How Much Meetings Actually Cost Your Company Per Hour

A one-hour meeting with eight people isn't a one-hour meeting. It's eight hours of combined labor. If the average salary in that room is $75 per hour, that single meeting costs $600. Do that weekly and you've spent $31,200 a year on one recurring meeting.

Most companies never do this math. Meetings are treated as free — they don't show up on any budget line. But they consume the most expensive resource your company has: the time of the people you're paying.

The problem gets worse with seniority. A meeting with two directors, a VP, and five engineers isn't just expensive — it's disproportionately expensive. The VP's time alone might account for a third of the total meeting cost.

Meeting Cost Calculator is a Chrome extension that shows the running cost of any meeting in real time. Set the number of attendees, enter approximate salary levels, and watch the dollar amount tick upward as the meeting progresses. It's like a taxi meter for meetings.

The effect is immediate. When everyone in the room can see that the meeting has already cost $400 and the agenda isn't half done, decisions happen faster. Tangents get cut short. People start asking whether they actually need to be in the room.

This isn't about eliminating meetings — some meetings are essential. It's about making the cost visible so teams can make informed decisions about which meetings are worth the investment and which ones should have been an email.

Install it before your next team sync and share the screen. The conversation about meeting culture writes itself.