What this calculator does
A meeting costs the salary time of everyone in it. Eight people at an average $90,000 in an hour-long meeting, plus ten minutes of setup and wrap-up, comes to $403.85. Held weekly, that is $21,000 a year for one recurring slot in the calendar.
The setup allowance is the part usually left out and it is not a rounding error. The minutes spent joining, waiting for latecomers, finding the document and returning to what you were doing are real and they scale with the number of attendees exactly as the meeting itself does. At ten minutes on a sixty-minute meeting it adds a sixth to the cost.
The formula
The hourly rate per attendee is the annual salary divided by 52 weeks multiplied by the weekly hours. That rate is multiplied by the number of attendees and by the meeting length including setup, converted to hours. The annual figure assumes the same meeting every week of the year, which is an upper bound rather than an allowance for leave.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Hourly rate | Annual salary divided by the hours worked in a year, taken here as 52 weeks at the hours you enter. |
| Setup time | Joining, settling and returning to work afterwards, counted per attendee like the meeting itself. |
| Loaded cost | The true cost of an employee including on-costs, typically well above salary alone. Not included here, see the FAQ. |
The inputs explained
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Attendees | How many people attend. |
| Average annual salary ($) | Average annual salary across the attendees. A meeting mixing junior and senior people is best run twice, once at each rate, rather than averaged. |
| Working hours per week | Working hours per week, used to turn the annual salary into an hourly rate. |
| Meeting length (minutes) | The scheduled length of the meeting in minutes. |
| Setup / wrap-up time (minutes) | Minutes lost per attendee to joining, settling and picking work back up afterwards. Ten is a modest allowance. |
When to use it
Deciding whether a recurring meeting earns its place
The annual figure is the one that tends to prompt a decision, because a weekly hour reads very differently as a yearly total. It is the right number to weigh against what the meeting produces.
Choosing who genuinely needs to attend
The cost per attendee makes the marginal cost of one more person explicit. Adding four people to an hour-long meeting costs the same as a short meeting of its own.
Comparing a meeting against a written update
A document takes one person time to write and each reader far less time than a meeting takes. Putting a figure on both sides makes that trade concrete rather than a matter of preference.
Worked examples
Every figure in the tables below is produced by this page’s own calculator at build time, so the numbers and the tool always agree. Select any row to load that scenario.
What does a meeting cost as more people attend?
The same hour-long meeting with an increasing number of attendees.
| Attendees | Meeting cost | Cost per minute | If this meeting happens weekly, annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | $151.44 | $2.16 | $7,875.00 |
| 5 | $252.40 | $3.61 | $13,125.00 |
| 8 | $403.85 | $5.77 | $21,000.00 |
| 12 | $605.77 | $8.65 | $31,500.00 |
| 20 | $1,009.62 | $14.42 | $52,500.00 |
Questions
Should I use salary or the full cost of employment?
Salary is what this calculates, and it understates the real figure. Employers also pay superannuation or pension contributions, payroll tax, insurance, equipment and office costs, which commonly bring the loaded cost to somewhere between 1.25 and 1.4 times salary. Multiply the result accordingly if you want the fuller picture.
Is a meeting cost the same as money wasted?
No. It is what the meeting costs, not what it is worth, and plenty of meetings are worth considerably more than they cost. The figure is only useful next to some judgement about what came out of the meeting, which is not something a calculator can supply.
Why count setup time separately?
Because it is real and it is invisible on the calendar. Joining, waiting, finding the right document and getting back into the work you left all take time, and they apply to every attendee. A meeting scheduled for an hour rarely costs only an hour.
Does the annual figure allow for leave and holidays?
No, it multiplies by 52 weeks flat. A recurring meeting that genuinely runs every week of the year will land near that figure; one that lapses over holidays will come in somewhat below it. Treat the annual number as an upper bound.
For the cost of an activity per minute more generally, see the cost per minute calculator. For pricing a purchase in hours of work instead, see the hours of work to buy something calculator.