The meeting that cost more than the problem
Staff a meeting with real roles and fully-loaded hourly rates, set its length, and watch a live dollar counter price it out — then the cost X-ray shows the part nobody itemises: how much of the bill bought silence from people who never spoke. It runs entirely in your browser (0 uploads, works offline).
How to use it
- Staff the room — add each role and its fully-loaded hourly rate, and tick who actually spoke.
- Set the length and how often it recurs (one-off, monthly, weekly), and log how many decisions it actually produced.
- Read the X-ray — total cost, cost per decision, and the silent bill — then copy the share line.
What this clears up (the fundamentals)
- Fully-loaded hourly cost — a person costs far more per hour than their salary ÷ hours; benefits, overhead and taxes roughly double it, and that's the number a meeting actually burns.
- Meeting ROI & cost-per-decision — a meeting is an investment; if it costs $690 and decides nothing, its cost-per-decision is infinite. This makes that visible.
- Silent attendees as sunk cost — everyone in the room is billing whether or not they speak. The X-ray attributes the cost of the people who never spoke, which is usually the biggest, most invisible line.
- Opportunity cost of sync time — the annualised figure (weekly × 52) reframes a "quick sync" as a recurring salary line.
Where it's used
A free 60-second companion for Leadership thinking and manager training — drop it on a homepage or a manager portal, or embed it in a lesson on running meetings that earn their cost. It's a miatz build-lab concept playable: you can also learn to build it yourself.
FAQ
How much does a meeting actually cost?
Multiply each attendee's fully-loaded hourly rate by the meeting length in hours and add them up. A one-hour meeting with a director ($300/hr), a PM ($150/hr) and two engineers ($120/hr) costs $690 — and $2,400+/year if it's weekly. This page does the math live as you staff the room.
What is a "fully-loaded" hourly rate?
It's the true cost of an hour of someone's time — salary plus benefits, taxes, equipment and overhead — not just their paycheck divided by hours. It's usually 1.5–2× the base salary rate, which is why meetings cost more than people expect.
Is anything I type uploaded?
No. The whole calculation runs in your browser and nothing is transmitted or stored — you can verify it by turning off your Wi-Fi and watching it still work. No salary figures ever leave your device.
What's the "silent cost" the X-ray shows?
Everyone in a meeting is being paid for the whole hour, whether they contribute or sit silent. The X-ray adds up the cost of the attendees who never spoke — often half the bill — so you can decide who actually needed to be there.
Can I embed this on my own site?
Yes — use the Embed option to drop it into any page as a widget. It's self-contained and needs no backend.
Limits
An estimate to start a conversation, not payroll accounting — rates are what you enter, and "spoke / didn't" is a manual mark, not a transcript.
Related
Part of the miatz playgrounds — hands-on concept playables. Explore the rest from the Playgrounds home.
Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) — it works offline the next time you need it.