Our calculator is built on data from Microsoft Work Trend Index (hundreds of millions of users), peer-reviewed academic research, and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data. The 2.5–3 hours/week scheduling estimate comes from multiple independent studies with over 10,000 participants. Your actual numbers may vary based on your specific meeting culture, but the defaults represent well-researched industry benchmarks.

Fully-loaded salary includes base pay plus all employment costs: benefits (health, dental, vision), payroll taxes (FICA, unemployment), retirement contributions, paid time off, insurance, and overhead. According to the BLS, this typically adds 25–45% on top of base salary. We use conservative multipliers: 1.25x for smaller companies, 1.35x for mid-market, and 1.45x for enterprise.

Active schedulers are employees who regularly initiate and coordinate meetings—like sales reps, recruiters, managers, customer success, and executives. Research shows only 30–40% of employees actively schedule; the rest primarily accept invites. Common active scheduler roles: SDRs/AEs, hiring managers, executive assistants, customer-facing teams, and department heads.

Internal scheduling uses shared calendar systems (Outlook/Google "find a time" features) that show real-time availability. External scheduling requires email back-and-forth averaging 7+ messages per meeting, plus timezone coordination, calendar system incompatibility, and longer response times. Microsoft's own product design confirms this—they built separate tools for internal vs. external scheduling because the workflows are fundamentally different.

Workmate eliminates the back-and-forth entirely. Share your scheduling link, and invitees see your real availability across all calendars, book instantly, and receive automatic confirmations. For team scheduling, Workmate finds optimal times across multiple participants in seconds. No email tennis, no timezone confusion, no double-booking.

The calculator is fully customizable—adjust any input to match your organization. The three presets (Focused, Collaborative, Meeting-Intensive) describe common meeting cultures, not rigid categories. If you're a 50-person sales team with heavy external scheduling, your numbers might look closer to the Meeting-Intensive tier despite your size.

The calculator includes a dedicated section for admin assistants. Research shows EAs spend ~13–15 hours per week (30–35% of their time) on calendar management. If you have admins who coordinate scheduling, include them in the "Number of admin assistants" field.

Time saved from scheduling doesn't vanish—it converts to productive work. Sales teams book more meetings. Recruiters schedule more interviews. Managers spend more time coaching. Customer success handles more accounts. The ROI is real because scheduling time directly displaces revenue-generating or strategic activities.

The calculator recommends a plan based on your active scheduler count: Pro (1–5 schedulers), Premium (6–15), or Business (16+). Business pricing is company-wide rather than per-seat, which often makes more sense for larger organizations. Start a free trial to test with your team, or book a call to discuss custom pricing.