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Meeting Cost Calculator (UK)
We add 30% for employer NI, pension, and overheads - the true cost of an hour.
This meeting costs
£203
- Cost per minute
- £3.39
- Cost per year if it keeps repeating
- £9,360
- Loaded cost per person per hour
- £34
Live meeting counter
In a meeting right now? Start the counter and share your screen.
£0.00
0:00 elapsed · 6 people
Cut the meetings, keep the alignment
Status meetings exist because nobody has time to write the update. Book fifteen free minutes and we will show you which updates, summaries and reports could write themselves.
Behind the tool
The maths behind the counter
We convert the average salary into a true hourly cost: gross pay plus 30% for employer National Insurance, pension, and overheads, divided by 1,725 working hours a year (a standard UK working year after holidays and bank holidays). The live counter ticks at that combined rate for everyone in the room - which is why a six-person hour costs real money even when nobody invoices for it.
What to do with the number
The point isn't to cancel every meeting - decisions and relationships need live conversation. The point is that recurring meetings should compete for their slot like any other cost. Price your weekly status meeting with the calculator above, then ask whether a written update would do the same job. If the answer is yes, that's a process ripe for automation - size the wider opportunity with the AI ROI calculator or check your AI readiness score.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the cost of a meeting?
Multiply each attendee's fully loaded hourly cost by the meeting length, then add everyone up. This calculator takes the average salary, adds 30% for employer National Insurance, pension, and overheads, and divides by 1,725 working hours per year (UK working time minus holidays) to get a true hourly cost per person.
What does the average meeting cost a UK business?
Using UK averages - six people on a £45,000 average salary for one hour - a single meeting costs roughly £200. Run weekly, that's around £9,000 a year for one recurring slot. Most businesses have several, which is why recurring meetings are usually the single most expensive habit nobody has priced.
Why add 30% on top of salary?
Salary understates what an hour of someone's time costs the business. Employer National Insurance, pension contributions, equipment, software, and office overheads typically add 25-40% on top of gross pay; we use 30% as a sensible UK midpoint. If you know your actual overhead rate, adjust the salary input to match.
How can we reduce meeting costs without losing alignment?
Start by pricing them - that's what this tool is for. Then: make every recurring meeting earn its renewal quarterly, default to 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 or 60, cut attendee lists to people who decide or do, and replace status meetings with written updates. AI helps here too - automated summaries and project digests remove the main reason status meetings exist.
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