Meeting cost calculator: what your meetings really cost

This free meeting cost calculator turns attendee pay into a dollar figure per meeting, per month and per year. Add who attends, how long the meeting runs and how often, then start the live ticker and watch the cost climb in real time.

How the meeting cost calculator works

The math is simple, and you can check every step:

1. Hourly cost per person. Annual salary is divided by 2,080 working hours (40 hours a week for 52 weeks). If you enter an hourly rate, that rate is used directly.
2. Benefits load. Each hourly figure is multiplied by a benefits load to cover payroll taxes, health insurance and other benefits. The default is 1.3; change it to match your company.
3. Cost per meeting. Add up the loaded hourly cost of everyone in the room and multiply by the meeting length in hours.
4. Cost per year and month. Multiply the cost per meeting by how many times a week it runs and by the number of meeting weeks in a year. The default of 48 weeks allows for holidays and time off. The monthly figure is the yearly figure divided by 12.

The calculator counts only time in the meeting. It doesn't include prep, follow-up or the focus time people lose switching in and out, so the real cost is usually higher.

A worked example

Take the example already loaded in the tool: a weekly one-hour leadership sync with two executives on $250,000, three managers on $150,000 and five team members on $110,000.

• Combined salaries come to $1,500,000. Divided by 2,080 hours and multiplied by 1.3, that's $937.50 for every hour the group spends together, or about $15.63 a minute.
• One meeting costs $937.50.
• Over 48 weeks, that's $45,000 a year, or $3,750 a month, which works out to $4,500 per attendee.

None of that means the meeting is a waste. It means the meeting should earn its cost. Running the ticker on screen for one session is a quick way to make that point without a lecture.

Five ways to cut meeting costs without losing alignment

1. Audit recurring meetings once a quarter. List every standing meeting, run each through the calculator and ask whether it would be booked today.
2. Trim the invite list. Attendees are the biggest driver of cost. People who only need the outcome can read the notes.
3. Shorten the default. Moving a 60-minute meeting to 45 minutes cuts its cost by a quarter.
4. Move status updates to writing. Save live time for decisions and discussion, and share updates in a doc or channel.
5. Batch the big conversations. Strategy, planning and hard trade-offs often drag across weeks of calls. Putting them into one focused block, in person, can replace many of those calls.

Where an offsite fits in

That last point is why we built this tool. For many teams, especially distributed ones, the most expensive meetings are the ones that keep coming back because the real decision never gets made. A few days together, with a clear agenda, can settle what months of video calls didn't.

An offsite has a visible price, so it's easy to compare. The full trips we've planned and quoted have run $1,450 to $2,402 per person, excluding flights. Our corporate retreat cost guide breaks that down line by line, and our offsite cost calculator estimates a budget for your own team. Value destinations such as Nashville and Buenos Aires start from $1,200 per person, and Riviera Maya from $1,100. Browse all destinations.

If your team is remote, our guide to remote team offsites covers how often to meet and a sample agenda. If most people live in one region, a retreat within driving distance skips airfare, and our corporate retreat locations by region list more options.

Get a real number for your offsite

Send us your headcount, a date window and a few cities. We'll return a free itemized proposal in 48 hours with one upfront price per person, planning and on-site coordination included, and flights quoted separately. Our pricing page explains exactly what's in the number.

FAQs

How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?

Convert each attendee's salary to an hourly rate (salary divided by 2,080), multiply by a benefits load such as 1.3, add up everyone in the room and multiply by the meeting length in hours. Multiply by frequency and weeks per year for the annual cost.

What benefits load should I use?

The default is 1.3, which adds 30% to salary for payroll taxes and benefits. Your finance or people team can give you the right figure for your company. Use 1.0 to see salary cost only.

Why use 48 meeting weeks instead of 52?

Recurring meetings usually skip holidays and vacation weeks, so 48 is a more realistic default. You can change it to 52 if your meeting truly runs every week.

How does the live meeting cost ticker work?

Press Start when the meeting begins. The ticker multiplies the group's cost per second by the time elapsed and updates in real time. Pause and resume as needed, and copy the result to share afterward.

Is my salary data stored anywhere?

No. Everything is calculated in your browser, and nothing you type is sent or saved.