Imported from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace (skills/.curated/granola-cost-tuning/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill granola-cost-tuning. Copyright stays with the author (MIT).

Granola Cost Tuning

Overview

Optimize Granola spending with plan selection, ROI analysis, and seat management. Granola pricing is simple: $0 (Basic), $14/user/month (Business), or $35+/user/month (Enterprise). No per-minute charges, no meeting count limits on paid plans, and no hardware device requirements.

Prerequisites

• Current Granola plan and usage data (Settings > Account)
• Team size and meeting frequency for team deployments
• Budget constraints identified

Instructions

Step 1 — Calculate Individual ROI

Time savings calculation:
  Meetings per week:           [____]
  Average meeting duration:    [____] min
  Time spent on manual notes:  ~15-20 min per meeting
  Time with Granola:           ~2-3 min per meeting (review + edit)
  Time saved per meeting:      ~15 min

Monthly calculation:
  Meetings per month:          20 (example)
  Time saved:                  20 * 15 min = 300 min = 5 hours
  Your hourly rate:            $60 (example)
  Monthly value of time saved: 5 * $60 = $300

  Granola Business cost:       $14/month
  ROI:                         $300 / $14 = 21x return
  Break-even:                  0.93 meetings/month (~1 meeting)

At $14/month, Granola pays for itself if it saves you just one meeting's worth of note-taking per month.

Step 2 — Select the Right Plan

Cost comparison with competitors (per user/month):

Granola's differentiator: no bot joins your meeting, which means no "Granola is recording" banner visible to participants.

Step 3 — Optimize Team Costs

Seat audit (monthly):

1. Settings > Team — review all active seats
2. Identify inactive users (no meetings in 30+ days)
3. Deactivate unused seats — they reduce from next billing cycle
4. Reassign seats to new team members (no extra charge)

Right-size your deployment:

Team of 10 users:
  All on Business:         10 * $14 = $140/month
  Annual billing (15% off): 10 * $11.90 = $119/month
  Savings:                  $252/year

  Only 7 active users:     7 * $14 = $98/month
  Deactivate 3 inactive:   Save $504/year

Step 4 — Billing Optimization

Step 5 — Avoid Hidden Costs

Granola itself has no hidden charges, but adjacent costs to budget for:

Step 6 — Build the Business Case

For budget approval, use this template:

GRANOLA BUSINESS CASE

Problem:
  - Team spends X hours/week on meeting notes
  - Meeting outcomes are lost (no searchable archive)
  - Action items fall through the cracks

Solution:
  - Granola Business: $14/user/month
  - Team size: [N] users
  - Annual cost: [N * $14 * 12] (or N * $11.90 * 12 with annual)

ROI:
  - Time saved: [N] users * 5 hrs/month = [5N] hrs/month
  - At avg $[X]/hour = $[5N * X]/month value
  - ROI: [value / cost]x
  - Break-even: [cost / (X * 0.25)] meetings (< 1 per user)

Additional Benefits:
  - Searchable meeting history (People & Companies)
  - Automated CRM updates (save sales admin time)
  - Consistent meeting documentation (institutional memory)
  - No meeting bot (no participant friction)

Output

• ROI calculated for individual or team deployment
• Optimal plan selected based on usage and requirements
• Seat management cadence established (monthly audit)
• Business case template prepared for budget approval

Error Handling

Examples

integration=sandbox-notes; baseline=12000; deferred=120; deduped=900; delivery=pass; retention=none; rollback=cost-r18 makes the cost decision auditable without inspecting meeting content.

Resources

• Granola Pricing
• Pricing Blog with ROI Calculator
• Team Pricing Guide
• Enterprise Options

Next Steps

Proceed to granola-reference-architecture for enterprise deployment patterns.