What Are Your Meetings Really Costing?

What the number represents

The calculator multiplies attendees by duration by average loaded hourly cost, then annualises it for recurring meetings. It is deliberately crude — the point is not precision, it is that a weekly hour with eight people is a five-figure annual commitment that nobody ever approved as one.

Loaded cost means salary plus employer contributions and overhead, typically 1.25 to 1.4 times base salary. Using base salary alone understates the figure by roughly a third.

What the number does not capture

The direct cost is the smaller half. The larger cost is fragmentation: a meeting in the middle of an afternoon does not remove an hour, it removes the two usable blocks either side of it. For work requiring sustained concentration, three scattered meetings can consume a day.

So treat the output as a floor rather than an estimate.

Questions worth asking before the next recurrence

• Could this be a written update? Status reporting is the most common thing meetings are used for and the thing they are worst at.
• Who is here to decide, and who is here to be informed? The second group does not need to attend live.
• What decision does this meeting produce? If the answer is none and none is expected, it is a broadcast.
• What happens if we cancel it for a month? Frequently the honest answer is nothing, and nobody finds out because nobody tries.

Recurring meetings are rarely reviewed after the reason for creating them has passed. Putting an end date on every recurrence when you create it removes the need to review them later.

Frequently asked questions

What hourly rate should I use?

Loaded cost, not salary — typically 1.25 to 1.4 times base. For a mixed-seniority room, use a weighted average rather than the most senior person's rate.

Does this mean we should have fewer meetings?

Not necessarily. Some meetings are the cheapest way to reach a decision, and cutting those pushes the cost into slower asynchronous back-and-forth. The target is fewer meetings that produce nothing, not fewer meetings.

How do I raise this without sounding like I am attacking someone's meeting?

Ask about the decision it produces rather than the cost. "What are we deciding here?" is a reasonable question that reframes the conversation without requiring anyone to defend themselves.