Meeting Cost Calculator
The annual figure is the one nobody looks at.
Work out Meeting Cost. The annual figure is the one nobody looks at. Puts the estimate in your hands, not in a constant.
Salary plus employer taxes, benefits and overhead — commonly 1.25 to 1.4
Cost of this meeting
433
7.22 a minute · 22,533 a year at 52 occurrences
Fully loaded cost means salary plus employer taxes, benefits, equipment and overhead — commonly 1.25 to 1.4 times salary. Using bare salary understates everyone's time by a quarter or more. The annual figure is the one worth looking at: a recurring meeting is a standing commitment of 22,533 a year, and very few are reviewed against that number. Cutting one attendee saves 2,817 a year on its own.
How the Meeting Cost Calculator works
The cost of a meeting from attendees, duration and fully loaded salary, including preparation time and annualised across a recurring schedule. A weekly meeting is a standing annual commitment, and very few are ever reviewed against that number.
Also known as: meeting cost · cost of a meeting · meeting price · fully loaded rate · hourly cost of employee · standup cost · recurring meeting cost · how much does this meeting cost · meeting roi
Fully loaded cost, and why salary alone understates it
An employee costs more than their salary: employer taxes, benefits, equipment, software, workspace and the overhead of employing anyone at all. The multiplier is commonly 1.25 to 1.4.
The denominator matters too. There are 2,080 contracted hours in a working year and nearer 1,800 productive ones once leave and public holidays are removed, so dividing salary by 2,080 understates the hourly cost twice over.
Together those two corrections raise a £60,000 salary from about £29 an hour to about £43 — a difference of nearly 50% on every calculation that follows.
The annual figure is the one worth looking at
A single meeting costing a few hundred pounds does not command much attention. The same meeting held weekly is a standing five-figure annual commitment, and almost none are ever reviewed against that number.
Any other recurring five-figure expense would go through a budget process. A recurring calendar entry goes through nobody, and survives long after the reason for it has gone.
Reviewing recurring meetings annually against their cost is a cheap exercise that reliably finds several worth cancelling or shortening. Removing one attendee from a weekly meeting saves their share fifty-two times over.
What the cost figure does not capture
A meeting in the middle of an afternoon breaks the block of focused time around it. The cost of an hour-long meeting can therefore be considerably more than an hour of output, particularly for work requiring sustained concentration.
Clustering meetings into a defined part of the day, rather than distributing them, preserves those blocks. It is a scheduling change with no cost and a measurable effect on how much deep work is possible.
None of this means meetings are waste. A decision made in twenty minutes that would take a fortnight of asynchronous messages is exceptional value. The point of pricing them is to tell those apart from the ones nobody would approve if the invoice arrived.
Where to go next
The Meeting Cost question rarely arrives on its own. These are the ones that usually come with it:
- Team Capacity Calculator — Contracted hours are not available hours.
- Employee Turnover Cost Calculator — The recruiter's fee is the smallest part of it.
- Sprint Velocity Calculator — A range is the honest form of a software estimate.
- Loan & EMI Calculator — Monthly payment, total interest, and a full amortization schedule.
Not financial advice. This calculator is for planning and illustration, not financial advice. Real products carry fees, taxes, and terms it does not model. Confirm figures with your lender or a qualified adviser before committing.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the cost of a meeting?
Fully loaded hourly rate times attendees times duration, plus preparation time. Using bare salary rather than fully loaded cost understates everyone's time by a quarter or more.
What is a fully loaded hourly rate?
Salary plus employer taxes, benefits, equipment and overhead, divided by productive hours a year. The multiplier is commonly 1.25 to 1.4, and productive hours are nearer 1,800 than 2,080.
Should preparation time be counted?
Yes. A meeting that requires everyone to read a document beforehand costs that reading time too, and it is invisible in every calendar-based estimate.
How much do recurring meetings cost?
The annual figure is usually the surprising one. A weekly hour with eight people at a typical salary runs well into five figures a year, which would receive scrutiny as a line item and receives none as a calendar entry.
Does removing one attendee save much?
Proportionally, and it compounds across a recurring schedule. Cutting one person from a weekly meeting saves their share fifty-two times over.
Are meetings always waste?
No — a decision made in twenty minutes that would take a fortnight of messages is excellent value. The point of costing them is to tell those apart from the ones nobody would pay for if the invoice arrived.
Should meeting cost be shown on the invitation?
Some organisations do it and it changes behaviour, mostly by shortening meetings and shrinking invite lists. It can also make people reluctant to raise things that genuinely need discussing, so it works better as a periodic audit than a permanent label.
What is the real cost of a badly scheduled meeting?
More than its duration. A meeting in the middle of an afternoon breaks the block of focused time around it, so an hour-long meeting can cost considerably more than an hour of output.
How many people should be in a meeting?
As few as can make the decision. Each additional attendee adds cost linearly and adds coordination difficulty faster than that, which is why large meetings tend to produce updates rather than decisions.
Are standing meetings worth their cost?
Some clearly are and many are never re-examined. Reviewing every recurring meeting against its annual cost once a year is a cheap exercise that reliably finds several worth cancelling.
Should the meeting cost include the organiser's preparation?
Yes, and the attendees' preparation too. A meeting requiring everyone to read a document beforehand costs that time, and it is invisible in any calendar-based estimate.
Is an asynchronous update always cheaper?
Usually for information sharing, rarely for decisions requiring back-and-forth. A decision that would take a fortnight of messages and takes twenty minutes in a room is excellent value at any hourly rate.
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