You've got a cloud model, a local model, an agent or two — all running in the background. Quick: what did they cost you today? Nobody knows. TokenBrake shows every AI on your machine in one menu-bar glance — and hard-stops a runaway API bill before it happens.
There are two kinds of AI cost, and no tool on earth puts both in front of you.
GPT, Claude, Grok, Groq, DeepSeek, Mistral — billed per token. A runaway loop or a leaked key turns a $10 month into a $2,000 one overnight. TokenBrake meters them all live and can stop them cold at your budget.
Ollama and other local models cost $0 in API — but real electricity, RAM, and disk, quietly, 24/7. TokenBrake reads your machine and shows you the number nobody else measures.
Set a budget. Pick a mode. That's the whole product.
The circuit breaker. Hit your budget and the next call is stopped with a clear message — not a surprise invoice. A $10/mo tool that saves you from one $200 bill has already paid for a year.
For when the spend is a profit center and you want to run over. TokenBrake just warns you and keeps going — you always know exactly where you stand, and you stay in control.
Install the widget. Grab SwiftBar (free menu-bar host) and point it at TokenBrake. Your local models show up automatically — no setup, nothing to configure.
Meter your cloud AIs. Change one line — the API base URL — to localhost:8787/openai. Your key passes straight through and is never stored.
Set a budget. set-budget openai 20 hard and you're protected. Live spend shows in your menu bar; a runaway bill gets stopped before it lands.
Two plans, billed once a year. No usage tiers, no per-seat math games — priced to save you money.
/agent.jsonWhat counts as an "agent"? One labeled stream of AI usage you route through TokenBrake — a bot, a script, a project. Not a device. Whether it runs on a laptop, a server, or a phone, if its API calls go through TokenBrake it's one agent.
We're a meter your AI traffic passes through — so we're honest about the line.
Bottom line: this is for the API-based AI your business runs — the agents and scripts doing the work. It is not a way to track an employee's personal use of a chat app.
We sit between your app and your AI provider. That's a position of trust, and we treat it that way.
TokenBrake is a safety tool, not a warranty — it dramatically reduces bill-shock, it doesn't promise a bill can never exceed a budget.