See what a meeting really costs in staff time, per meeting, per week, and per year.
Meetings have a price, even when nobody pays at the door
Every meeting costs staff time, and staff time is the most expensive thing most organisations buy. A one-hour meeting with eight people does not cost one hour. It costs eight person-hours, plus the time people spend preparing and the time it takes them to get back into deep work afterwards. Most teams never see that number, so meetings grow quietly until they eat the week.
This calculator makes the cost visible. Enter the number of attendees, an average hourly cost, the length of the meeting, and how often it repeats. The tool shows the cost of one meeting, the weekly cost, and the yearly cost. The numbers are estimates, not payroll figures, but they are strong enough to start an honest conversation about which meetings earn their keep.
How to use the calculator
Count everyone who attends, not just the people who speak. Silent attendees still spend the hour, and their time counts. For the hourly cost, use a loaded figure if you have one, meaning salary plus benefits and overhead, rather than bare salary alone. If you are unsure, use a round average for the group; the point is comparison, not accounting precision.
Enter the real length, including the minutes when the meeting runs over. A meeting scheduled for 30 minutes that usually takes 45 costs 50 percent more than the calendar suggests. Set the weekly frequency to see the habit cost: a small weekly meeting becomes a large yearly number, and that yearly number is what should guide the decision to keep, shorten, or cancel it.
A worked example
Take a weekly status meeting with eight people at an average cost of 50 dollars per hour, lasting one hour. One meeting costs 400 dollars. Over a year of 52 weeks, that is 20,800 dollars, or 416 person-hours. Those are real working hours, roughly ten full working weeks for one person, spent sitting in a single recurring meeting.
Now imagine cutting that meeting to 30 minutes and inviting five people instead of eight. The cost falls to 125 dollars per meeting and 6,500 dollars per year. Nothing about the work itself changed, yet the team gains back hundreds of hours. This is why the calculator is useful: small changes, repeated weekly, produce large savings.
What the number does not include
The calculator counts attendee time only. It does not count preparation, follow-up actions, room costs, or the cost of interrupted focus. Research on attention suggests that a meeting in the middle of a morning can break a long stretch of focused work, so the true cost is often higher than the figure shown. Treat the result as a lower bound, not an exaggeration.
It also does not judge whether a meeting is worthwhile. Some meetings prevent expensive mistakes, settle decisions that unblock a team, or build trust that pays off for months. The question is not whether meetings cost money, because they always do, but whether a particular meeting returns more value than it consumes.
Ways to cut the cost without harming the work
Start with the attendee list. Many meetings include people for information only, and those people could read a short note instead. Next, shorten the default length: try 25 minutes instead of 30, or 50 instead of 60, and end on time. A shorter meeting forces a clearer agenda and sharper decisions.
Consider the frequency too. A weekly meeting that mostly repeats the same update can often become fortnightly, with a shared document covering the weeks in between. Finally, try cancelling one recurring meeting as an experiment for a month. If nobody misses it, the meeting was not earning its cost, and the time is better spent elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
What hourly cost should I use? Use a loaded average for the attendees, including benefits and overhead, if your organisation publishes one. If not, a rough average salary converted to an hourly rate is fine for comparison between meetings.
Does the yearly figure assume holidays? No, it multiplies the weekly cost by 52 for simplicity. If your team pauses the meeting for several weeks a year, reduce the yearly figure by that share, but the weekly figure stays the same.
Can I use this for client meetings? Yes, but remember that client meetings may also earn revenue or protect a relationship, so compare their cost against that value rather than treating the cost alone as a reason to cancel.