Meetings tool
Meeting Cost Calculator
Estimate what a meeting costs based on attendee salary bands, headcount, and time spent. This is useful for managers, founders, and teams questioning whether the time, attendance, and format are justified.
Meeting cost tool
Estimate what a meeting costs based on attendee salary bands, headcount, and time spent. The free version keeps the reporting simple and session-based.
Salary basis
Attendee salary bands
Use average salary figures for the people attending. This is designed as a practical estimate, not an exact payroll calculation.
Team / coordinator
Specialist / professional
Manager
Senior manager / head
Total attendees
0
Estimated hourly meeting cost
Enter attendees
Projected planned meeting cost
Enter duration
Live meeting session
00:00:00
The running total updates live while the meeting is active. The free version focuses on the overall session cost rather than deeper breakdown reporting.
Live running total
£0.00
Hourly estimate: Enter attendees
Quick notes
- • This free version focuses on a clear hourly estimate and a live running total.
- • Use average salary bands for a practical estimate rather than exact payroll detail.
- • A stronger Pro version can later add per-minute breakdowns, saved history, and deeper reporting.
Need more context?
How to calculate meeting cost
See how meeting cost is estimated, what the assumptions mean, and when the result is most useful.
Read guideWhat this calculator helps you do
Sense-check meeting value
The tool turns attendance and time into a practical money estimate, which makes it easier to question whether the meeting is worth the cost.
Make attendance decisions clearer
Seeing the estimated hourly cost can help teams think more carefully about who really needs to be in the room.
Keep a simple session record
The free version gives you a copy-ready session summary without overcomplicating the tool or turning it into a reporting system.
How the estimate works
- Each salary band is converted into an approximate hourly rate using an annual working-hours assumption.
- The hourly rates are multiplied by the number of attendees in each band.
- The combined hourly figure becomes the live meeting-cost estimate.
- If you switch on employer on-costs, the estimate adds a simple uplift to reflect wider employment cost, not just salary alone.
When this tool is most useful
- Recurring management meetings.
- Cross-team project check-ins.
- Leadership reviews and planning sessions.
- Status meetings that may be running too often or too long.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Treating the estimate as exact payroll accounting rather than a decision-support figure.
- Ignoring who is attending and focusing only on duration.
- Assuming a frequent meeting is automatically justified because it has always been in the calendar.
- Confusing a useful update with a meeting that could have been a shorter written summary.
Free now, stronger later
The free version is designed to handle one meeting session well. A later Pro version can extend this into stronger reporting, saved history, recurring-meeting tracking, and more detailed breakdowns.
- Free: live total, hourly cost, planned estimate, and copy summary.
- Planned Pro: deeper reporting, per-minute breakdowns, and saved records.
Read the guide or browse the Business tools
Use the guide if you want the logic explained first, or return to the tools hub to compare this calculator with the rest of the Business toolset.