Reference chart
What a Meeting Costs
By &Pixels, the studio that builds MyCalculator.to. Figures are fully loaded at 1.3 times base salary, on a 2,080 hour year, in US dollars.
A cost grid by headcount and salary, the annual figure for a recurring one, and why the short daily meeting is the expensive one.
How much does a meeting cost?
Salary, multiplied by about 1.3 to reach what the person actually costs, divided by 2,080 hours, multiplied by everyone in the room and by how long they are in it. On a $100,000 average that comes out at roughly $62.50 per person per hour, so eight people for an hour is $500.
The multiplier is not padding. Employer taxes, benefits, equipment and workspace are real money, and leaving them out is why most published figures are a third too low.
One hour, by headcount and salary
| People | $60k | $80k | $100k | $150k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | $113 | $150 | $188 | $281 |
| 5 | $188 | $250 | $313 | $469 |
| 8 | $300 | $400 | $500 | $750 |
| 12 | $450 | $600 | $750 | $1,125 |
| 20 | $750 | $1,000 | $1,250 | $1,875 |
Salary figures across the top are the average in the room, and the cost scales in a straight line, so halving the length halves the number and adding a person adds one share. Count everybody who attends rather than everybody who speaks.
The calculators behind this
The annual cost of a recurring meeting
| Cadence | 5 people | 8 people | 12 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily standup, 15 minutes | $18,000 | $28,800 | $43,100 |
| Weekly, 1 hour | $14,400 | $23,000 | $34,500 |
| Fortnightly, 90 minutes | $11,300 | $18,000 | $27,000 |
| Monthly, 2 hours | $7,500 | $12,000 | $18,000 |
Read the first two rows against each other. The fifteen minute standup is a quarter the length of the weekly hour and costs about 25 percent more across the year, because it happens roughly 230 times rather than 46. Frequency beats duration, and it is the variable nobody examines when they are deciding whether a meeting is worth keeping.
That is also the case for pricing the series rather than the occurrence. A single $500 meeting never gets questioned. A standing commitment of $23,000 a year is the sort of line item that would need a business case if it were software.
Where the 1.3 comes from
| Component | Share of base salary |
|---|---|
| Base salary | 1.00 |
| Employer payroll taxes | about 0.08 |
| Health and retirement benefits | 0.10 to 0.20 |
| Equipment, software, workspace | 0.05 to 0.15 |
| Fully loaded, commonly used | 1.25 to 1.40 |
How to work out yours
- Take each attendee’s annual salary. An average across the room is close enough. Precision here does not change the decision.
- Multiply by 1.3 for the real cost. Employer taxes, benefits and overhead. Base salary alone understates by roughly a third.
- Divide by 2,080 for an hourly rate. Forty hours a week across fifty-two weeks. A $100,000 salary is about $62.50 loaded per hour.
- Multiply by attendees and duration. Count everyone who attends, not everyone who speaks. Eight people for an hour at that rate is $500.
- Multiply by how often it recurs. This is the step that matters. A weekly meeting happens 46 times a year and is an annual purchase, not a $500 one.
For your own numbers rather than the grid, the meeting cost calculator takes salaries and a duration directly. If the meeting in question is a standup, the daily standup generator exists to make the asynchronous version workable, and the time tracker will tell you what the week actually went on, which is usually a more uncomfortable number than any of these.
Formula & Methodology
Did you know? The 2,080 hour year is forty hours across fifty-two weeks with nothing removed for holidays or leave. It exists to convert between salaries and rates rather than to describe anybody's actual availability, which for most organisations lands between 1,800 and 1,900 hours once paid time off is taken out.
Sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, on benefits as a share of total compensation
- Standard 2,080 hour year convention used in salary to hourly rate conversion
- Published fully loaded cost multipliers of 1.25 to 1.4 in cost accounting practice