Average Cost of a Meeting: $338 to $1,500 Per Hour
The average meeting costs between $338 and $1,500 per hour depending on the number of attendees and their seniority levels. This comprehensive analysis of 40+ research studies from MIT, Harvard Business Review, Bain & Company, and Atlassian reveals the true cost of meetings across company sizes and types.
Written by Christine Lawson
Engineering Leadership Consultant with 18 years of experience. Former VP of Engineering at Series D Fintech (scaled 35 to 120 engineers). Conducted 40+ organizational meeting audits analyzing 50,000+ hours of calendar data. Published researcher on meeting productivity and organizational efficiency.
Quick Answer
The average meeting costs between $338 and $1,500 per hour depending on attendees and seniority. A typical 8-person team meeting costs approximately $600/hour or $31,200/year for weekly recurrence. Employees spend an average of 11.3 hours/week in meetings, representing $29,000 per employee annually at fully-loaded salary rates. When including hidden costs like context switching (23 minutes to refocus), preparation time (4 hours/week), and opportunity cost, the true cost is 2-3x higher than direct salary calculations.
Meeting Costs by Type (Summary)
| Meeting Type | Attendees | Hourly Cost | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Standup | 4 | $200 | $13,000 |
| Team Meeting | 8 | $600 | $31,200 |
| Sprint Planning | 6 | $450 | $35,100 |
| Executive Meeting | 6 | $900 | $46,800 |
| All-Hands Meeting | 50 | $3,750 | $48,750 |
Based on average fully-loaded salary rates with benefits and overhead. See full breakdown below.
How to Calculate the True Cost of a Meeting
Meeting Cost Formula
Basic Formula:
Meeting Cost = (Sum of Fully-Loaded Hourly Rates) × Duration
Complete Formula (with hidden costs):
True Cost = Direct Cost + Opportunity Cost (1.5x) + Preparation (1.3x) + Recovery (1.2x)
Understanding Fully-Loaded Rates
The fully-loaded hourly rate is the true cost of an employee to the company, not just their base salary. It includes:
- Base Salary: The employee's annual compensation
- Benefits (15-25%): Health insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off
- Payroll Taxes (7-10%): FICA, unemployment, workers' comp
- Overhead (5-10%): Office space, equipment, software licenses
Total multiplier: 1.30-1.40x base salary. For example, an employee earning $85,000/year has a fully-loaded cost of approximately $110,500-$119,000/year, or $53-$57 per hour (based on 2,080 working hours per year).
Example Calculation
Scenario:
Weekly 1-hour team meeting with 8 employees at an average salary of $85,000/year
With hidden costs (2.5x multiplier):
True annual cost: $57,330 (context switching, preparation, opportunity cost)
Calculate Your Meeting Costs
Use our free meeting cost calculator to instantly calculate the cost of any meeting based on attendee salaries, duration, and frequency. Get real-time cost tracking and annual projections.
Try Meeting Cost CalculatorAverage Cost by Meeting Type [2026 Data]
Meeting costs vary dramatically by type, attendee count, and duration. Below is a comprehensive breakdown of the most common meeting types in modern organizations, based on aggregated data from Atlassian, Bain & Company, and Microsoft research.
| Meeting Type | Attendees | Duration | Hourly Cost | Annual Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Standup | 4 | 15 min | $200 | $13,000 | Low cost individually, but compounds across teams |
| Team Meeting | 8 | 60 min | $600 | $31,200 | Most common meeting type in organizations |
| Sprint Planning | 6 | 90 min | $450 | $35,100 | Higher per-session cost due to length |
| Executive Meeting | 6 | 60 min | $900 | $46,800 | Senior salary multiplier drives cost up |
| All-Hands Meeting | 50 | 60 min | $3,750 | $48,750 | Largest per-session cost; monthly cadence typical |
| Board Meeting | 10 | 120 min | $2,500 | $30,000 | Quarterly cadence reduces annual cost |
| Client Meeting | 4 | 60 min | $400 | $20,800 | Revenue-generating; ROI usually positive |
| 1:1 Meeting | 2 | 30 min | $150 | $7,800 | High-value when done right |
Shopify's Meeting Cost Calculator Findings
In 2023, Shopify introduced a meeting cost calculator that displays the real-time cost during every calendar event. Their internal analysis revealed that a seemingly innocuous 30-minute meeting with just 3 people costs between $700 and $1,600 when factoring in preparation time (averaging 20-30 minutes per attendee), context-switching costs, and opportunity cost of deep work time lost. This finding led to their implementation of “No Meeting Wednesdays” company-wide.
Key Insights by Type
Daily Standups: The Compounding Problem
While a 15-minute standup seems harmless at $200 per session, the daily frequency means this adds up to $13,000/year per team. For an engineering organization with 10 teams, that's $130,000 annually. Many standups could be replaced with asynchronous Slack updates, saving 70-80% of this cost.
Team Meetings: The Silent Budget Drain
The most common meeting type is also one of the most expensive. At $31,200/year for a single weekly meeting, a company with 20 teams spends over $600,000 annually just on team meetings. Reducing these from 60 to 45 minutes saves 25% immediately.
All-Hands: High Cost, High Value
At $3,750 per hour, all-hands meetings are the most expensive per session, but when held monthly (12 times per year), the annual cost of $48,750 is often justified by the alignment and culture-building value. The key is ensuring every all-hands has clear objectives and can't be replaced by a recorded video message.
Executive Meetings: The Cascading Cost
Bain & Company research found that the true cost of executive meetings is far higher than the direct hourly rate. A single weekly executive meeting at a large organization can cost $15 million annually when including the cascading preparation meetings, data gathering, and slide creation it triggers across the entire organization.
Meeting Costs by Company Size
Meeting costs scale non-linearly with company size. As organizations grow, the number of coordination meetings, cross-functional alignment sessions, and all-hands gatherings increases exponentially. Here's how meeting costs break down by company size, based on aggregated data from Reclaim.ai, Clockwise, and Microsoft Viva Insights.
| Company Size | Avg Salary | Meeting Hours/Week | Cost Per Employee/Year | Total Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small (< 50) | $65,000 | 8 hrs/week | $15,000/year | $375K-$750K |
| Mid-Market (50-500) | $85,000 | 11 hrs/week | $24,000/year | $1.2M-$12M |
| Enterprise (500-5,000) | $95,000 | 14 hrs/week | $29,000/year | $14.5M-$145M |
| Large Enterprise (5,000+) | $105,000 | 16 hrs/week | $35,000/year | $175M+ |
Bain & Company: The $15M Meeting
Bain & Company conducted a detailed analysis of a large company's weekly executive meeting. The direct cost was modest — 6 executives for 90 minutes per week. However, the cascading preparation work revealed the true cost: each executive required 3-4 hours of staff preparation, which in turn required data gathering from 20+ additional employees, consuming an average of 6 hours each. The total annual cost: $15 million. After implementing a policy requiring explicit approval for preparation meetings, they reduced this by 40%.
Why Meeting Costs Scale Non-Linearly
Communication Overhead (O(n²))
As explained by Fred Brooks in The Mythical Man-Month, communication paths grow quadratically. A 5-person team has 10 communication paths (n(n-1)/2), while a 10-person team has 45 paths — a 4.5x increase for doubling team size.
Example:
- 5 people = 10 communication paths
- 10 people = 45 paths (4.5x increase)
- 20 people = 190 paths (19x increase)
- 50 people = 1,225 paths (122.5x increase)
Cross-Functional Coordination
Small companies can operate with informal hallway conversations. As companies grow beyond 50-100 people, teams become specialized and siloed, requiring formal coordination meetings between engineering, product, design, sales, marketing, and support. MIT Sloan research found that companies over 500 employees spend 35% more time in cross-functional meetings than companies under 100 employees.
Salary Inflation
Larger companies typically pay higher salaries. The average salary at a 5,000+ person enterprise is approximately 60% higher than at a startup under 50 people ($105K vs $65K in our data). Since meeting costs are directly proportional to salaries, this creates a compounding effect: more meetings at higher hourly rates.
Management Layers & Reporting
Small companies are flat with minimal hierarchy. Large enterprises have 4-7 management layers, each requiring regular 1:1s, skip-levels, team meetings, and upward reporting sessions. An individual contributor at a large enterprise might participate in: team standup, team meeting, department all-hands, cross-functional sync, 1:1 with manager, and quarterly planning — totaling 12-14 hours per week.
The Annual Impact: $29,000 Per Employee
$29,000Per Employee Per Year
Average annual meeting cost based on 11.3 hours/week at fully-loaded rates
$532BUS Total Annual Cost
Estimated total cost of meetings across all US businesses (165M workers)
31 hrsWasted Per Month
Time spent in unproductive meetings (Atlassian research)
Breaking Down the Numbers
According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index (2025), the average knowledge worker spends 11.3 hours per week in meetings — approximately 28% of the standard 40-hour workweek. This has tripled since 2020, largely driven by the shift to remote work and the proliferation of video conferencing tools.
Annual Cost Calculation
Using the more conservative estimate of 10 hours/week brings this to approximately $29,000 per employee per year.
Company-Level Impact
For a 100-person company: $2.9M/year in meeting costs
For a 500-person company: $14.5M/year in meeting costs
For a 5,000-person enterprise: $145M/year in meeting costs
If even 30% of meetings are unproductive (conservative given Atlassian's finding that 71% of meetings are considered unproductive), that represents $870K, $4.35M, and $43.5M respectively in wasted meeting costs annually.
The Productivity Opportunity
Atlassian's research found that employees spend 31 hours per month in meetings they consider unproductive — nearly 4 full working days. If organizations could reclaim even half of this time and redirect it to productive work, the impact would be substantial:
Individual Contributor Impact
- Reclaim 15 hours/month = 180 hours/year of productive time
- Equivalent to 4.5 additional work weeks per employee
- Cost savings: $9,900/employee/year
Organizational Impact
- 100-person company: $990K/year in reclaimed productivity
- 500-person company: $4.95M/year in reclaimed productivity
- Equivalent to hiring 9-45 additional employees without increased headcount
5 Strategies to Reduce Meeting Costs
Based on research from MIT Sloan, Shopify, GitLab, and 40+ organizational audits, here are five proven strategies to reduce meeting costs by 30-50% while maintaining (or improving) organizational effectiveness.
1Audit and Eliminate: The 2-Week Calendar Review
Atlassian research found that simply auditing meetings and eliminating those without clear outcomes can reduce meeting load by 30-50%. Here's the process:
- Export 2 weeks of calendar data for yourself or your team
- Categorize each meeting: Decision, Information, Ideation, Relationship, Coordination, or 1:1
- For each meeting, ask: What is the expected outcome? Could this be async? Who is essential?
- Cancel meetings that are purely informational (replace with documentation)
- Cancel recurring meetings that have outlived their purpose
Calculate your potential savings:
Use Meeting Cost Calculator2Reduce Attendee Lists: The DACI Framework
Bain & Company research found that the average meeting has 2-3 unnecessary attendees. Use the DACI framework to identify who actually needs to be there:
| Driver (1 person) | Owns the meeting, drives to decision |
| Approver (1-2 people) | Has veto power, makes final call |
| Contributors (2-4 people) | Provide input, subject matter experts |
| Informed (async) | Receive meeting notes, not required live |
Rule of thumb: If a person can't contribute to the decision or outcome, they shouldn't be in the meeting. Send them notes instead.
3Shorten Default Durations: 25 & 50 Minutes
Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available. Most meetings default to 30 or 60 minutes not because they need that time, but because that's the calendar default.
Recommended defaults:
- Change 30-minute meetings to 25 minutes
- Change 60-minute meetings to 50 minutes
- Change 90-minute meetings to 75 minutes
This creates buffer time between meetings (reducing context switching costs) and forces more focused agendas. Google and Shopify both implemented this policy company-wide and reported no decrease in meeting effectiveness while saving 15-20% of total meeting time.
4Default to Async-First: Replace Status Updates
GitLab operates as a fully remote, async-first company with 2,000+ employees. Their principle: “If it can be async, it should be async.”
| Instead of... | Try this... |
|---|---|
| Daily standup (15 min) | Slack status thread (2 min/person) |
| Weekly status meeting (60 min) | Written update + async Q&A |
| Project update presentation (30 min) | Loom video (5 min) + doc |
| All-hands Q&A (60 min) | Pre-recorded message + async Q&A thread |
Time savings: A 15-minute daily standup with 4 people costs $13,000/year. Replacing with async updates saves $10,000+ annually per team.
5Implement No-Meeting Days: Protect Deep Work
MIT Sloan research found that implementing one no-meeting day per week increases employee productivity by 35% and improves engagement scores by 20%. Companies like Shopify, Asana, and Atlassian have all adopted this policy.
Implementation steps:
- Choose a day (Wednesday is most common — splits the week)
- Get executive buy-in and visible commitment (CEO blocks calendar first)
- Create explicit exceptions policy (customer emergencies, external meetings)
- Enforce with calendar automation (block day, auto-decline internal meetings)
- Measure impact after 30 days and iterate
Get the implementation template:
No-Meeting Day Policy TemplateExpected ROI from These Strategies
Organizations that implement all five strategies typically see:
- 30-50% reduction in total meeting time
- $8,700-$14,500 reclaimed per employee per year
- 35% increase in individual productivity (MIT Sloan)
- 20% improvement in employee engagement scores
- 65% reduction in meeting-related burnout (Microsoft)
For a 100-person company spending $2.9M/year on meetings, reducing meeting load by 40% saves $1.16M annually — equivalent to hiring 11 additional employees.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average cost of a meeting?
The average meeting costs between $338 and $1,500 per hour depending on the number of attendees and their seniority levels. A typical 8-person team meeting with an average salary of $85,000 costs approximately $600 per hour ($75/person/hour when including fully loaded costs with benefits, overhead, and taxes). For a weekly recurring meeting, that is $31,200 per year. Bain & Company research found that a single weekly meeting of mid-level managers at a large organization costs the company $15 million annually when factoring in cascading preparation time.
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
The basic formula is: Meeting Cost = (Sum of all attendees' fully-loaded hourly rates) x Duration in hours. The fully-loaded rate typically adds 30-40% to base salary for benefits, office space, equipment, and payroll taxes. For example, an employee earning $85,000/year has a fully-loaded cost of roughly $110,500-$119,000/year, or $53-$57/hour. For a more complete picture, add opportunity cost (what attendees could have produced instead) and preparation time (averaging 4 hours/week per employee). Use our meeting cost calculator for instant results.
What is the average cost of a 1 hour meeting?
A 1-hour meeting costs $150-$1,500+ depending on attendees. With 2 people at average salary: ~$150. With 4 people: ~$300. With 8 people (typical team meeting): ~$600. With 6 executives: ~$900. With 15 people (department meeting): ~$1,500. Shopify calculated that a 30-minute meeting with just 3 people costs $700-$1,600 when including preparation and context-switching costs. These figures use fully-loaded hourly rates that include benefits and overhead.
How much time do employees spend in meetings?
According to Microsoft Work Trend Index (2025), employees spend an average of 11.3 hours per week in meetings, approximately 28% of the standard 40-hour workweek. This has tripled since 2020. Atlassian found that 31 hours per month (nearly 4 full working days) are spent in meetings that employees consider unproductive. Executives spend even more: 19-23 hours per week, with CEOs averaging 37 meetings per week. At the average fully-loaded cost, this represents $29,000 per employee per year.
How much do unnecessary meetings cost companies?
Unnecessary meetings cost US businesses an estimated $37 billion per year in lost productivity (based on Atlassian data showing 31 hours/month of unproductive meeting time). At the individual level, if even 30% of an employee's meeting time is unproductive (a conservative estimate given Atlassian's findings that 71% of meetings are considered unproductive), that represents $8,700 per employee per year. For a 1,000-person company, that is $8.7 million annually in wasted meeting costs alone, not counting the opportunity cost of lost productive work time.
What is the most expensive type of meeting?
All-hands meetings and executive meetings are the most expensive per session. A 50-person all-hands meeting costs approximately $3,750 per hour. However, on an annual basis, recurring team meetings are often the largest total cost because of their frequency. A weekly 8-person team meeting costs $31,200/year. Bain & Company found that a single weekly executive meeting at a large organization can cost $15 million annually when including the cascading preparation meetings it triggers across the organization.
What percentage of meetings are unproductive?
Atlassian State of Teams (2024) found that 71% of meetings are considered unproductive by attendees. Harvard Business Review research shows 67% of employees say excessive meetings prevent them from doing their best work. Doodle's State of Meetings report found that professionals consider 2 out of every 3 meetings unnecessary. The primary causes of unproductive meetings are: no clear agenda (cited by 63% of respondents), wrong attendees (47%), lack of follow-up actions (38%), and meetings that could have been an email (34%).
How do you reduce meeting costs?
Five proven strategies to reduce meeting costs: (1) Audit and eliminate: Track all meetings for 2 weeks and cancel those without clear outcomes, potentially cutting 30-50% (Atlassian research). (2) Reduce attendees: Use the DACI framework (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed) to cut attendee lists by 30-50%. (3) Shorten durations: Change defaults from 60 to 25 minutes and 30 to 15 minutes. (4) Go async-first: Replace status updates with Loom videos or Slack updates. (5) Implement no-meeting days: MIT Sloan found one day per week increases productivity by 35%. Track progress with MeetingToll's real-time meeting cost display.
Meeting Cost Calculator Tools
Meeting Cost Calculator
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Read GuideSources & Research
This guide synthesizes data from 40+ research studies and organizational audits. Key sources include:
- Bain & Company – Meeting cost research and DACI framework (2024)
- Atlassian State of Teams – Meeting productivity and waste statistics (2024)
- Microsoft Work Trend Index – Meeting time trends and fatigue research (2025)
- MIT Sloan Management Review – No-meeting day productivity impact (2023)
- Harvard Business Review – Meeting effectiveness and executive time allocation (2023-2024)
- Shopify – Internal meeting cost calculator findings (2023)
- Gloria Mark (UC Irvine) – Context switching and attention residue research, published in Journal of Applied Psychology
- Sophie Leroy (University of Washington) – Attention residue and task switching costs
- Cal Newport – Deep work and meeting impact on knowledge workers
- Paul Graham – Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule essay
- Reclaim.ai & Clockwise – Calendar analytics and meeting load benchmarks (2024-2025)
- Doodle State of Meetings – Meeting productivity surveys (2024)
- GitLab Handbook – Async-first meeting policies and remote work practices
- Microsoft Human Factors Lab – EEG brain monitoring of meeting fatigue
- Fred Brooks – The Mythical Man-Month, communication overhead scaling
Additional data from 40+ organizational calendar audits conducted 2018-2025, analyzing 50,000+ hours of meeting data across technology companies, financial services, healthcare, and professional services firms ranging from 35 to 5,000 employees.