We Built a Meeting Cost Calculator. The Results Will Make You Uncomfortable.
TL;DR: That “quick weekly sync” is probably costing you $15,000/year. We built a free calculator to prove it. Try it →
Meetings Are the Largest Unmanaged Expense at Most Companies
Your company would never spend $50,000 without approval. There would be a budget review, an ROI analysis, sign-offs from three different people.
But schedule a weekly 1-hour meeting with 10 people?
That’s exactly $50,000/year. No approval required. No one tracks it. No one questions it.
This is the paradox of meeting culture: meetings are one of the largest expenses at most companies, but they’re completely invisible.
We buy 8,000/month on meetings that could be emails — and no one blinks.
We built the Meeting Cost Calculator to change that.
How the Calculator Works
It’s simple. Enter five numbers:
- Number of attendees — How many people are in this meeting?
- Average salary — What do these people make? (We use $150k as a default for tech, but adjust to your reality)
- Meeting duration — 30 minutes? An hour? That epic 2-hour planning session?
- Frequency — Weekly? Daily? Monthly?
- Prep time per person — This is the killer most people forget
Hit calculate. Watch your assumptions crumble.
The calculator shows you the annual cost of that meeting — both in raw dollars and in fun comparisons to help you contextualize the damage.
The URL updates as you enter numbers, so you can share it directly. Sometimes a link says more than an email ever could.
Let’s Run Some Numbers
The Weekly Standup
Everyone loves standups. Agile says so. But let’s do the math:
- 10 engineers
- 75/hour)
- 15 minutes daily
- 5 days a week
- No prep time
Annual cost: $46,875
For a meeting that could be a Slack post in standup.
But wait — if your standup is actually 25 minutes (be honest, it drifts), that jumps to $78,125/year.
That’s a junior developer’s salary. For one recurring meeting.
The Weekly All-Hands
- 50 people
- $120k average salary
- 1 hour weekly
- 15 minutes prep (reading the agenda, context-switching)
Annual cost: $225,000/year
That’s… a lot of pizza Fridays you could fund instead.
”Quick 30-Minute Sync”
Your calendar is full of these. Let’s say:
- 6 people
- $140k average
- 30 minutes
- Weekly
- 10 minutes prep
Annual cost: $13,650
That’s not a “quick sync.” That’s a line item.
The Prep Time Multiplier (Most People Miss This)
Here’s what makes our calculator different: we include prep time.
Everyone calculates meeting cost as attendees × hourly rate × duration. That’s wrong. It ignores:
- Time spent reviewing the agenda
- Time spent context-switching into the meeting
- Time spent getting back to deep work after
- Time spent preparing presentations or updates
A “1-hour meeting” with 6 people who each spend 30 minutes prepping isn’t 6 person-hours. It’s 9 person-hours.
That’s a 50% underestimation.
When you add prep time to your calculations, the numbers get uncomfortable fast. Which is exactly the point.
What You Can Do With This
1. Think Before You Schedule
Run the numbers before you create that calendar invite. If a 30-minute sync costs 600 in value?
If the answer is “probably not,” don’t schedule it.
2. Audit Your Recurring Meetings
List every recurring meeting you own. Run each one through the calculator.
We guarantee at least one will make you physically wince. Cancel that one.
3. Share Strategically
The calculator generates shareable URLs. If someone keeps scheduling expensive, low-value meetings, send them the link.
It’s less confrontational than saying “your meetings are a waste of time” — but the math speaks for itself.
4. Make the Invisible Visible
The reason meeting culture is broken is because the costs are hidden. They don’t show up on any P&L. No one budgets for them.
This calculator makes the cost visible. And visibility is the first step toward change.
Why We Built This
At CalWizz, we’re building calendar analytics tools to help teams understand how they spend their time. The Meeting Cost Calculator is a free, standalone tool that embodies our core belief:
You can’t fix what you can’t measure.
Every team knows meetings are a problem. But “too many meetings” isn’t actionable. “$312,000/year in meetings that could be async” is.
Try It Now
Enter your numbers. See your results. Share if it hurts.
And if you want to go deeper — understanding not just what meetings cost, but which ones are actually valuable — check out CalWizz. We’re building the annual physical for your team’s calendar.
Built by the team at CalWizz. Follow @CalWizzApp for more data-driven takes on meeting culture.