Meeting Cost Calculator
Work out what a meeting costs in people’s time: attendees, hourly rates and duration, with cost per minute and per attendee. 13 currencies.
Enter an hourly rate to see a cost.
The cost is your hourly rates multiplied by the time the meeting takes. Nothing about salaries, taxes or overheads is assumed.
This is an estimate based on the hourly rates you enter. It is not a salary figure, an employer cost, or a measure of productivity lost: whether the number includes taxes, benefits or overheads depends entirely on which rate you typed. Everything is calculated in your browser and nothing is saved.
Try another tool
Picked to go with this oneA recurring meeting with eight people in it is a standing expense, and most teams have never seen the number. Enter how many attend, what an hour of their time costs, and how long the meeting runs — either one average rate or a rate per person — and you get the total, the combined hourly cost, the cost per minute and the cost per attendee. Thirteen currencies, no conversion. It is an estimate built from the rates you type: it knows nothing about salaries, employer taxes or overheads, and it makes no claim that a meeting is wasted time.
How to use this tool
- 01Choose how to enter ratesOne average hourly cost across everyone, or a separate rate per person when the room is a mix of seniorities.
- 02Enter the people and the moneyHow many attend and what an hour of their time costs. Pick the currency you think in; nothing is converted.
- 03Set the lengthTap 30m, 1h or 1h 30m, or type any hours and minutes. Minutes above 59 are fine.
- 04Read the breakdownThe total, plus cost per minute and per attendee, which are usually the numbers that change behaviour.
When is this useful?
- Questioning a recurring meetingA weekly hour with eight people has an annual cost. Seeing it is often what starts the conversation about whether it needs everyone.
- Deciding who actually needs to attendCost per attendee makes the case for optional invitations better than an opinion does.
- Choosing a meeting over an emailIf the meeting costs more than the decision is worth, the decision can be made another way.
- Quoting internal time to a clientConsultants and agencies can price a workshop from the combined hourly rate of everyone attending.
Examples
- Five people, one hour, 60 an hour eachA combined 300 an hour, so the meeting costs 300 — and 5.00 for every minute it overruns.
- The same meeting at 30 minutesExactly half: 150. Halving a recurring meeting is usually easier than cancelling it.
- Mixed seniorityA lead at 120, a developer at 80 and a designer at 55 is 255 an hour combined, so a 90-minute session costs 382.50.
Tips for a better result
- Decide what your rate includes before you type itA bare wage and a fully-loaded cost including taxes, benefits and overheads are very different numbers. The tool uses whichever you give it.
- Cost per minute is the number people rememberA total feels abstract. "Every minute we overrun costs 12" changes how a meeting starts on time.
- Count everyone who actually attendsPeople who join to listen still cost the same as people who speak. That is usually the point worth making.
- Multiply by the year for recurring meetingsOne weekly hour is roughly 45 to 48 working occurrences a year. That is the figure worth comparing against the value it produces.
How the figure is worked out
Every attendee’s hourly rate is added into a combined hourly cost, then scaled by the meeting length: combined rate, multiplied by minutes, divided by sixty. In average mode that combined rate is simply the head count times the average. Everything is held in the currency’s smallest unit and rounded once at the end, so adding twelve people’s part-hours cannot drift by a cent the way floating-point money does. Cost per attendee divides the total by the number of people, so in average mode it is just the meeting length at one person’s rate.
What the number does not include
This is deliberately a narrow calculation. It does not know anyone’s salary, and it does not add employer taxes, pension contributions, benefits, equipment or office costs unless you built those into the hourly rate yourself. It does not estimate lost productivity or output forgone, because a meeting is not automatically waste and pretending to measure that would be inventing a number. And it applies no country’s employment rules: the arithmetic is the same everywhere, which is what keeps it accurate everywhere.
Choosing an hourly rate
If you want a simple wage-time figure, annual salary divided by about 2,000 working hours is a reasonable approximation for a full-time role. If you want something closer to true cost, finance teams often use a multiplier on top of salary to cover taxes, benefits and overheads; the right multiplier varies by country and company, which is exactly why this tool asks you rather than guessing. Either way, be consistent across attendees so the comparison means something.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Add up the hourly cost of everyone attending, then multiply by the meeting length. Five people at 60 an hour is 300 an hour combined, so a 30-minute meeting costs 150.
What hourly rate should I use?
Whatever you can justify. A rough wage figure is salary divided by about 2,000 working hours a year. A fully-loaded cost adds taxes, benefits and overheads on top. The tool uses the number you enter and does not assume which kind it is.
Does this include employer taxes and benefits?
Only if you included them in the rate. The calculator adds nothing of its own — no payroll costs, no overheads, no country-specific employment charges.
Can I use different rates for different people?
Yes. Switch to a rate per person and add a row for each attendee with an optional role label. The combined hourly cost is the sum of those rates.
Does it convert between currencies?
No. The currency only changes how the number is formatted, including how many decimal places it uses. There is no exchange rate anywhere in the tool.
Does a high number mean the meeting is not worth having?
No, and the tool does not suggest it. Plenty of expensive meetings are worth every minute. The figure is there so the trade-off is visible, not to argue one way or the other.