OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Meeting Cost Ticker Online
Cost of Meetings Counted Up in Real Time From Attendees and Hourly Cost
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How the Meeting Cost Ticker works
This meeting cost ticker online counts what a meeting is costing as it runs. Set the number of people in the room and what an hour of their time costs, then press Start when the meeting begins. The cost accumulates live, second by second, alongside the burn rate per minute and what the same meeting costs over a year if you hold it every week.
Meeting cost ticker online: the cost of an hour
A meeting is the only significant expense most organisations incur without anyone approving it. Eight people for an hour at ordinary salaries costs more than most software subscriptions, and nobody signs anything. Putting the number on a screen while it climbs is a blunt instrument, and it works.
Use fully loaded cost, not salary. Employer National Insurance or payroll taxes, pension contributions, insurance, equipment, software and space all sit on top of the headline wage. Depending on the country and the sector, that overhead adds somewhere between 25% and 40% to the salary figure. Costing a meeting at base pay understates it by roughly a third.
The cost scales with attendees, and so should the invitation. Each additional person adds their full hourly rate for the whole duration, while the marginal value they add usually falls — most people in a large meeting contribute nothing that could not have been read afterwards. The standard advice to keep decision meetings under about seven people is really a statement about where the cost curve overtakes the value curve.
Recurring meetings are where the real money is. A single meeting that costs a few hundred is noise. The same meeting held weekly for a year is a genuine budget line, and it is almost never reviewed as one, because the decision to hold it was made once and never revisited. Recurring invitations with no end date are the single largest source of avoidable meeting cost in most teams.
Cost is not the same as waste. A meeting that resolves a decision which would otherwise have taken two weeks of asynchronous back-and-forth is worth many times its price. The ticker is not an argument that meetings are bad; it is a way to ask whether this particular meeting is worth what it is visibly costing while it runs.
What to do with the number. The productive uses are cancelling recurring meetings that no longer have a purpose, shortening default durations from sixty to twenty-five minutes, trimming attendee lists to people who will actually speak, and requiring an agenda before the invitation goes out. Displaying the ticker in the room works largely because it makes the meandering opening five minutes visible to everyone at once.
Meeting cost by attendees and length
Each attendee on $55 an hour with 30% employer overhead, so $71.50 an hour loaded.
Meeting cost for 15, 30 and 60 minutes, and a weekly one-hour meeting over a year, by attendees
| Attendees | 15 minutes | 30 minutes | 1 hour | Weekly 1 hour, a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | $35.75 | $71.50 | $143.00 | $7,436.00 |
| 3 | $53.63 | $107.25 | $214.50 | $11,154.00 |
| 4 | $71.50 | $143.00 | $286.00 | $14,872.00 |
| 5 | $89.38 | $178.75 | $357.50 | $18,590.00 |
| 6 | $107.25 | $214.50 | $429.00 | $22,308.00 |
| 7 | $125.13 | $250.25 | $500.50 | $26,026.00 |
| 8 | $143.00 | $286.00 | $572.00 | $29,744.00 |
| 9 | $160.88 | $321.75 | $643.50 | $33,462.00 |
| 10 | $178.75 | $357.50 | $715.00 | $37,180.00 |
| 12 | $214.50 | $429.00 | $858.00 | $44,616.00 |
| 14 | $250.25 | $500.50 | $1,001.00 | $52,052.00 |
| 15 | $268.13 | $536.25 | $1,072.50 | $55,770.00 |
| 16 | $286.00 | $572.00 | $1,144.00 | $59,488.00 |
| 18 | $321.75 | $643.50 | $1,287.00 | $66,924.00 |
| 20 | $357.50 | $715.00 | $1,430.00 | $74,360.00 |
| 25 | $446.88 | $893.75 | $1,787.50 | $92,950.00 |
| 30 | $536.25 | $1,072.50 | $2,145.00 | $111,540.00 |
| 40 | $715.00 | $1,430.00 | $2,860.00 | $148,720.00 |
| 50 | $893.75 | $1,787.50 | $3,575.00 | $185,900.00 |
| 100 | $1,787.50 | $3,575.00 | $7,150.00 | $371,800.00 |
FAQ
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Multiply the number of attendees by their average fully loaded hourly cost, then by the duration in hours. Fully loaded means salary plus employer taxes, benefits and overhead, which typically adds 25% to 40% on top of base pay.
What overhead percentage should I use?
Around 30% is a reasonable default for most employers. It rises where pension contributions are generous, benefits are extensive, or the cost of office space and equipment per head is high, and it falls for fully remote teams on minimal benefits.
Does this include preparation and follow-up time?
No — it counts only the time the meeting is actually running. Preparation, context switching either side and writing up notes are real costs that this figure omits, so treat the ticker as a floor rather than the full price.
How can I reduce meeting costs?
Cut recurring meetings that have outlived their purpose, shorten the default slot, invite only people who will contribute, and require an agenda in advance. Reviewing every standing invitation once a quarter recovers more time than anything else on that list.
See also: all Rates & Pricing tools, Profit & Growth, Invoicing & Payments.
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