A few months ago I was using AI all day and thought the real cost was the invoice.
It was not.
The real cost was the lag. I kept opening the same tools, asking the same questions, and losing track of what I was spending while I worked. Small stuff adds up fast when you are solo and shipping every day.
That is why I built TokenBar.
It lives in the menu bar and makes token usage visible while I am actually working. No dashboards. No guessing. Just a constant reminder of what the work is costing in real time.
I did not build it because visibility is sexy. I built it because surprise bills are annoying, and hidden costs make you move slower.
If you are building with AI every day, seeing the cost while you work changes how you use it. You write tighter prompts. You stop waste. You notice when you are paying for confusion instead of progress.
That was the whole point.
TokenBar is the kind of app I wish I had before I started watching the bill creep up in the background.
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