Meeting Cost Calculator
Calculate the true cost of a meeting from the number of attendees, their average hourly rate, and the meeting length. Shows the total cost plus per-minute and per-hour burn rates and annual projections, in your chosen currency.
Input
Number of people in the meeting.
Average cost per person, per hour. Don't know hourly? Divide an annual salary by 2080.
Display symbol only — no exchange-rate conversion is applied.
How long the meeting lasts, in minutes.
Output
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| No data yet | |
Guides
What this tool does
The Meeting Cost Calculator turns a meeting's guest list, pay rate and length into a single dollar figure — the real, loaded cost of getting those people in a room. It is the number nobody says out loud when a "quick sync" balloons to twelve attendees for an hour. Enter how many people are attending, their average hourly rate, and how long the meeting runs, and you get the total cost plus the burn rate breakdown and a couple of annual projections.
Everything is calculated in your browser. No inputs are sent anywhere, so it is safe to use with real salary figures.
How to use it
- Attendees — the number of people in the meeting (1 to 1000).
- Avg Hourly Rate — the average fully-loaded cost per person, per hour. If you only know annual salaries, divide by 2080 (a standard full-time work year) to get an hourly figure. Add a rough 25–30% on top for benefits and overhead if you want the loaded cost rather than the base wage.
- Currency — picks the symbol shown in front of every figure (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, JPY, INR). This is display only; JPY is shown without decimals to match how it is normally written.
- Duration (minutes) — how long the meeting lasts.
The result updates automatically as you type.
How the cost is calculated
The core formula is simple multiplication:
total cost = attendees × hourly rate × (duration in minutes ÷ 60)
So eight people at $75/hour for 30 minutes costs 8 × 75 × 0.5 = $300. From the same inputs the tool also reports:
- Hourly burn rate — attendees × hourly rate, i.e. what the meeting costs for every hour it runs.
- Cost per minute and cost per second — the burn rate divided down, handy for feeling how fast a meeting spends money while it drags.
- Annual cost if held weekly — the total cost × 52, the yearly price tag of a standing weekly meeting.
- Continuous cost (2080 h/yr) — the burn rate projected across a full work year, an eye-opening ceiling figure.
Is currency converted between different money types?
No. The calculator never applies an exchange rate. Whatever currency your hourly rate is expressed in is the currency of every result — the dropdown only changes the symbol (and the decimal style for JPY). If you enter a rate in euros, read the answers as euros.
What hourly rate should I use?
Use the loaded cost, not just take-home pay: base salary ÷ 2080 gives the raw hourly wage, then add employer taxes, benefits, equipment and overhead — often another 25–40%. For a mixed-seniority meeting, a blended average across the attendees is close enough; precision to the cent is not the point. The goal is to make the trade-off visible before the invite goes out.
Why show a "continuous" annual figure?
It is a deliberately extreme reference point: what a room of these people would cost if it never stopped meeting for an entire working year. It is not a realistic budget line — it is a gut-check that makes the hourly burn rate concrete.
Part of a workflow
All collectionsEleven tools for the two-minute tasks that break your focus — scheduling across time zones, sharing a link as a QR code, working out a date, splitting a bill, writing down something you'll need in ten minutes. No account, no app to install.
Ten calculators for the decisions a business, a freelance practice or an investment actually turns on — what it costs to break even, whether a customer is worth acquiring, whether a return justifies the risk, and how self-employment tax really works. Everything runs in your browser.