Meeting cost calculator
Enter who's coming, how long it runs and what people earn. See what the meeting costs each time and over a year, including the focus time it breaks up.
- In a year
- $29,396
- Hours a year
- 553 person-hours
- Halve it
- A 30-minute version saves $10,625 a year
Salary over a 2,080-hour working year. Your numbers stay on this page.
What common meetings cost in a year
At an average salary of $85,000, with 30% on top for benefits and overheads:
| Meeting | People | Length | Each | A year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily stand-up | 8 | 15 min | $106 | $24,438 |
| Weekly team meeting | 8 | 60 min | $425 | $21,250 |
| Monthly all-hands | 60 | 60 min | $3,188 | $38,250 |
| Weekly one-to-one | 2 | 30 min | $53 | $2,656 |
The hidden cost: broken focus
Paul Graham's essay Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (2009) put it well: for someone who makes things, a single meeting in the middle of the afternoon can ruin the whole afternoon, because it splits it into two pieces too short for hard work. The salary in the room is the visible cost; the deep work that doesn't happen around it is the bigger one. Our post on maker's and manager's schedules covers how teams deal with it.
To see what interruptions of all kinds cost, not only meetings, try the context switching calculator.
Questions
How is the cost of a meeting worked out?
From everyone's time: the number of people, times the length, times an hourly rate. The rate is the average yearly salary over a 2,080-hour working year, plus 30% for benefits, taxes and office costs if you leave that on.
Why count time to refocus?
Because a meeting costs more than its length. Gloria Mark's research at the University of California, Irvine found people took around 23 minutes, on average, to get back to a task after an interruption. A meeting in the middle of a morning breaks it into two shorter, less useful blocks.
Is my salary data stored?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How can I make meetings cheaper?
Invite fewer people, end at 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 or 60, send an agenda so the meeting can decide something, and turn status updates into written notes. Grouping meetings into one part of the day leaves the rest free for focused work.
Further reading
- Maker's schedule vs manager's schedulePaul Graham's essay on why one meeting can ruin a maker's afternoon. What the research says about interruptions, what meetings cost, and how teams fit both schedules.
- The real cost of context switchingEach switch between tasks costs minutes, and part of your attention stays behind. What the research says about context switching, and seven ways to switch less.
- Time blocking: how to plan your day in blocksTime blocking gives your important work a place on the calendar. How to block a day, an example schedule, and how it fits with timeboxing and the Pomodoro Technique.
More free tools
- Pomodoro timer25 minutes of focus, then a break. With a seat-belt chime.
- Deep work timer52/17, 50/10 or 90-minute blocks for deeper work.
- Pomodoro calculatorHow many Pomodoros your tasks take, and when you'll finish.
- Eisenhower matrixDo, schedule, delegate or drop: sort your to-do list.
- Context switching calculatorHow much focus your interruptions cost you in a year.
- Reading time calculatorHow long a text takes to read, skim or say out loud.