Meeting Cost Calculator
What a meeting really costs — per meeting, per year, and second by second as it runs.
Try before you buy.
- Free preview: the cost of one meeting in full, with the first rows of each table (up to 3); every other figure is hidden.
- Locked until you unlock it: download and copy.
- Unlock: Pro pass, ₹179 for 30 days, a one-time payment that never renews.
Ways to unlock shows how to get the full result.
Printing this result is locked in the free preview.
By group
| Group | People | Cost an hour each | One meeting | Share |
|---|
The agenda
| Item | Minutes | Cost |
|---|
Live meeting timer
Counts the people’s cost every second at the meeting’s average cost a person.
Locked in the free preview. Opens the ways to unlock this result.
Locked in the free preview. Batch runs unlock with a pass.
Locked in the free preview. Query results unlock with a pass.
About the Meeting Cost Calculator
A meeting costs the pay of everyone in it for as long as it lasts — and a weekly hour with a few people adds up to real money over a year. Add the people who attend in groups (a manager, six engineers, two guests), with what they earn an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year, how long the meeting runs and how often it repeats. The calculator gives the cost of one meeting, the cost a minute and an hour, a month and a year, the hours of people’s time it takes, and what each agenda item costs.
Pay is only part of what people cost their employer: a loaded-cost multiplier adds payroll taxes, pension and insurance contributions and benefits. You can count preparation and travel time for each person and other costs such as a room or catering. During the meeting, the live timer counts the cost second by second, and you can add or take away people as they arrive and leave.
Without a pass the free preview shows the cost of one meeting in full and the first rows of each table, and the live timer works; the other figures, the copied summary and the CSV come with a Pro pass. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
How to use it
- Add a row for each group of attendees who earn about the same: a name, how many people, and what each earns with its period (an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year).
- Enter how long the meeting lasts and how often it repeats. Optionally add preparation and travel minutes for each person and other costs of the meeting.
- Check the schedule used to turn salaries into hourly rates (40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year by default) and the cost multiplier (1.3 by default; 1 counts pay only).
- Optionally list the agenda with minutes for each item to see what each one costs.
- Read the cost of one meeting, a month and a year. With a Pro pass, copy the summary or download the breakdown as CSV; in the free preview they stay locked.
- In the meeting, press Start on the live timer. Use + and − when people join or leave.
Examples
1 manager at 104,000 a year and 6 team members at 40 an hour · 60 minutes · every week · multiplier 1.3 · 40 hours a week, 52 weeks
Manager 104,000 ÷ 2,080 hours = 50 an hour × 1.3 = 65; team 6 × 40 × 1.3 = 312. One meeting costs 377, a year 19,604 (52 meetings), a month 1,633.67 — 364 hours of people’s time a year.
10 minutes of preparation each · 50 for the room · agenda: updates 20 minutes, planning 30 minutes
People 377 × 70 ÷ 60 = 439.83, plus 50 = 489.83 a meeting. Updates cost 163.28 and planning 244.92; the agenda leaves 10 minutes unplanned.
The weekly meeting above runs 1 minute with all 7 people, then 4 leave
The first minute costs 377 ÷ 60 = 6.28; each minute with 3 people costs 3 ÷ 7 of that, 2.69.
How the cost is worked out
- Hourly rate of a person = pay ÷ the hours it covers: a yearly salary ÷ (hours a week × weeks a year), a monthly salary × 12 ÷ the same, a weekly one ÷ hours a week, a daily rate ÷ hours a day.
- Hourly cost = hourly rate × the cost multiplier.
- One meeting = the sum over every group of people × hourly cost × (meeting minutes + preparation minutes) ÷ 60, plus the meeting’s other costs.
- A year = one meeting × meetings a year (52 for a weekly meeting with 52 weeks, 26 every two weeks, 12 a month, 4 a quarter, working days × weeks for a daily meeting); a month = a year ÷ 12.
- An agenda item = its minutes ÷ the meeting’s minutes × the cost of one meeting, so the items share the preparation and other costs by their length.
Which cost multiplier to use
Employers pay more than salaries: payroll taxes, social security, pension and health contributions and other benefits. In the United States, benefits make up about 30% of what private employers spend on compensation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — so pay × about 1.4 covers pay and benefits. Office space, equipment and management overheads come on top of that. Your finance or HR team can give you your organisation’s own figure; the Employee Cost Calculator works it out from your country’s contributions. Use 1 to count pay only.
Using the result
The number is a way to weigh a meeting against what it achieves, not a bill. Common ways to make the time count: invite only the people who must decide or contribute and send notes to the rest, set an agenda with minutes for each item (the agenda cost shows which items are worth their time), end early when the agenda is done, and check every recurring meeting now and then — the yearly figure shows which ones matter most.
Limitations
- People who earn about the same are grouped and costed at one rate. Use more groups for a closer figure.
- The cost counts paid time, not what else people would have done with it (the opportunity cost), which can be higher.
- Meetings a year use whole weeks; holidays, leave and cancelled meetings lower the real number — use “On your own schedule” to enter it.
- The live timer counts people at the meeting’s average cost a person, so adding or removing a person changes the cost a second by that average.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.
Frequently asked questions
What do I get without a pass?
Without a pass, Meeting Cost Calculator shows the cost of one meeting in full, with the first rows of each table (up to 3); every other figure is hidden. Until you unlock it, the result can’t be downloaded or copied. A Pro, Premium or Ultimate pass, a one-time payment that never renews, unlocks the full result. The pricing page lists the passes and their prices.
Should I use salaries or what people cost the company?
What they cost, if you know it: that is pay × the cost multiplier. If you only know salaries, the multiplier turns them into an estimate of employment costs; 1 counts pay only.
Does the timer keep running if I switch tabs?
Yes. It works out the cost from the time that has passed, so it is right when you come back even if the browser slowed the tab down meanwhile. Closing or reloading the page stops it.
Can I include people from outside the company?
Yes: add them as a group with their day rate or hourly fee and tick Full cost, so the multiplier is not added to a fee that already covers everything.
Is what I enter stored?
The groups, the schedule and the settings are kept in this browser so the next visit starts where you left off; nothing is uploaded. Reset clears them.