About this tool
Meeting cost ticker, explained
Every meeting has a price: the pay of everyone in the room for as long as it lasts. This meeting cost calculator turns that into a live counter, role by role, and shows what a recurring meeting costs over a year. Enter who attends and what they earn, press start, and watch the cost rise.
How to use it
- 1Start from a preset (Team meeting, Daily standup, Leadership sync, All-hands or Project review), or list the roles in the room with how many people hold each and their pay.
- 2Choose Yearly salary or Hourly rate and your currency, then set Benefits and overhead and Work hours per year.
- 3Set the Meeting length and How often it happens to see the cost per meeting, per year and by role.
- 4Click Start the meeting when it begins, Pause for a break and Reset for the next one. The bar under the counter fills up to the planned length, then shows how far over you are.
How it works
How the cost is calculated
Each role's hourly cost is its yearly salary divided by the work hours per year (2,080 by default, 52 weeks of 40 hours), or its hourly rate as entered, times the number of people in that role. Benefits and overhead, 25% by default, is added on top to cover payroll taxes, benefits and equipment. The room's cost per hour is the sum of every role.
The live counter multiplies the cost per hour by the time elapsed, and shows the cost per hour and per minute under it. The timer reads your device's clock, so it keeps the elapsed time across Pause and Resume and catches up if you switch to another tab.
Per meeting is the cost per hour times the planned length. Per year multiplies it by the number of meetings: 260 for daily, 52 for weekly, 26 for every two weeks and 12 for monthly. The summary also turns the yearly time into working days of 8 hours, and Cost by role shows each role's share. Switching between yearly salary and hourly rate converts the amounts rather than reading them in the new unit.
With the Team meeting preset, a manager at $140,000, four engineers at $125,000 and a designer at $105,000 meeting 45 minutes a week, the room costs about $448 an hour, $336 per meeting and $17,461 a year, or 29 working days of people's time.
Cost per hour = sum over roles of (people × yearly salary / work hours per year) × (1 + overhead). Cost per year = cost per hour × length in hours × meetings per year.
When to use it
Ways people use it
Reviewing recurring meetings
Set the length and frequency of a standing meeting to see its yearly cost and how many working days of people's time it takes.
Deciding who needs to attend
Cost by role shows which part of the room drives the cost. Remove a role and see how much the meeting saves, then send notes to the people who only need the outcome.
Running a meeting on time
Put the counter on the shared screen so everyone sees the cost of running over the planned length, and the meeting ends when the agenda does.
Making the case for async
Compare the yearly cost of a weekly status meeting with a written update, and share the link so the numbers travel with the proposal.
FAQ
Questions people ask
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Add up the hourly cost of everyone attending and multiply by the meeting's length. For each person, divide the yearly salary by 2,080 working hours, then add a share for benefits and overhead. Six people averaging $85,000 a year cost about $245 an hour in pay alone, and about $306 with 25% overhead.
How do I convert an annual salary to an hourly rate?
Divide the yearly salary by 2,080, the hours in 52 weeks of 40 hours. A salary of $85,000 comes to about $40.87 an hour. That is pay only, the full cost to the employer is higher, which is what the overhead field adds.
How many working hours are in a year?
The usual convention is 2,080 hours: 52 weeks of 40 hours, or 260 days of 8 hours. It does not subtract holidays or vacation, so the real number of hours worked is lower. Lower Work hours per year to match your team.
How can I make meetings less expensive?
Invite only the people who need to decide or contribute, set an agenda with a clear outcome, shorten the default length, and replace status updates with a written note. Each change lowers either the number of people, the time or how often it happens.