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