Meeting Cost Calculator
Calculate the real dollar cost of meetings by multiplying attendee salaries by duration.
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Meetings are the most expensive invisible cost in most organisations. A one-hour meeting with six people earning $80,000/year costs the company over $230 in direct salary alone — before considering the opportunity cost of interrupted deep work, which research suggests takes 23 minutes to fully recover from. This calculator makes that invisible cost visible so you can run fewer, shorter, more intentional meetings.
Example
Duration: 60 min
Cost Formula
Direct cost = (Average salary ÷ 2,080 work hours) × Duration (hrs) × Attendees Recovery cost = (Attendees × 0.38h recovery) × Average hourly rate True meeting cost = Direct cost + Recovery cost Annual cost = True meeting cost × Frequency per year
Why Meetings Cost More Than You Think
The visible cost is salary × time × attendees. The hidden cost is flow-state disruption: each person interrupted must spend time returning to peak productivity. For knowledge workers, deep work is where most value is created. A 1-hour meeting that fragments a 4-hour morning block may cost 3+ hours of productive output across a team, far exceeding the meeting's direct salary cost.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the ideal meeting length?
Research suggests 25 or 50 minutes (not 30 or 60) — the time pressure reduces padding and forces focus.
When is a meeting justified?
When you need real-time consensus, emotional alignment, or creative brainstorming. Not for status updates, which async tools handle better.
How do I share this insight without being annoying?
Show the annual cost in dollar terms. A $50,000/year meeting budget sounds very different from '1 hour a week.'
What's the most effective meeting to eliminate?
Weekly status meetings with large groups. Replace with async written updates (Slack, Notion, email) and you recover thousands of dollars annually.