The True Cost of Meetings

Every meeting has a hidden price tag. When six senior engineers sit in a room for an hour, that's not just "an hour" — it's six hours of engineering time that could have been spent building, shipping, and solving real problems. MeetDrain shows you exactly what that costs in real dollars.

How Meeting Cost is Calculated

MeetDrain calculates the cost by converting each attendee's annual salary to a per-second rate (salary ÷ 2,080 working hours ÷ 3,600 seconds), then multiplying by the number of attendees and elapsed time. We also factor in the true "loaded cost" — benefits, overhead, and opportunity cost typically add 30-40% on top of base salary.

Why Track Meeting Costs?

• Accountability — When everyone sees the ticker, meetings end faster
• Better decisions — "Is this meeting worth $2,400?" changes behavior
• Culture change — Organizations that track meeting costs reduce them by 25-30%
• Resource allocation — Know exactly what fraction of salary budgets go to meetings

Tips to Reduce Meeting Costs

Start by cutting meeting duration by 25% (50 min → 37 min). Remove optional attendees — each person you cut saves their full loaded hourly rate. Default to async communication (Slack, Loom, docs) and reserve synchronous meetings for decisions that truly need discussion. Consider "meeting-free" blocks where deep work happens uninterrupted.