Meeting Cost Calculator
Calculate the fully loaded cost of a meeting from attendee salaries and headcount, including recurrence over a year, preparation time and the opportunity cost of the hours.
Last reviewed by the Radiatus Cloud team
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The largest unbudgeted line in most companies
Salary is an approved, tracked, scrutinised cost. The meetings that consume that salary are none of those things. A weekly one hour meeting with eight people earning an average of eighty thousand costs roughly sixteen thousand a year in direct salary alone, and considerably more once employer taxes, benefits and overhead are loaded on. Nobody signs off on that spend, because it never appears as a number anywhere.
Fully loaded cost, not salary
An employee costs the business substantially more than their salary. Employer social contributions, pension, healthcare, equipment, software licences and facilities typically add between twenty five and forty percent, and a fully loaded multiplier of 1.3 is a common planning assumption. Using base salary alone understates the real cost by a quarter or more, which is why meeting cost calculations built on salary consistently look smaller than the equivalent budget line for anything else.
Preparation and recovery are part of the meeting
The calendar entry is not the whole cost. A status meeting that requires each attendee to prepare an update adds fifteen minutes per person before it starts, and context switching costs real productive time afterward. Including preparation makes the total honest, and it changes which meetings look expensive: a short meeting requiring heavy preparation from many people frequently costs more than a longer one that needs none.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What multiplier should I use for fully loaded cost?
Between 1.25 and 1.4 is typical in most developed markets once employer taxes, benefits, equipment and facilities are included. Higher in countries with large mandatory employer contributions, lower for contractors billed at a flat rate.
Should I include preparation time?
If the meeting requires it, yes. A weekly status meeting where eight people each spend fifteen minutes preparing adds two hours of cost before anyone joins the call, which often exceeds the meeting itself.
Is this a real cost or an opportunity cost?
Both, and they are worth distinguishing. The salary is being paid regardless, so the direct cost is not new spend. What the number measures is the value of the time, which is only a saving if the freed hours go to something productive.
How do I use this to change behaviour?
Putting the annual figure on the calendar invitation is the most effective intervention people report. It reframes a recurring meeting from a habit into a budget line, which is the decision it should have been all along.
What is a reasonable meeting cost?
There is no threshold. A two hour meeting costing several thousand can be excellent value for a decision worth millions, and a fifteen minute status call can be waste. The number is useful for comparison and for making the trade off visible, not as a limit.
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How to Use
Add attendee groups with their salaries, set the duration and recurrence, and see the annual cost.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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