Meeting Cost Calculator

Take an annual salary and divide by 1,800 to 1,920 (typical EU full-time hours range, excluding holiday). For a fully-loaded figure, add 25–50% on top — employer social charges, pension contributions, holiday pay, and overhead — and note that EU social-charge rates vary widely by country (relatively low in Ireland, very high in France or Germany). A €60,000 salary is roughly €33/hr base, ~€42–€50/hr fully-loaded depending on country.

Only what you put in. The cost shown is the time-cost of the people in the meeting. Hidden costs — context-switching, lost focus, follow-up communications — aren't captured. Studies across EU member states consistently find that 30–50% of meeting time is rated low-value by attendees; this calculator quantifies what that's costing.

Abstract figures are easy to ignore. Watching €300 tick by during a meeting that didn't need to happen is much harder to dismiss. Use it as a personal sanity check when scheduling, or share with your team in a broader conversation about meeting culture — not as a tool to point fingers during the meeting itself.

Mathematically exact: rate × people × time. Practically: as accurate as the hourly rate you input. Most teams have a mix of seniorities and fully-loaded costs, so a single average is a rough proxy. For a back-of-envelope figure on whether to keep, shorten, or cancel a meeting, that's enough.

Single meetings always feel cheap; recurring meetings compound. A 30-minute weekly meeting with 5 people at €60/hr is €150 — feels manageable. Held weekly for a year, it's €7,800, equivalent to 130 person-hours of work not done elsewhere. The annual framing is the one that shifts decisions.