What your weekly meeting really costs, and one change to make

You need

• Your calendar
• Roughly what each person in the meeting earns per hour
• A notepad or a blank spreadsheet

Steps

1. Minutes 0 to 3

   Pick one meeting

   Open your calendar and pick the meeting you sit in most often. Write down how many people attend, how long it runs, and how many times it happens in a month.

2. Minutes 3 to 6

   Work out a loaded hourly cost

   A person costs more than their wage: payroll taxes, paid leave and insurance add to it. If your payroll records give you the real figure, use it. If you only know the hourly wage, divide it by 0.7 for a rough figure, because in the U.S. wages and salaries made up 70% of private employers' total compensation cost in June 2026. A $25 hourly wage divided by 0.7 is about $36 an hour.

3. Minutes 6 to 9

   Run the numbers

   Open the Meeting Cost Calculator and enter the attendees, the length in hours, the loaded hourly cost and the meetings per month. Write down the monthly cost. For example, 6 people for 1 hour at $36 an hour, 4 times a month, is $864 a month, or $10,368 a year.

4. Minutes 9 to 13

   Test one change at a time

   Change one thing, write down the new monthly cost, then put it back and try the next: cut 15 minutes, drop one or two people who only need the notes, or meet every other week. In the example, cutting to 45 minutes saves $216 a month. The calculator counts time in the room only; it cannot tell you what the meeting produces, so judge that part yourself.

5. Minutes 13 to 15

   Decide and book it

   Pick the one change that saves the most without losing what the meeting is for. Change the calendar invite now and add one line telling the team why. Look at it again in a month.