Quote Originally Posted by gijoemike View Post
I have always seen Eschew Mats as metamagic modifier, but instead of playing the metamagic game like silent and still (+1 adjustment was the minimum when 3rd first came out) but the OG designers didn't want to punish casters with another penalty. Instead they opted to have this apply to all spells cast by the feat holder.
A spell cast with Eschew Materials can be cast with no material components. Spells without material components are not affected. Spells with material components with a cost of more than 1 gp are not affected. An eschewed spell uses up a spell slot of the spell’s normal level
The feat was, to my knowledge, first published in Deities in Demigods, as a 3.0 source. The feat very clearly has a metamagic cost of +0.

It should be noted that, for whatever reason, your game going into Epic level, taking Eschew Material becomes a bit of a power play, as it is a requirement for possibly one of the second most exploitable feats in the entire game, Ignore Material Components losing out only to Epic Spellcasting as a means of generating wealth (casting time of Fabricate and the high level requirement really thwarts it).