Every meeting has a price tag. Nobody sees an invoice for it, so it is easy to forget. Add who is in the room, what they earn and how often you meet, and this calculator shows what the meeting costs each time, what it adds up to over a year, and how much you would save by making it shorter, smaller or less frequent.
How the meeting cost is calculated
The calculator follows the same steps a finance team would use:
- Hourly rate. Annual salaries are divided by paid hours a year (2,080 by default, which is 40 hours × 52 weeks). Hourly rates are used as they are.
- Room rate. The hourly rates of everyone attending are added together.
- Loaded cost. The room rate is multiplied by a loaded-cost factor (1.4 by default) to cover benefits and payroll taxes, not just pay.
- Cost per meeting. Loaded room rate × meeting length in hours, plus any prep or refocus time you add.
- Cost per year. Cost per meeting × meetings a year. Daily meetings count 5 a week, and recurring meetings run for 48 weeks by default.
Example: eight people on $75,000 a year in a 30-minute weekly meeting. Each earns about $36.06 an hour, so the room costs $288 an hour in pay, or $404 an hour once benefits are included. Half an hour costs about $202, and 48 meetings a year add up to about $9,700.
Why the loaded cost matters
A salary understates what an hour of someone’s time costs the business. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey for June 2026 found that wages and salaries were 70.0% of private-industry compensation costs, and benefits were the other 30.0%. That is where the default multiplier of about 1.4 comes from. If your benefits package is leaner or richer, or you are outside the US, change it under Advanced assumptions.
Five ways to bring the number down
- Shorten the default. Book 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 or 60. The calculator’s “Cut it by” line shows what that is worth over a year.
- Invite fewer people. Anyone who only needs the outcome can read the notes. See how to hold really effective meetings for a “who needs to be there” test.
- Meet less often. A weekly status meeting can often become a fortnightly one, with an async update in between.
- Send the agenda in advance. A clear team meeting agenda keeps time and makes it obvious when a meeting is not needed.
- Leave with owners and deadlines. A meeting that produces nothing is the most expensive kind. Track the action items afterwards, and use the calculator’s “decisions or action items” field to see the cost of each outcome.
If your calendar already feels full, read our quick fixes for meeting burnout and how to beat virtual meeting fatigue.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Convert each attendee’s pay to an hourly rate (annual salary divided by paid hours a year, 2,080 for a full-time 40-hour week), add the hourly rates of everyone in the room, multiply by the meeting length in hours, then multiply by a loaded-cost factor to cover benefits and payroll taxes. Multiply by the number of meetings a year to get the annual cost.
What is a loaded cost multiplier?
Pay is only part of what an employee costs. In June 2026 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wages and salaries made up 70.0% of private-industry employer compensation costs, with benefits making up the other 30.0%. Dividing 1 by 0.70 gives about 1.4, which is the calculator’s default. Set it to 1 if you only want to count pay.
Does the calculator include preparation time?
Only if you add it. Open Advanced assumptions to add preparation minutes per person, and, if you want, your own estimate of the time people need to get back into focused work afterwards. Both default to zero, so the headline figure counts only the time spent in the meeting.
Why does a weekly meeting count 48 times a year, not 52?
Recurring meetings usually stop for public holidays and leave. The default of 48 meeting weeks allows about four weeks off. You can change it under Advanced assumptions; monthly meetings always count 12.
Is my salary data stored?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you type is saved on our server or sent anywhere. The share link keeps your inputs in the part of the web address after the # sign, which browsers do not send to the website.