Meeting Cost Calculator
See the real financial cost of any meeting. Add attendees with hourly rates, set a duration, or run the live timer to watch the cost accumulate in real time. No signup, browser-based.
Attendees
How to Calculate Meeting Cost
- 1Choose Set Duration for a fixed-length meeting or Live Timer to track cost in real time.
- 2Add each attendee with their name, hourly rate, and currency.
- 3Set the meeting duration using the slider or quick presets (15m, 30m, 1h, 2h).
- 4The total cost updates immediately as you change any value or as the timer runs.
Why Meeting Costs Matter
Research consistently shows that a significant portion of organizational meetings are considered unproductive by attendees. A one-hour meeting with 8 people at average fully-loaded costs of $60/hour costs $480. A recurring weekly meeting at that rate costs $24,960 per year. Making meeting costs visible helps teams make better decisions about meeting length, attendance, and frequency.
Making Meetings More Cost-Effective
Limit Attendance
Invite only people who genuinely need to be there. Every additional attendee multiplies the cost. Consider who needs to attend vs. who can read a summary.
Set a Hard End Time
Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available. 45-minute meetings are often as productive as 60-minute ones and leave buffer time between back-to-back calls.
Async First
Status updates, information sharing, and non-urgent decisions can often be handled asynchronously via documents or messages — at a fraction of the meeting cost.
Use the Timer Live
Display the running cost on screen during the meeting as a shared accountability mechanism. Teams that see the cost tick up tend to stay on topic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the meeting cost calculated?
The tool multiplies each attendee's hourly rate by the meeting duration in hours, then sums the results. For a live timer session, duration is the elapsed time. The "per minute" figure divides the total cost by the elapsed minutes.
Can I use different currencies for different attendees?
Yes. Each attendee has their own currency selector. The total shown uses the first attendee's currency as the display unit. For precise multi-currency totals, use a consistent currency across all attendees.
What is a realistic hourly rate to enter?
A common approach is to use fully-loaded cost — salary plus benefits, overhead, and management cost — which is typically 1.5–2x base salary. For a $75k/year employee, fully-loaded cost is roughly $54–72/hour (based on ~2,000 working hours per year).
Is my data private?
Yes. All calculations happen entirely in your browser. No attendee data, rates, or meeting information are sent to any server.