A lot of AI cost advice starts too late.
It tells you to review the bill after the damage is done.
That never worked for me.
The real problem is not that AI is expensive. The problem is that the expensive part happens quietly. One more prompt. One more rewrite. One more huge context dump. Then you look up later and realize you spent money on a conversation that had stopped being useful.
That is why I built TokenBar.
TokenBar is a macOS menu bar app that keeps token usage and spend visible while I am actually working. Not in a dashboard. Not in a tab I will check later. Right there in the menu bar, where the number can bother me before the bill does.
That tiny shift changed how I use AI:
- I notice runaway loops faster
- I stop pretending giant context windows are free
- I choose cheaper models when the task does not need the expensive one
- I catch waste while I can still do something about it
I did not build TokenBar because I wanted another chart.
I built it because AI cost is a live problem, not a monthly report.
If you are shipping with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any other metered tool, the most useful thing you can do is make the cost visible while you work.
That is the whole product.
Top comments (0)