A ghosted sales demo costs more than the 30 minutes blocked on the rep's calendar. It costs the prep time, the follow-up time, the calendar opportunity (a real meeting that could have been booked instead), and statistically a portion of the lost-pipeline value. This calculator layers all three for B2B sales teams, with industry benchmarks on demo no-show rates by segment (typically 15-30% for SMB inbound, 8-15% for outbound enterprise).
Layer 1 — Direct payroll: rep fully-loaded hourly × (prep time + meeting time + follow-up time). Typically 45-90 min total per scheduled demo. Layer 2 — Calendar opportunity: rep slot was occupied; another qualified prospect could not book. Layer 3 — Lost pipeline value: a fraction of no-shows would have advanced to opportunity stage and closed at your win rate × deal size. Multiply by your monthly no-show count and the bleed is substantial — typically $5-50K/month for a 3-rep team.
Inbound demos book at 15-30% no-show because the prospect is interested but not committed. Outbound enterprise meetings book at 8-15% no-show because the buying motion is more deliberate. Mid-market sits in between. Reduction levers: SMS reminders 24h before (-30-40%), confirmation re-asks (-15-20%), executive-level prep emails (-10-15%), calendar integrations that re-route to alternate slots (-20%). The calculator simulates stacked recovery.
Service-business no-shows (dental, salon, restaurant) lose direct revenue per slot. Sales meeting no-shows lose opportunity cost — the deal that would have closed plus the calendar slot. Different P&L lines, different recovery interventions. This calculator focuses on B2B sales; see our Appointment No-Show calculator for service businesses.
Inbound SMB demos: 15-30% no-show typical. Outbound enterprise: 8-15%. Round-robin booked from web forms tends to run higher (25-35%) because prospects are less committed. Round-table or human-coordinated bookings run lower (10-15%) because there's an explicit confirmation step.
SMS reminder 24h before is the highest-ROI single change (-30-40% per Drift 2018 data). Adding a video preview link in the calendar invite ("watch a 90-second product preview") helps further. For enterprise, executive-level prep email confirms intent and surfaces last-minute conflicts. Stacking 2-3 interventions usually halves no-show rate.
No — friction is too high for top-of-funnel. The exception is paid consultations or audit calls where the deposit signals seriousness and is refundable on attendance. For standard product demos, stick with reminder + confirmation friction; deposits will hurt booking volume more than they recover no-show cost.
For SMB inbound: 10-15 min review of prospect data. For enterprise: 30-60 min including account research and discovery prep. The calculator defaults to 20 min — adjust to your actual numbers. Many teams under-count this; reps don't typically log it as time spent on the deal.
Sources: Drift Conversational Marketing 2018 · HubSpot State of Sales 2024 · Chili Piper 2023 Inbound Conversion Report