A meeting costs roughly attendees x loaded hourly rate x hours. A one-hour meeting with eight people whose loaded cost averages $70/hour costs about $560 each time it happens; held weekly, that's roughly $27,000–28,000 a year. The number that matters most is rarely the single meeting. It's the recurring ones, multiplied out over a year.
This guide gives you the formula, explains the "loaded rate" most people get wrong, works through a real-looking example, answers "what's a good cost per meeting," and finishes with a playbook for cutting meeting costs without losing the meetings that actually earn their keep. To skip the math, use the free meeting cost calculator.
The meeting cost formula
Meeting cost = Σ (number of attendees at each rate x loaded hourly rate x meeting length in hours)
For a recurring meeting:
Annual cost = cost per meeting x number of occurrences per year
| Frequency | Typical occurrences per year |
|---|---|
| Daily (workdays) | ~240–250, after holidays and leave |
| Weekly | ~46–50 |
| Every two weeks | ~23–25 |
| Monthly | 12 |
Using 52 weekly occurrences overstates the cost slightly because of holidays and cancellations. Using ~48 is a reasonable middle ground; pick one and be consistent.
Step 1: Work out the loaded hourly rate
Salary alone undercounts. An employee's cost to the business includes employer taxes, benefits, retirement contributions, and a share of overhead like equipment and software.
A common rule of thumb: loaded annual cost ≈ salary x 1.25 to 1.4. It's a rule of thumb, not a standard. The right multiplier depends on country, benefits package, and how much overhead you choose to include. Your finance team may have a precise figure; if so, use theirs.
Loaded hourly rate = (salary x multiplier) ÷ working hours per year
Most people use 2,080 hours (40 hours x 52 weeks). Using actual working hours after leave (often closer to 1,800–1,900) gives a higher, arguably more accurate rate. Again, consistency matters more than precision.
Example: $110,000 salary x 1.3 = $143,000 loaded. $143,000 ÷ 2,080 = $68.75/hour.
Step 2: Group attendees by rate
You don't need everyone's exact salary (and usually shouldn't use it). Group attendees into a few bands with an average rate per band. This is faster and avoids exposing individual pay.
Step 3: Multiply by length and frequency
Add up each band's cost for the meeting length, then multiply by how often it happens.
Worked example: a weekly status meeting, annualized
A hypothetical one-hour weekly status meeting with eight people. Loaded multiplier of 1.3, 2,080 hours per year, 48 occurrences per year.
| Attendee band | Count | Salary | Loaded hourly rate | Cost per 1-hour meeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst / specialist | 2 | $90,000 | $56.25 | $112.50 |
| Senior specialist | 4 | $110,000 | $68.75 | $275.00 |
| Manager | 1 | $140,000 | $87.50 | $87.50 |
| Director | 1 | $170,000 | $106.25 | $106.25 |
| Total | 8 | $581.25 |
Annual cost: $581.25 x 48 = $27,900.
Now the same meeting after two changes: cut to 30 minutes, and three people (one analyst and two senior specialists) switch to reading the notes instead of attending.
| Attendee band | Count | Loaded hourly rate | Cost per 30-minute meeting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst / specialist | 1 | $56.25 | $28.13 |
| Senior specialist | 2 | $68.75 | $68.75 |
| Manager | 1 | $87.50 | $43.75 |
| Director | 1 | $106.25 | $53.13 |
| Total | 5 | $193.75 |
Annual cost: $193.75 x 48 = $9,300. Same meeting purpose, about a third of the cost, and three people get an hour a week back.
What the formula leaves out
The formula counts only time in the room. It doesn't count:
- Preparation time (reading, building slides, gathering updates)
- Follow-up work (notes, action items, the meeting about the meeting)
- Context switching. A 30-minute meeting in the middle of a morning can break up a block of focused work far more than 30 minutes' worth. Paul Graham's essay on the "maker's schedule vs. manager's schedule" is the classic description of this.
- Opportunity cost: what those people would have produced instead
So treat the formula result as a floor, not the full cost.
What is a good cost per meeting?
There isn't a universal benchmark, and you should be skeptical of anyone who quotes one. A $5,000 meeting that resolves a decision blocking a team of 20 for a week is cheap. A $300 meeting that repeats updates already in a shared doc is expensive.
A more useful test is cost relative to what the meeting produces:
| If the meeting... | Then... |
|---|---|
| Produces a decision that unblocks work | Cost is usually justified; focus on making it shorter |
| Shares information that could be read | Move it to a written update; keep a short optional Q&A if needed |
| Has attendees who rarely speak or act on it | Move them to optional and send notes |
| Has no agenda and often ends early with "nothing new" | Cancel it and see if anyone asks for it back |
| Is required for safety, compliance, or incident response | Keep it; optimize format, not existence |
| Is a 1:1 or retrospective | Usually high value per dollar; protect it |
A rough personal heuristic some teams use: would you approve this meeting if it were an invoice for the same amount? For a recurring meeting, imagine approving the annual figure.
Meeting cost calculators in Google Calendar and Outlook
Neither Google Calendar nor Outlook shows a dollar cost for a meeting in its standard interface. Google Calendar's Time Insights and Microsoft's Viva Insights report time spent in meetings, which is a useful input but not a cost. Various third-party browser extensions and add-ins attempt to add a cost estimate to calendar events; if you try one, check what calendar data it reads and where it sends it before installing, especially on a work account.
A low-tech alternative that works with any calendar: list your recurring meetings with attendee count, length, and frequency, then run each through a meeting cost calculator. Alignlee's free calculator lets you add attendee groups by role with a count and hourly rate, convert a salary to an hourly cost with a loaded-cost multiplier, and see per-meeting, weekly, monthly, and annual totals.
The Shopify meeting cost calculator
In 2023, Shopify was widely reported to have added a calendar feature that estimated the cost of each meeting from attendee count and meeting length, as part of a broader push to cut recurring meetings and large-group calls. The idea spread because it made an invisible cost visible at the moment of scheduling. You don't need a custom internal tool to get the same effect: putting the annual cost figure in the meeting description of every recurring meeting does much of the same work.
Playbook: how to reduce meeting costs
Work through these in order. The first two usually produce the biggest savings.
1. Audit your recurring meetings
Export the next month of your team's calendar. For each recurring meeting, record attendees, length, frequency, and annual cost. Sort by annual cost. Most teams find a small number of recurring meetings account for most of the total.
Copy-paste audit template:
| Meeting | Owner | Attendees | Length | Frequency | Annual cost | Purpose in one sentence | Decision made last 3 times? | Keep / shorten / async / cancel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
If the owner can't write the purpose in one sentence, that's your answer.
2. Cut attendees before cutting time
Cost scales linearly with attendees. Mark invites as required (decision makers and people doing the work), optional (welcome; will get notes), or FYI (notes only). In the worked example above, removing three people cuts the hour-long version from $581.25 to $387.50 before you touch the length, and those three people get their hour back too.
3. Shorten the default length
Set default meeting lengths to 25 and 50 minutes instead of 30 and 60. People get a gap between calls, and meetings tend to fill whatever time they're given.
4. Convert status meetings to written updates
Status meetings where people take turns reading updates are the most common cost leak. Replace them with a written update posted at a fixed time, with a short optional call for questions. If decisions keep getting stuck in comment threads, add a 15-minute decision slot instead of restoring the full meeting.
5. Require an agenda
"No agenda, no meeting." The agenda should list the decisions or outputs needed, not just topics. Attendees are free to decline anything without one.
6. Protect focus blocks
Cluster meetings into part of the day and keep the rest meeting-free. It doesn't change the formula's number, but it reduces the hidden context-switching cost.
7. Run a recurring-meeting reset
Once a quarter or twice a year, cancel all recurring meetings in a team and let owners re-create only the ones they can justify. Meetings nobody re-creates weren't needed.
8. Measure meeting quality cheaply
After recurring meetings, ask two questions in a quick poll: "Was this a good use of your time?" and "Could this have been async?" Review the answers each quarter and redesign or drop the worst performers.
9. Make the cost visible
Put the per-meeting and annual cost in the meeting description. Some teams show a running cost during the meeting; that can feel gimmicky, but the description line alone often changes behavior.
Common mistakes
- Using salary instead of loaded cost. Understates cost by a quarter or more under the rule of thumb above.
- Counting only one meeting. The single-meeting number is small enough to dismiss. Always annualize.
- Cutting high-value meetings first. 1:1s, retrospectives, and planning sessions usually return more than they cost. Start with status and "sync" meetings.
- Treating "we're paying them anyway" as zero cost. The cost is what those hours would otherwise produce.
- Publishing individual salaries in the calculation. Use bands.
Related tools and guides
If your expensive meeting is sprint planning or backlog refinement, the fix is often structure rather than cancellation: see how to shorten grooming sessions and agile workflow optimization for scrum teams. For estimation specifically, timeboxed planning poker with hidden votes tends to keep discussion focused on the items where people actually disagree.
FAQ
How much does a meeting cost?
Multiply each attendee's loaded hourly rate by the meeting length and add them up. For example, eight people at an average loaded rate of about $70/hour in a one-hour meeting cost roughly $560 per occurrence. Weekly, that's roughly $27,000–28,000 a year, before counting prep time and context switching.
What is the meeting cost formula?
Meeting cost = attendees x loaded hourly rate x hours, summed across attendee groups if rates differ. Loaded hourly rate is salary times a multiplier for benefits and overhead (1.25–1.4 is a common rule of thumb) divided by working hours per year, usually 2,080. Multiply by occurrences per year for recurring meetings.
What is a good cost per meeting?
There's no universal benchmark. Judge cost against output: a meeting that produces a decision unblocking a team can be worth thousands, while one that repeats written updates is expensive at any price. A useful test is whether you'd approve the meeting's annual cost if it arrived as an invoice.
Is there a meeting cost calculator for Google Calendar or Outlook?
Neither shows meeting cost natively; Google Calendar's Time Insights and Microsoft's Viva Insights report time in meetings rather than dollars. Third-party extensions exist, but review their data access first. Alternatively, list recurring meetings from your calendar and run them through a standalone meeting cost calculator.
How can I reduce meeting expenses?
Audit recurring meetings by annual cost, cut attendees to the people who decide or do the work, shorten default lengths to 25 and 50 minutes, and move status updates to written form. A periodic reset where all recurring meetings are cancelled and only justified ones return usually removes a surprising share of the total.