Meetings are one of the most routine features of working life, but they can also be one of the biggest hidden costs in a business. While they may feel “free” because they take place in an office or online, the real cost comes from the time and resources tied up in them.
The Invisible Price Tag
Every meeting requires people to stop what they are doing and divert their focus. If five managers earning £60,000 a year spend two hours in a meeting, the cost of that single session in salaries alone is over £300. Scale that across multiple meetings per week and you quickly see why poorly run meetings are so expensive.
Beyond Salaries
The financial impact goes well beyond basic pay:
- Opportunity cost – every hour in a meeting is an hour not spent on strategic work, client delivery or sales.
- Preparation and follow-up – agendas, slide decks, minutes and actions consume more time than the meeting itself.
- Lost momentum – constant interruptions can slow project progress, especially if decisions are delayed until “the next meeting.”
Why So Many?
A culture of defaulting to meetings often stems from a desire for visibility, consensus or simply tradition. Yet most updates can be shared in writing, quick check-ins can be handled with a call, and some decisions don’t need a full group to approve them.
Putting a Value on It
Research suggests employees spend an average of a third of their working week in meetings. For a mid-sized organisation, that translates to hundreds of thousands of pounds annually. The stark reality is that the cost of unnecessary meetings often rivals more visible business expenses like office space or technology systems.
You can use our free meeting effectiveness cost calculator to see how much your meetings cost.
Making Meetings Count
The solution is not to ban meetings but to make them purposeful:
- Only invite those directly involved in the decision.
- Set clear outcomes and end the session once they are achieved.
- Default to shorter meetings—try 25 minutes instead of an hour.
- Track the estimated cost of meetings as a reminder of the investment being made.
Every meeting has a price, whether it is obvious or not. The next time you click “create meeting,” it may be worth asking: is this conversation worth hundreds or even thousands of pounds?
