How to Calculate ROI on Canceling a Recurring Meeting

Recurring meetings are the easiest to keep and the hardest to question. They sit in the calendar every week whether or not they're still useful. Putting a number on what they cost, and what replacing them would cost, makes the decision clearer.

Step 1: Work out the meeting's cost

For each attendee, take their annual salary and divide by about 2,080 working hours to get an hourly rate. Add up the hourly rates of everyone in the meeting, then multiply by the meeting's length in hours.

Example: a weekly one-hour meeting with eight people on an average salary of $100,000. Each person costs about $48 an hour, so the meeting costs about $385 a week, or roughly $20,000 a year.

That's salary only. Benefits and overheads often add a lot more, so this is a conservative figure. Meeting Cost Calculator runs this math live from the number of attendees and an average salary.

Step 2: Add hidden costs

• Preparation time for anyone who presents or prepares updates.
• Switching time: a meeting in the middle of a morning breaks focus before and after.
• Travel or setup time, if anyone moves rooms or joins late.

Step 3: Cost the replacement

Cancelling usually means replacing the meeting with something lighter, such as a written update. If each person spends 10 minutes writing and 10 minutes reading, that's about 20 minutes each, or about $130 a week for the same group. The saving is the difference: about $255 a week, or around $13,000 a year.

Step 4: Weigh what you'd lose

Some meetings earn their cost. Before cancelling, ask:

• Does this meeting regularly produce decisions?
• Does it catch problems early that would be expensive later?
• Is it the only time this group connects?

If the answer is yes, try shortening it, meeting less often or trimming the guest list rather than cancelling it outright.

Step 5: Run a trial

Cancel for a month and replace it with an async update. At the end, ask the group whether anything was missed. If nothing was, make it permanent.

Present it simply

"This meeting costs about $20,000 a year in time. A written update would cost about $7,000. Let's try it for a month." Numbers make the case without blaming anyone.

See auditing your team calendar and async vs meetings.