Do not let the renewal date make the decision for you.
Before renewing a wellness vendor, use this wellness vendor renewal checklist to review what employees actually used, how much work the program created for HR, who could access it, what the reporting can honestly show, and what next year will cost. Ask the vendor for evidence before the meeting, then decide whether to keep, renegotiate, or replace the service.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: 10 quick checks
Use these ten checks in your corporate wellness renewal review:
- Eligible population: Who could use the program during the review period?
- Participation definition: What action made someone an active participant?
- Repeat use: How many participants returned after their first activity?
- Completion: What did employees complete, and over what period?
- Distribution: Was use spread across teams, locations, schedules, and workplace models?
- HR workload: How much setup, communication, support, and reporting time did the program require?
- Access: Which languages, devices, formats, and accessibility options were available?
- Reporting: Could HR understand program use without exposing individual employees or very small groups?
- Support: How quickly and clearly did the vendor handle issues?
- Full cost: What will renewal cost once fees, internal time, unused features, and required changes are included?
Send this wellness vendor renewal checklist to the vendor before the review. A meeting is much more useful when the evidence is already on the table.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: define participation
Participation should be the first test because vague engagement language can hide weak use.
Ask for the numerator, denominator, action, and period behind every rate:
- Numerator: Which employees were counted as participants?
- Denominator: All eligible employees, registered employees, invited employees, or another group?
- Action: Registration, login, content view, completed activity, or something else?
- Period: One day, one month, one challenge, one quarter, or the full contract year?
“Seventy people participated” means little without context. Seventy out of 100 eligible employees completing an activity in one month is different from 70 out of 400 registered employees logging in once during a year.
Choose the definition that matches the job you hired the vendor to do. Then use the same definition across every reporting period and every vendor under consideration. Keep that definition beside the wellness vendor renewal checklist so every option gets the same test.
Fegud’s published guide on how to compare employee participation across wellness platforms separates registration, active participation, repeat participation, and completion. Use those distinctions in the renewal meeting instead of accepting one blended engagement number.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: review repeat use
A first visit can tell you the launch reached someone. It cannot tell you whether the program became part of the month.
Ask for a simple participation table by month:
| Review field | What to request |
|---|---|
| Eligible employees | Count and eligibility rule for each month |
| Active participants | Count using one stated action |
| Repeat participants | People active in more than one period |
| Completed activities | Total and average per active participant |
| Participation by workplace group | Aggregated view by location, schedule, or team where group size permits |
| Participation trend | Month-by-month view using consistent definitions |
Look for patterns, not a flattering high point. Did use fall after launch? Did a new communication push bring people back? Did one office account for most activity while deskless or remote employees barely appeared? Did a feature attract registrations but no repeat use?
The wellness vendor renewal checklist should also test distribution because an overall number can look healthy while whole parts of the company are missing. Review in-office, hybrid, remote, freelance, and deskless access where those groups exist in your workforce. Keep the reporting aggregated. The goal is to find friction, not identify who did or did not take part.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: count HR time
The invoice is only one part of the cost.
Estimate internal time by phase:
- Setup: Eligibility files, approvals, integrations, configuration, and launch planning
- Communication: Emails, workplace chat posts, print materials, manager notes, and reminders
- Employee support: Access questions, password issues, eligibility corrections, and activity questions
- Monthly administration: Content changes, participation review, prizes, local coordination, and vendor meetings
- Renewal: Data gathering, stakeholder review, budget work, and procurement
Ask the people who ran the program, not only the person who signed the contract. Ten minutes of admin in a sales deck can become several hours once HR is chasing files, answering employee questions, and rebuilding reports.
Now review features. Mark each one as used, planned but unused, or not needed. An unused feature is not automatically wasted money. It may have been poorly introduced, hard to access, or irrelevant to the workforce. The next question is what it would take to make it useful. If the answer is another large implementation project, put that effort into the renewal decision.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: check access
A program cannot earn broad participation if employees cannot reach it in a practical way.
Review the actual experience for each employee group:
- Which devices and browsers are supported?
- Is there an option for employees who do not sit at a computer?
- Can people take part through the channels they already use?
- Which languages are available across the full experience, not only the launch email?
- Are captions, readable documents, keyboard access, and non-video formats available where needed?
- Are there alternatives to movement-based or socially demanding activities?
- Can employees take part across time zones and varied schedules?
- What happens when an employee cannot or does not want to complete a specific activity?
Do not settle for a yes or no on accessibility. Use the W3C WCAG overview to frame the digital-accessibility discussion, then ask the vendor to show the relevant experience. Then compare it with the barriers employees and administrators actually reported during the year.
This review is about fit. No single format will suit every person. A credible vendor should make choices and alternatives clear rather than putting the burden on an employee to ask publicly for a different route.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: review reporting
The renewal review needs evidence about program use. It does not need individual health information.
Ask the vendor to show:
- Eligible employee counts
- Aggregated active and repeat participation
- Completed activities by period
- Aggregated participation across sufficiently sized workplace groups
- Report definitions and date ranges
- Suppression rules for very small groups
- Who can access each report
- How exports and administrator access are controlled
The wellness vendor renewal checklist should reject reports that name employees, display tiny groups, or invite managers to infer personal health information. If a breakdown creates a real chance that someone can identify an individual, use a larger group or leave that breakdown out.
Keep the wellness vendor renewal checklist operational: can HR see where access or communication may be failing without turning wellness participation into employee surveillance? The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s workplace privacy guidance is a useful starting point, but confirm the rules that apply to your organization.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: compare costs
Put three numbers beside each option:
- Cost to renew: Vendor fees, expected add-ons, support, integrations, communication, and internal administration for the next term.
- Cost to improve: Changes required to address weak participation, access problems, reporting gaps, or heavy HR workload.
- Cost to switch: Procurement, implementation, data work, communication, training, transition support, and any overlap between vendors.
A lower renewal quote does not fix a program employees do not use. And a better alternative may still be the wrong move if the implementation plan is unrealistic for this quarter.
Keep the financial calculation in its own worksheet. Fegud’s guide to measure employee wellness ROI covers the calculation job, and the employee wellness ROI calculator helps you test the numbers. This checklist is for deciding what evidence belongs in the room and what each option would require.
Also review the contract details with the appropriate internal owner. Confirm dates, notice periods, term length, pricing changes, included services, data handling steps, and transition responsibilities from the actual agreement. This article is a meeting checklist, not legal advice.
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: run the meeting
Invite the people who can speak to use, workload, technical fit, and budget. For a 100 to 500 employee company, that may include HR or People Ops, the day-to-day program owner, IT, procurement, internal communications, and a small number of employee or manager representatives where appropriate.
Use the same four-part format for every option:
Keep
Keep the vendor when participation evidence is clear, repeat use is acceptable to your team, the program reaches the workforce you intended to serve, administration is manageable, support works, and next year’s cost fits the value you can document.
Renegotiate
Renegotiate when the core program is useful but the current agreement or operating model is getting in the way. Ask for specific changes such as a different package, clearer support terms, better reporting, language coverage, implementation help, fewer unused features, or a defined improvement plan.
Replace
Consider replacement when participation remains weak under an honest definition, major employee groups cannot access the program, reporting cannot answer basic use questions, support problems continue, or the work required to repair the program is larger than a realistic switch.
Decide later, with a deadline
Sometimes the wellness vendor renewal checklist exposes incomplete evidence. Assign each missing item to an owner and set a decision date. “We need more data” is reasonable. Letting the contract renew because nobody named the missing data is not.
Copyable wellness vendor renewal checklist
Copy this into your review document.
Evidence to request before the meeting
- [ ] Eligible employees by month and the eligibility rule
- [ ] Active participants by month and the exact participation definition
- [ ] Repeat participation using a stated period
- [ ] Completed activities by month
- [ ] Aggregated participation by relevant workplace group where group size permits
- [ ] Support tickets or issue themes, response times, and unresolved items
- [ ] Feature-use summary
- [ ] Administrator and employee access requirements
- [ ] Language and accessibility options
- [ ] Current fees, renewal fees, add-ons, and implementation charges
Questions to answer in the meeting
- [ ] Did employees do more than register or log in once?
- [ ] Was participation sustained beyond launch?
- [ ] Could all intended employee groups access the program?
- [ ] Which barriers showed up repeatedly?
- [ ] How much HR and IT time did the program require?
- [ ] Which paid features were unused, and why?
- [ ] Did reporting show program use clearly without exposing individuals?
- [ ] What must change next year?
- [ ] What will renewal, improvement, and replacement each require?
- [ ] Is the recommendation to keep, renegotiate, replace, or gather named evidence by a set date?
Wellness vendor renewal checklist: if participation fails
Start with the evidence, not the sales pitch. Write down the participation definition your company will use, the employee groups the next program must reach, the administration time HR can support, and the reporting you need.
Then compare the incumbent with realistic alternatives. If monthly self-care bingo fits the job, review Fegud for Teams against the same checklist. Fegud is built for HR and People teams that want employees to complete practical self-care activities, not just enroll in another benefit.
The renewal date is not a verdict. This wellness vendor renewal checklist gives HR a fair way to ask whether the program earned another year.
