BurnRate

A macOS menu bar app for keeping tabs on your Claude Code spending.

I built this after blowing through my Claude budget one too many times without noticing. Now I just glance at the menu bar and know exactly where I stand.

Features

• Live cost display in your menu bar
• Color-coded warnings (yellow at 80%, red when you're over)
• Daily and monthly budget tracking
• 7-day usage sparkline
• 30-day trend view (click the month name)
• Per-model breakdown (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku)
• Budget notifications

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• ccusage installed globally

Install

Option 1: Download

1. Download BurnRate-v1.0.0-macos.zip from Releases
2. Unzip and move to Applications
3. Right-click → Open on first launch (required for unsigned apps)

Option 2: Build from source

npm install -g ccusage
git clone https://github.com/tomstetson/BurnRate.git
cd BurnRate
open BurnRate.xcodeproj

Then hit Cmd+R in Xcode.

Settings

• Daily limit — Your daily budget (default: $200)
• Monthly limit — Your monthly budget (default: $3,000)
• Alert at — When to show warnings (default: 80%)
• Notifications — Get notified when approaching limits
• Launch at login — Start automatically

How it works

BurnRate pulls your usage data from local Claude Code logs using ccusage. Everything stays on your machine—no API keys needed, no data leaves your computer.

The app refreshes every 5 minutes automatically, or you can refresh manually from the popover.

Troubleshooting

ccusage not found

npm install -g ccusage
which ccusage  # should print a path

App won't open

macOS blocks unsigned apps by default. Right-click the app and select Open, or go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

Notifications not working

Open Settings and check if notifications show "Allowed" or "Denied". If denied, click the button to open System Settings and enable them for BurnRate.

License

MIT