DEV Community: ixDio

Built a Free Tool to Track AI Tokens and API Costs

ixDio — Sat, 14 Nov 2026 06:55:18 +0000

I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring AI tools and working with prompts recently.

One thing I noticed is that it’s not always easy to understand how much a prompt actually costs when using AI APIs.

You write a prompt, send it to a model, get a response, and move on.

But what if you’re testing multiple prompts or comparing different AI models? Keeping track of token usage and API costs can become confusing.

Why I Built It

I wanted a simple place where I could:

Count the tokens in a prompt.
Estimate API costs before sending requests.
Compare the costs of different AI models.
Make prompts shorter and more efficient.

Instead of constantly switching between different tools, I decided to build a small project that brings these features together.

Introducing PromptBurn

PromptBurn is a free tool designed for people who work with AI prompts and APIs.

It currently includes:

Token Counter

Check how many tokens your prompt contains.

API Cost Calculator

Estimate potential API costs based on token usage and model pricing.

Model Comparison

Compare costs across supported AI models.

Prompt Compression

Experiment with making prompts shorter while keeping their meaning.

Privacy Was Important to Me

I also wanted to keep the experience simple and privacy-conscious.

PromptBurn is designed to process prompt text directly in the browser, rather than sending it to a server.

What’s Next?

This is still a work in progress.

I’d like to improve the accuracy, add useful features, and make the experience better for developers working with AI APIs.

You can check it out here:

https://prompt-burn.com

I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from other developers.

A few questions:

What would you improve first?
What feature is missing?
How do you currently track token usage and API costs?

Thanks for reading!

I Built a Free Tool to Track AI Tokens and API Costs

ixDio — Sat, 14 Nov 2026 06:53:22 +0000