Why meetings are expensive
A meeting does not cost one hour, it costs one hour for every person in it. A one-hour meeting with eight people uses eight hours of paid work time, a full working day of one person. Because nobody gets an invoice for it, that cost is easy to miss, and it grows quietly when a meeting is booked as a recurring series and stays on the calendar long after its purpose has faded.
The direct cost is only part of it. People need time to prepare, to get back into focused work afterwards and to follow up. A meeting in the middle of the morning can break up the longest stretch of time someone had for deep work that day. This calculator counts only the time in the meeting itself, so treat the result as the lower limit.
The formula
2,080 is the number of working hours in a year with 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. For recurring meetings, the calculator counts 260 meetings a year for daily (workdays only), 52 for weekly, 26 for biweekly and 12 for monthly.
What a meeting costs at $50 an hour
Cost per meeting by team size and length, with an average rate of $50 an hour per attendee and no overhead:
| Attendees | 15 minutes | 30 minutes | 60 minutes | 60 minutes weekly, per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | $37.50 | $75 | $150 | $7,800 |
| 5 | $62.50 | $125 | $250 | $13,000 |
| 8 | $100 | $200 | $400 | $20,800 |
| 12 | $150 | $300 | $600 | $31,200 |
How to cut the cost of meetings
- Make the default shorter. Many calendars book 30 or 60 minutes by default, and meetings tend to fill the time they are given. Try 15, 25 or 45 minutes and end early when you are done.
- Invite fewer attendees. Every extra person adds their full rate for the whole meeting. Invite the people who need to decide or contribute, and send notes to everyone else.
- Share an agenda first. A short agenda with the decision you need lets people prepare, keeps the meeting on track and shows when a meeting is not needed at all.
- Move status updates to writing. Updates that only need reading work well in a shared document or a chat thread, and people can read them when it suits them.
- Review recurring meetings. Look at your recurring series every few months. Make them less frequent, shorter or cancel the ones that no longer have a clear purpose. A small saving on a weekly meeting adds up over a year.
How to use the meeting cost calculator
- 1Add a group for each kind of attendee with the number of people and their hourly rate or annual salary. Add more groups for different roles.
- 2Set the duration in minutes, choose how often the meeting repeats and, if you like, add a percentage for benefits and overhead.
- 3Read the cost of the meeting, the cost per minute and the cost per year. Press Start on the live ticker when the meeting begins to watch the cost add up in real time.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Add up the hourly rate of everyone in the room, multiply by the length of the meeting in hours, and add overhead if you want the full cost. Six people at $50 an hour in a 60-minute meeting cost 6 × $50 × 1 = $300, which is $5 for every minute.
How do I turn an annual salary into an hourly rate?
Divide the salary by 2,080, the number of working hours in a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. A $104,000 salary is $50 an hour. Paid vacation and holidays are inside those 2,080 hours, so the real cost per hour actually worked is a bit higher.
Should I include benefits and overhead?
If you want the real cost to the company, yes. On top of salary an employer pays for benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, software and office space, so the loaded cost of an employee is often well above the salary. Enter a percentage for that in the overhead field. Leave it at 0 to count pay only.
How is the yearly cost of a recurring meeting worked out?
The cost of one meeting is multiplied by how often it happens in a year: 260 times for a daily meeting (5 workdays for 52 weeks), 52 for weekly, 26 for every two weeks and 12 for monthly. Holidays and cancellations are not taken out, so the real figure can be a little lower.
Is the live ticker accurate if I switch tabs or my screen locks?
Yes. It does not add up small steps, it works out the cost from the time that has passed since you pressed Start. If the browser pauses the page in the background, the number jumps to the right value as soon as you come back. If you change attendees during the meeting, the new rate applies from that moment on.