MeetingCost - Real-Time Meeting Economics Dashboard

Connect your calendar and watch the real-time cost of active meetings tick up by employee salary. Brilliant for showing why 15-minute recurring syncs with 8 people are expensive.

𝕏 Post Reddit HN

Difficulty

low-code

What is it?

Corporate meeting culture burns money silently. A 1-hour standup with 10 people at $100/hour average salary costs $1,000. Most teams don't realize how much. MeetingCost connects to Google Calendar or Outlook, reads all calendar events, pulls employee data (or uses manual salary input), and displays a live dashboard showing: current meeting cost per second, monthly meeting spend by team, highest-cost recurring meetings, and suggested consolidations. When a meeting is happening, the cost ticker animates in real-time—a powerful visual reminder. Teams use this data to cut meetings by 25-40% and save $50k-$300k annually depending on size. This solves a real pain: finance leaders see meeting overload complaints but lack data to justify cuts. Product managers see meeting decay over time but can't quantify cost. Why 100% buildable right now: Google Calendar API and Microsoft Graph are stable and widely used. Supabase + Next.js handles dashboard state. No complex ML—just arithmetic on calendar events and salary data. Stripe subscription handles billing.

Why now?

Post-pandemic remote work has exploded meeting load—Slack data shows 3x more recurring meetings since 2020. Companies are now asking 'how do we cut meetings' for the first time. Google Calendar and Microsoft Graph APIs are mature and reliable.

▸Real-time meeting cost ticker during active calls (Implementation: Supabase real-time subscription, animate cost per second)
▸Calendar import from Google/Outlook (Implementation: OAuth flow, sync past 90 days, store event metadata in Postgres)
▸Employee salary input or bulk upload (Implementation: CSV parsing, Supabase Storage, RLS for privacy)
▸Monthly meeting spend dashboard grouped by team and attendee (Implementation: SQL aggregation, Next.js bar charts with Recharts)

Target Audience

Scaleups and mid-market companies (50-500 employees) with high meeting load. ~50,000 potential targets in US and EU.

Example Use Case

Sarah works in ops at a 150-person SaaS. She installs MeetingCost and within 1 week, sees that recurring all-hands meetings cost $50k/year. She consolidates from weekly to bi-weekly. She identifies 12 low-value recurring syncs eating $100k/year and kills them. Total: $150k saved annually at minimal headcount cost. She renews Pro annually.

User Stories

▸As an ops manager at a 150-person company, I want to see total monthly meeting spend broken down by team, so that I can identify and cut the most expensive recurring meetings.
▸As a CFO, I want visibility into how much salary dollars are consumed by meetings, so that I can justify meeting reduction initiatives to the exec team. As an individual contributor, I want to see the real-time cost of my current meeting, so that I'm reminded to stay focused and cut unnecessary attendees.

Acceptance Criteria

Google OAuth: done when user can authorize calendar access and sync past 90 days of events. Cost calculation: done when meeting cost matches (attendees × avg_salary_per_hour × duration_hours). Real-time ticker: done when live meeting cost updates every second. Dashboard: done when monthly spend chart loads in under 2 seconds and is filterable by team.

Is it worth building?

$99/month × 30 companies = $2,970 MRR at month 2. $199/month × 80 companies = $15,920 MRR at month 5.

Unit Economics

CAC: $8 (ProductHunt + organic). LTV: $1,188 (12 months at $99/month). Payback: 1.5 months. Gross margin: 80% (after API costs).

Business Model

SaaS subscription per company, based on employee count.

Monetization Path

Free tier: 1 user, 7-day history. Pro: $99/month for up to 50 employees, 1-year history, team reports. Enterprise: $499/month, unlimited employees, API access, Slack alerts.

Revenue Timeline

First dollar: week 3 (via ProductHunt early access). $1k MRR: month 2. $5k MRR: month 5. $10k MRR: month 9.

Estimated Monthly Cost

Google Calendar API: free tier. Stripe fees: $20 (at $3k MRR). Vercel: $20. Supabase: $25. Total: ~$65/month at launch.

Profit Potential

Full-time viable at $5k–$20k MRR.

Scalability

High — can expand to Slack workspace analytics, team burnout tracking, calendar conflict detection, meeting transcript analysis.

Success Metrics

Week 2: 50 beta signups. Week 3: 10 paying companies. Month 2: 25 paid accounts. 80% of paid users return dashboard weekly.

Launch & Validation Plan

Survey 50 ops managers and engineering leaders on Slack communities (Rands in Repose, LeadDev Slack) about meeting costs. Build landing page with specific examples (e.g. '$50k/year on recurring standups'). Recruit 5 companies for beta (offer 3 months free). Validate that 70% of users find a meeting worth cutting within 1 week.

Customer Acquisition Strategy

First customer: DM 20 ops managers on LinkedIn offering free 3-month trial in exchange for weekly feedback calls and Zoom recording. Then: ProductHunt, dev.to article on meeting ROI, Twitter thread with shocking cost examples (e.g. '$1k Slack message for 1h all-hands'), Slack workspace ads in Rands in Repose.

What's the competition?

Competition Level

Low

What's the roadmap?

Feature Roadmap

V1 (launch): Google Calendar import, real-time cost ticker, monthly spend dashboard, Stripe billing. V2 (month 2): salary bulk upload, team-level reports, email digest of top meetings. V3 (month 4): Outlook support, meeting consolidation recommendations, Slack integration for alerts.

Milestone Plan

Phase 1 (Week 1-2): Google OAuth + calendar sync + cost calculation logic. Done when beta user can see accurate meeting costs in a simple HTML table. Phase 2 (Week 3-4): real-time ticker + Recharts dashboard + Stripe checkout. Done when 5 users can pay and see Pro features. Phase 3 (Month 2): salary upload + team-level grouping + email summary. Done when ops manager can show CEO a cost breakdown by team.

How do you build it?

Tech Stack

Next.js, Google Calendar API, Microsoft Graph, Supabase, Stripe — build with Lovable for dashboard UI, Cursor for API integration.

Time to Ship

2.5 weeks

Required Skills

Calendar API integration, Stripe billing, real-time dashboard updates with Supabase real-time, basic salary math.

Resources

Google Calendar API docs, Microsoft Graph docs, Supabase real-time subscriptions, Stripe SaaS pricing docs.

MVP Scope

Landing page (Lovable), Google OAuth + calendar sync (Cursor backend), salary input form (v0 component), real-time cost ticker (Lovable), meeting spend bar chart (Recharts), Stripe checkout. Core files: /pages/api/calendar/sync.ts, /pages/api/auth/google.ts, /components/CostTicker.tsx, /pages/dashboard.tsx.

Core User Journey

Sign up with Google -> connect calendar -> upload salaries (or skip with defaults) -> see real-time cost dashboard -> find a $100k+ meeting to cut -> upgrade to Pro.

Architecture Pattern

User OAuth -> Google Calendar API webhook -> sync events to Postgres -> Supabase real-time triggers -> calculate cost per event -> emit to dashboard WebSocket -> browser updates ticker in real-time.

Data Model

Company has many Users. User belongs to one Company. Company has many CalendarEvents. CalendarEvent has many Attendees. Company has one SalaryData (shared across users in company).

Integration Points

Google Calendar API for event import, Microsoft Graph for Outlook support, Supabase real-time for live updates, Stripe for subscription, Resend for email summaries.

V1 Scope Boundaries

V1 excludes: Outlook/Microsoft Graph support, team workspace features, meeting transcript analysis, Slack integration, calendar conflict resolution.

Success Definition

An ops manager at a mid-size company signs up, imports calendar, uploads salary data, reviews dashboard for 30 minutes, identifies a high-cost recurring meeting, and presents findings to their exec team.

Challenges

Privacy concerns around salary visibility (requires careful permission model). Calendar API rate limits (handle with smart caching). Ensuring salary data stays encrypted and access-controlled.

Avoid These Pitfalls

Do not expose individual employee salaries publicly—implement strict role-based access control. Do not sync all-day events (meetings are point-in-time, all-day items skew data). Do not charge per event—charge per employee seat (predictable pricing).

Security Requirements

Auth: Google OAuth with refresh token rotation. Salary data: encrypted at rest with AES-256, TLS in transit, RLS on all salary rows. Rate limiting: 100 req/min per IP. GDPR: data deletion endpoint, consent toggle for salary visibility.

Infrastructure Plan

Hosting: Vercel (Next.js). Database: Supabase Postgres. Storage: Supabase for CSV uploads. CI/CD: GitHub Actions. Environments: dev (local), staging (preview), prod (main). Monitoring: Sentry, Vercel Analytics, custom alerts for calendar sync failures.

Performance Targets

Expected load: 100 DAU, 1,000 calendar syncs/day. Calendar sync target: under 30 seconds for 500 events. Dashboard load: under 2s. Real-time ticker: update within 200ms of event end.

Go-Live Checklist

☐Security: Google OAuth token encryption verified, salary data RLS tested
☐Payment: Stripe checkout tested end-to-end
☐Error tracking: Sentry live
☐Monitoring: calendar sync failure alerts set
☐Domain: MeetingCost.com registered and SSL
☐Privacy: policy covers salary data handling, GDPR compliance checklist signed
☐Terms: published
☐Beta: 5 companies signed off
☐Rollback: document manual revert
☐Launch: ProductHunt post with specific savings examples, Reddit r/startups thread.

How to build it, step by step

1. Create Next.js app with npx create-next-app. 2. Set up Supabase project with tables: companies, users, calendar_events, attendees, salaries. 3. Create Google OAuth flow at /pages/api/auth/google.ts. 4. Build /pages/api/calendar/sync.ts to poll Google Calendar API and store events. 5. Create /components/CostTicker.tsx with Supabase real-time subscription. 6. Build /pages/dashboard.tsx with Recharts for monthly spend visualization. 7. Add CSV salary upload at /pages/api/salary/upload.ts. 8. Integrate Stripe checkout at /pages/api/stripe/checkout.ts. 9. Test full flow: OAuth -> sync -> upload salaries -> dashboard live cost. 10. Deploy to Vercel.

Generated

March 23, 2026

Model

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001

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