Updated: November 2025 (December 2024 version, September 2023 version)
Our cost-effectiveness analyses are the single most important input into our grant recommendations. We view cost-effectiveness analyses as valuable for helping us identify large differences in the cost-effectiveness of grants we're considering for funding and to encourage staff to think through relevant issues related to organizations' work. However, although we spend significant staff time on our cost-effectiveness analyses, we consider our cost-effectiveness numbers to be extremely rough. We do not make recommendations solely on the basis of cost-effectiveness calculations and will rely heavily on other factors, such as an organization's track record, when we are comparing organizations with cost-effectiveness estimates that are not very different.
Our estimates rely on philosophical values—for example, how to weigh increasing a person's income relative to averting a death—and difficult judgment calls about which we have limited information, such as the likelihood that a program as it is implemented will have the same impact as the program when it was studied. We encourage those who are interested to use this moral weights tool to explore the impact that valuing different outcomes has on cost-effectiveness. We also strongly encourage those who use our research to read more about our approach to cost-effectiveness and our approach to moral weights.
How We Use Cost-Effectiveness Estimates in Our Grantmaking
We use a benchmark to compare the cost-effectiveness of different funding opportunities and measure all programs we evaluate against it. Our benchmark represents the cost-effectiveness of improving lives by giving cash to people living in poverty in low-income countries to purchase things they need. We do not include additional benefits, such as reductions in mortality, improvements to health, or broader economic benefit to the community.
We calculate the benchmark based on the increase in consumption that results from cash transfers—that is, the increased use of goods and services by the recipients. We assume a baseline annual consumption of $2.15 per day (2017 PPP), which was aligned with the World Bank’s poverty threshold at the time we set our benchmark. We think this is broadly representative of many individuals for which GiveWell funds programs.
We maintain a minimum cost-effectiveness threshold, or funding bar, that helps us decide whether to make a grant to a program. For example, we may aim to limit our grantmaking in a given period of time to grants that we estimate are at least 10x our benchmark. This means that we support programs that we estimate accomplish 10 times as much good as our benchmark for the same amount of money.
Due to the large amount of needs in global health and our limited funding to help, we maintain an exceptionally high cost-effectiveness bar, and this threshold changes periodically. One of the factors that can cause us to update the threshold is the amount of funding that we expect to have available for granting in a given year. When we anticipate having more funding, we may be able to lower the cost-effectiveness bar, to include additional excellent opportunities that we think are comparatively less cost-effective. When we project having less funding, we may decide to raise the funding threshold, in order to prioritize only the most cost-effective opportunities we find.
As of November 2025, our bar for funding programs is 8x our benchmark.
Prior to November 2025, we used a benchmark that we described as multiples of “cash.” While we’ve changed how we calculate our benchmark, the value of that benchmark remains similar, which means cost-effectiveness estimates remain comparable across the old and new approaches. As a result, cost-effectiveness of programs that we previously estimated to be “1x cash” are similar to programs that are “1x our benchmark.”1
The previous benchmark was based on GiveDirectly’s flagship unconditional cash transfers program. We changed this benchmark to distinguish our benchmark from GiveDirectly’s unconditional cash transfers program. Based on new research, we now estimate that program to be three to four times more cost-effective than we thought before (three to four times our new benchmark) and no longer use it as the basis for our benchmark.
Note that our cost-effectiveness analyses are simplified models that do not take into account a number of factors. While they are a valuable tool, there are limitations to this kind of approach, and we believe that cost-effectiveness estimates should not be taken literally due to the significant uncertainty around them. We provide these estimates (a) for comparative purposes to other grants we have made or considered making, and (b) because working on them helps us ensure that we are thinking through as many of the relevant issues as possible. Our process for estimating cost-effectiveness focuses on determining whether a program is cost-effective enough to consider funding (that is, whether it is above our cost-effectiveness bar); it isn't primarily intended to differentiate between values that are above that threshold.
Our cost-effectiveness models
Cost-effectiveness models for GiveWell's Top Charities can be accessed via the links below:
- Malaria Consortium's Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Program
- Against Malaria Foundation
- Helen Keller Intl's Vitamin A Supplementation Program
- New Incentives
Cost-effectiveness models for other programs are linked from the summary sections of the program reviews (for example, see the link after the table in this section).
For past cost-effectiveness analyses, see the previous version of this page.
An extensive document about our cost-effectiveness analysis, primarily intended for staff members at GiveWell, is publicly accessible here.
- 1Our previous benchmark calculated units of value per dollar at approximately 0.003, based on modeling the cost-effectiveness of GiveDirectly’s flagship unconditional cash transfer program. Under our new approach, we calculate the benchmark differently but arrive at a similar result: We estimate the cost to double consumption for someone living at the $2.15 per day (2017 PPP) poverty line, and we define doubling their consumption as 1 unit of value under our moral weights. This also equates to approximately 0.003 units of value per dollar. Part of the reason we adopted this approach is because it produces a benchmark similar to our previous one, preserving continuity in our cost-effectiveness assessments. While the underlying methodology has changed, both approaches arrive at similar values and programs maintain their cost-effectiveness ratings. This benchmark also provides a more stable reference point that doesn’t require updates to reflect changes in GiveDirectly’s program or its cost-effectiveness over time.