Meeting Cost Calculator

A meeting has a price: the combined hourly cost of everyone in the room for as long as it runs. Seeing that number tick up in real time is the quickest way to notice that a weekly hour with twelve people is a five-figure annual expense, and to decide whether it earns that.

How the running cost is calculated

Cost = Σ (each attendee's hourly cost) × duration in hours. Hourly cost is annual salary ÷ working hours per year (about 2,080 for full-time), and a fully loaded figure — salary plus benefits, taxes and overhead, typically 1.25–1.4× salary — is closer to what the meeting really costs the organisation. The timer accepts either an average rate for everyone or individual rates, and updates by the second while it runs.

When to use this calculator

Use it to size recurring meetings, which are where most of the cost hides: multiply the per-meeting figure by the number of occurrences a year before deciding whether a standing invite should be trimmed, shortened, or replaced with a written update. Use it live on a screen during a meeting that habitually overruns; it changes behaviour without anyone having to be the person who says so. Compare the cost against the decision the meeting produced, not against zero — a $900 meeting that unblocks a project is cheap.

Worked example

Eight people with an average salary of $85,000 attend a 60-minute weekly status meeting. At $85,000 ÷ 2,080 ≈ $41 an hour each, the meeting costs about $327 an hour in salary alone, roughly $425 fully loaded. Over 48 weeks that is $15,700 in salary or about $20,400 loaded. Cutting it to 30 minutes and four attendees brings the annual figure to around $2,500.

Frequently asked questions