The first time I got an AI bill that felt wrong, I did what most solo devs do: I opened a spreadsheet, guessed at usage, and tried to convince myself I had a handle on it.
I did not.
The problem with AI costs is not just that they can be high. It is that they are invisible until the damage is already done. One model switch, one extra tool call, one week of usage, and suddenly the bill is saying something your intuition missed.
That is why I built TokenBar.
TokenBar is a macOS menu bar app that shows your token usage in real time. No tab hopping. No spreadsheet archaeology. No waiting for the monthly invoice to tell you what your product actually cost to run.
I built it because I wanted a live answer to a simple question:
How expensive is this AI feature right now?
A few things became obvious once I started using it:
- Visibility changes behavior. When cost is always in front of you, you make better prompts and trim waste faster.
- Small inefficiencies compound. Most overruns are not one giant mistake. They are a pile of tiny ones.
- Builders need feedback, not just accounting. If you are shipping AI features, you need to see cost while you are still building, not after the receipt lands.
TokenBar is for people building with LLMs who want to keep shipping without flying blind on spend.
If you are building AI features on macOS and want a dead simple way to see token usage as you work, TokenBar is live here: https://tokenbar.site
I made it for the same reason I make most tools: I wanted the pain to stop being vague.
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