Forem: John

The day TokenBar saved me from a surprise AI bill

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:07:11 +0000

I built TokenBar because I kept getting blindsided by AI costs.

Not the small stuff. The kind of bill that quietly gets ugly when you are shipping fast, testing prompts, and not watching the meter.

TokenBar sits in the menu bar and shows live token usage and cost while I work. That visibility changes behavior fast. You pause earlier. You trim the prompt. You stop treating usage like a mystery until the invoice lands.

That is the lesson for me as a solo founder: if a cost can surprise you, it can control you.

I want the product to do one simple thing well. Make spend visible before it becomes pain.

If you are building with AI and shipping quickly, the bill is part of the product too.

The AI bill that made me build TokenBar

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:55:42 +0000

The first time I opened an API invoice and saw a number I did not expect, I had that annoying founder feeling: this is either a stupid expense or the start of a product.

I kept hitting the same problem. I could not tell when AI usage was getting expensive until the invoice showed up.

TokenBar exists to fix that. It sits in the Mac menu bar and shows cost in real time, so you can see the meter while you work instead of finding out at the end of the month.

What I wanted was simple:

no spreadsheet
no dashboard tab I would forget to open
no guessing
no surprise bill

I built it as a local Mac app because I wanted something fast and invisible enough to stay out of the way.

The bigger lesson was not just about AI spend. It was about visibility.

If you build with Claude, Cursor, or anything token based, you should know what it is costing while you are using it.

If that sounds useful, TokenBar is here: https://tokenbar.site

The Claude bill that made me build TokenBar

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:56:36 +0000

The first time I opened an API invoice and saw a number I did not expect, I had that founder feeling: this is either a stupid expense or the start of a product.

It was not the bill itself. It was the surprise.

I keep using Claude, Cursor, and other token-based tools while building. The problem is that spend can climb quietly while you are just trying to ship. By the time the invoice shows up, the decision is already made for you.

That is why I built TokenBar.

TokenBar puts token usage and cost in your Mac menu bar in real time, so you can see what you are spending while you work. No spreadsheet. No dashboard tab. No end-of-month shock.

For me, the point is not paranoia. It is feedback. When the meter is visible, I make better decisions about model choice, prompt loops, and when to stop.

If you build with AI every day, cost visibility should not be an afterthought.

TokenBar: https://tokenbar.site

The AI Bill That Made Me Build TokenBar

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 12:05:40 +0000

I got my first surprise AI bill and it was stupidly revealing.

I was building TokenBar because I kept flying blind on LLM usage. The app itself came from a very simple annoyance: I wanted to know what my tools were costing me before the invoice arrived.

What surprised me was not just the number. It was how easy it was to lose track of usage when I was moving fast. A few prompts here, a background agent there, and suddenly the bill was real.

That changed how I think about building with AI:

Cost needs to be visible while you are working, not after the fact
Small leaks matter when the tool is always on
If a workflow feels expensive, people avoid using it even when it is useful
The best guardrail is often a simple one that sits where the work happens

TokenBar is my attempt to make that visible in a low-friction way. It lives in the menu bar, updates in real time, and gives me a sane way to see token usage without opening yet another dashboard.

I built it for myself first. If it helps other people spend less time guessing and more time shipping, even better.

If you are building with AI, I think the question is not whether cost matters. It is whether you can see it early enough to do something about it.

indiehackers #swift #macos #ai #buildinpublic

I built a Mac app that blocks the feeds stealing your attention

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 12:01:47 +0000

I made Monk Mode for Mac because I kept opening YouTube Home, Shorts, X For You, Reddit front pages, and other feed traps when I was supposed to be working.

It blocks the distraction surfaces, not the whole internet, so you can still get to the thing you actually came for.

If you are trying to ship more and scroll less, it is here: mac.monk-mode.lifestyle

$15 lifetime.

I built TokenBar because surprise AI bills are absurd

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 12:00:06 +0000

I kept getting blindsided by token usage in Claude and Cursor, so I built TokenBar: a tiny macOS menu bar app that shows live AI token usage before the bill gets weird.

It is $5 lifetime and aimed at people who actually care about cost visibility while they work.

If you have ever opened an invoice and thought "how did this get so high," TokenBar might save you a headache.

tokenbar.site

The AI bill that made me build TokenBar

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 04:05:44 +0000

Last month I opened an AI invoice and had that tiny stomach-drop moment every solo dev knows.

I was using a handful of models across a bunch of tabs and tools, and the cost was not obvious until the bill showed up. Nothing was broken. It was just invisible.

That bugged me enough that I started building TokenBar.

TokenBar lives in the menu bar and shows token usage in real time so I can see what I am actually spending while I work. Not after the fact. Not buried in a dashboard I never check. Right there, while the context is still fresh.

The lesson was not really about tokens. It was about visibility.

When a cost is hidden, I ignore it.
When a cost is visible, I make better decisions.

I think the same thing applies to attention, too. If my phone is buzzing, Slack is open, and a dozen browser tabs are stealing context, I do not feel distracted in some abstract way. I just feel slower. The damage shows up later in the work.

That is the other reason I like building small tools. They turn vague pain into something concrete enough to fix.

TokenBar is for the bill.
Monk Mode is for the distraction.

Both came from the same place: I wanted fewer surprises and more control over the thing actually costing me money or time.

If you are building with AI and you have not looked closely at your usage lately, do it now. You might not need another model. You might just need a better dashboard for the one you already have.

That was my wake up call anyway.

I built a Mac app that blocks the feeds I kept losing hours to

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:58:39 +0000

I got tired of opening YouTube for one video and ending up on Home or Shorts, or checking X and Reddit just to "take a break".

So I built Monk Mode, a small Mac app that blocks the stuff that turns into a 45 minute detour:

YouTube Home and Shorts
X For You
Reddit front pages
other feed-style distractions

It is not trying to be a full internet nanny. It is just meant to make the default path less stupid.

If you are on Mac and you care about protecting deep work, it is here: https://mac.monk-mode.lifestyle

$15 lifetime. Would love honest feedback from anyone who has tried blockers before and hated them.

I built a menu bar app to stop silent AI token burn

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:56:58 +0000

I spent way too long paying for AI usage I did not feel while I was working.

TokenBar is my fix: a macOS menu bar app that shows live token usage and cost so you catch expensive prompt loops before the invoice does.

What changed for me:

runaway sessions became obvious fast
I started switching models intentionally instead of by habit
I stopped treating token spend like an end of month surprise

It is $5 lifetime because I wanted the purchase to be an easy yes for people who already know the pain.

If you are building with Claude, Cursor, OpenAI, or anything pay per token, this is for you.

https://tokenbar.site

A tiny macOS menu bar tool that shows LLM token usage in real time

John — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:54:22 +0000

If you build anything with the OpenAI or Claude APIs, you probably know the pattern.

You’re experimenting with prompts, testing scripts, or debugging an agent. Everything works fine, but there’s one thing that’s always a little unclear while you're developing:

How many tokens did that just use?

Most of the time you only see token usage later in logs or dashboards. That’s useful for analytics, but it’s not very helpful while you're actively coding.

During development I kept running into the same situations:

• testing prompt changes
• running quick API experiments
• building LLM tools
• debugging responses

And every time I wanted a simple answer in the moment:
“How many tokens did that call just use?”

So I built something extremely simple.

It’s a small macOS menu bar utility that shows token usage in real time while you're working. No dashboards or heavy analytics tools. Just a tiny counter in the menu bar so you can see usage immediately.

The goal was basically:

see token usage the same way you see CPU or battery status.

Nothing complicated, just immediate visibility while building.

If you're curious or want to try it, you can see it here:

https://tokenbar.site

I’d also be interested to hear how other people monitor token usage during development. Do you rely on logs, dashboards, or something else entirely?

Why is tracking LLM token usage still so annoying?

John — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 22:44:05 +0000

If you build anything with the OpenAI or Claude APIs, you've probably run into this at some point.

You're testing prompts, running scripts, tweaking things quickly… and suddenly you realize you have no real sense of how many tokens you're burning in real time.

You can check dashboards later, sure. But while you're actually developing, it's basically invisible. You run something, it works, and only later do you discover the cost.

I kept running into the same problem:

• running prompt experiments
• testing agents or scripts
• debugging API calls

and having no immediate visibility into token usage while coding.

Most tools that exist are either:

dashboards after the fact

logging solutions

full analytics platforms

But I just wanted something extremely simple: a tiny indicator that shows token usage while I'm working.

So I ended up building a small macOS menu bar tool that shows token usage in real time while you're developing.

No dashboards.
No analytics platform.
Just a token counter sitting in the menu bar.

If anyone else here builds with LLM APIs and finds themselves wondering “how many tokens did that just burn?”, I'm curious if something like this would actually be useful.

You can see it here:
https://tokenbar.site

Would also love feedback from anyone working heavily with the OpenAI or Claude APIs.