Meeting costs don't scale linearly with company size — they scale exponentially. A 100-person company doesn't have 10× the meetings of a 10-person startup. It has closer to 50×, because meetings breed meetings: status updates, cross-functional syncs, alignment sessions, reviews of reviews. Here's what the numbers look like at every stage.
5-Person Startup
At this stage, meetings are lean and justified. Everyone's in the room because everyone needs to be. Assuming average founder/early-employee pay of $60,000-$80,000 (~$35-$50/hour fully loaded):
A daily 15-minute standup with all 5 people costs roughly $10,500-$15,000 per year. A weekly 1-hour planning session costs about $8,400-$12,000 per year. Total recurring meeting cost at this stage is typically $20,000-$35,000/year, or 5-8% of total payroll. That's healthy.
20-Person Scaleup
This is where meeting bloat begins. You now have 2-3 teams, which means cross-team syncs. Assuming average salary of $75,000 (~$47/hour):
Daily standups per team (3 teams × 7 people × 15 min) cost about $47,500/year. Weekly all-hands (20 people × 30 min) adds $22,600/year. Cross-team syncs, 1-on-1s, and planning sessions can easily add another $40,000-$60,000/year. Total: $100,000-$130,000/year, or 8-12% of payroll. The inefficiency is starting.
100-Person Company
At 100 people, meeting culture is either deliberately managed or it's already out of control. Average salary: $80,000 (~$50/hour). The math gets serious:
The average 100-person company has 15-25 recurring meetings per week plus ad-hoc meetings. If the average employee spends 30% of their time in meetings, that's 12 hours per week per person, which translates to $600/week per person or $2.88 million in total meeting salary per year. Not all of that is waste — maybe 60-70% of those meetings are valuable. But even the "necessary" meetings can often be shortened.
500-Person Mid-Market
At this scale, meetings are an organizational system, not just a communication tool. Average salary: $85,000 (~$53/hour). The numbers:
With employees spending an average of 33% of their time in meetings, the annual meeting salary cost is roughly $7.5 million. That's before accounting for opportunity cost. Companies at this size typically have meeting archetypes layered on top of each other: team standups, department weeklies, cross-functional syncs, steering committees, exec reviews, and all-hands.
The biggest cost driver at this level isn't any single meeting — it's the cascade effect. A VP attends a strategy meeting, then holds a meeting with their directors to relay information, then each director holds a meeting with their teams. One decision creates 10+ meetings.
1,000+ Enterprise
At enterprise scale, meeting costs are measured in tens of millions. Average fully-loaded cost: $60/hour. If the average employee spends 35% of their time in meetings:
1,000 employees: ~$17.5 million/year in meeting salary costs. 5,000 employees: ~$87 million/year. 10,000 employees: ~$175 million/year.
At this scale, even a 10% reduction in meeting time saves millions. That's why enterprise companies are increasingly investing in async communication tools, meeting-free days, and meeting cost tracking — the ROI is enormous.
The Pattern
Meeting cost as a percentage of payroll typically follows this curve: 5-8% at startup stage, rising to 10-15% as teams form, and stabilizing (or spiraling) at 15-25% for larger companies. The companies that keep it closer to 10-15% at scale are the ones that actively manage their meeting culture.
Start with visibility. Use our meeting cost calculator to calculate the cost of your top 10 recurring meetings. Add them up. Compare the total to what you'd spend on a new hire, a tool, or a team offsite. That comparison usually starts the right conversation.