost in the UK?

The cost of an EAP depends on different factors, mainly focused on the number of employees, the type of programme, and any special needs the company may require.

There are different pricing options when it comes to hiring an EAP. Therefore, some providers will charge “per use” or “per session”, with a set-up fee. This option might be a good fit for smaller companies or to those who want to test the service usage before committing to a yearly EAP fixed plan.

Usually, a Pay As You Go service will not have all the services as an EAP and will just focus on supporting and advising the employees through a helpline and online or face-to-face counselling sessions. This is an example of a Pay As You Go Staff Counselling service.

Other options are EAP Fixed Plans where the prices are fixed. Usually, providers will offer different plans from cheaper and simple to more expensive and advanced ones. The pricing range is £5 to £15 per employee per year, depending on the provider, the plan and the company factors.

For example, our EAP prices for companies with 60 to 100 employees start at £0.50 per employee per month, which is £6 a year and end on £1.50, £18 per year.

Therefore, if you want to support 100 employees then a Complete EAP Fixed Plan will cost you £1,200 a year.

Usually, the more employees that you plan on supporting the prices will decrease enormously. A company with more employees tends to have more benefits for the employees and one of them is an Employee Assistance Programme. According to EAPA, 95% of companies with more than 5,000 employees have an EAP in the organization.