Tooth-fairy inflation: Local parents are giving anything ‘from $5 to $20 to a $50 Sephora gift card’
The payout can vary based on family tradition, location, and what a child’s friends receive from their tooth fairies. “There is also a lot of keeping up with Joneses,” said one local dentist.
The tooth fairy isn’t just giving out 50 cents or a dollar anymore.
Some Philly-area children are waking up to as much as $20 or $50, especially if it’s their first tooth to fall out.
“It varies really depending on the area,” said dentist Daniel Dinowitz of Voorhees Pediatric Dentistry. “The first tooth usually goes a lot higher. I’ve heard anywhere from $5 to $20 to a $50 Sephora gift card.”
At the Pediatric Dental Associates of Philadelphia’s Port Richmond office, dentist Dana Chianese said most of her patients get $4 or $5, but she, too, has heard amounts as “wild” as $20 for a first tooth.
Nationwide, the value of a lost tooth is about $5.01 on average, according to Delta Dental’s 2025 Original Tooth Fairy Poll.
If the tooth fairy’s payouts are a micro-indicator of consumer confidence, parents are feeling 14% less generous than they were last year, when their fairies left $5.84 on average, according to the annual poll. For more than 25 years, the tooth fairy’s munificence — as measured by the online survey of 1,000 parents of 6-to-12-year-olds — has risen and fallen with the stock market.
Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania tooth fairies may be giving more than the sprites of other states: The Dental Care Alliance found that the three states ranked higher than the national average when it came to average tooth-fairy payout, according to a 2022 survey of 1,200 parents nationwide. Delaware ranked first, with a nearly $9 average, the poll found, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania ranked 10th and 13th, respectively, with an average of closer to $5.50.
In New Jersey, the value of a lost tooth has “definitely gone up,” said Dinowitz, who has been practicing in the state for about 12 years. “Part of it is just things go up with time. But I feel like there is also a lot of keeping up with Joneses. People post on social media what they do. Kids talk a lot.”
A decade ago, “if I heard $20, that was a shocker,” he said. “Now, $20 for the first tooth seems like the norm.”
Parents make tough tooth-fairy choices
Parents of children with wiggly teeth have several tooth-fairy decisions to make.
Will they place the reward under their child’s pillow? Or buy a personalized tooth-fairy door knocker, mini house, pillow, door, or wooden box for between $10 and $50?
And how much cash will they give for the first tooth and subsequent ones?
When deciding what’s right for their family, they should keep in mind that each child will lose 20 teeth between the ages of 6 and 12.
Sometimes “the tooth fairy does decide the child doesn’t see the magic anymore,” and stops leaving money, said Chianese, the Philly dentist. Some of her patients stop believing around age 10. But there are “at least eight or 12 baby teeth that the tooth fairy would be in play for.”
Some parents also consider the going rate for their children’s friends and classmates, conferring with other parents or their dentist.
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“A lot of parents go for 5s, 10s, 20s,” said Ardmore mom Alison Marsh. Instead, she carries on a family tradition of leaving a golden $1 Sacagawea coin under her 8-year-old daughter Lily’s pillow.
When Lily’s first tooth fell out a few years ago, Marsh, 28, and her husband stocked up on the rare coins by crowdsourcing their neighbors’ stashes via a local Facebook group. They have since run out of the coins, so cash has had to do.
“We’ll resort to a $5 or a $10 if it’s in our wallet,” Marsh said, and place it in a glittery, see-through bag from the dollar store. Once, Marsh added, they sprinkled glitter between their daughter’s bed and her window, marking the fairy’s path.
“It’s always fun doing those special things,” she said. As for Lily, “she is so excited no matter what it is.”
Cash remains king, at least for the tooth fairy
In Ridley Park, MaryAlice Quinn has stuck exclusively to cash.
She set the precedent with her older two children, who are now 13 and 11, by giving each $20 for their first tooth. The amount wasn’t determined by any calculation or long discussion, she said; “it was actually what was in our wallet” when the first tooth fell.
All subsequent teeth get $5, she said.
“My 11-year-old, I believe she would just rip her teeth out of the mouth once she started seeing the money come in,” Quinn said with a laugh.
With cash not needed for day-to-day transactions anymore, Quinn, 31, said she and her husband have made some late-night Wawa runs just to get tooth-fairy money from the ATM.
Still, she said, she plans to keep the tradition going when her younger children start losing teeth in a couple years. And no, the amount won’t go up due to inflation.
“I don’t want to outshine other tooth fairies,” Quinn said.
In Hatboro, Shalu Markus, 39, gives her children a plush toy, worth $15 or less, for the first tooth, and less than $5 for each subsequent one. Her 7-year-old daughter is saving the money for a trip to London. So far, Markus said, her daughter has $9.
Asked if cash is still king for South Jersey tooth fairies, Dinowitz, the Voorhees dentist, responded quickly with a chuckle: “I think they’re giving Bitcoin now actually.”
Seriously though, he said, “most parents are giving out cash.”
A few parents opt for gift cards or other ways of payment, he added, but “there is nothing better than physically seeing it, having that visual confirmation. … It makes it much more magical for the kid.”
And he said it can teach the children valuable lessons about the value of money and how to save it.