Meeting cost calculator
Six people in a one-hour meeting at an average 65,000 salary costs about 212. Held weekly for a year, that is nearly 9,800 — a real budget line that never appears in any budget. It is also why halving the attendee list or cutting the slot to thirty minutes is one of the few cost reductions available that costs nothing to implement.
Salary only. The fully loaded cost of an employee — taxes, benefits, equipment, space — is typically 1.25 to 1.4 times salary, so the real figure is higher.
Meeting cost is attendees times duration times the average hourly rate. Six people for an hour on a 65,000 average salary costs about 212 — and the same meeting held weekly costs nearly 9,800 a year.
How to calculate meeting cost
The annual figure is the one that changes behaviour, because a single meeting always looks affordable and a year of them does not. The useful comparison is against something concrete: a weekly hour-long meeting for six people costs roughly what a junior contractor costs for a month. That framing makes the question "does this need everyone, and does it need an hour?" a budget question rather than a matter of taste — and the honest answer is often that half the room could read the notes.
Questions
Attendees × hours × average hourly cost. Hourly cost is annual salary divided by working weeks times hours per week.