Track your AI Provider credit balance from the macOS Menu Bar
If you work with multiple AI providers, checking your remaining credits usually means opening a billing page, logging in, and hunting for the number.
I found myself doing that more often than I liked. I would top up some credits, experiment for a while, and then wonder how much was left.
So I built a small solution: two lightweight xbar plugins that keep the current balance visible in the macOS menu bar.
Two simple menu bar meters
Each plugin shows a compact label such as OpenAI: $12.34 or Anthropic: $12.34 and refreshes automatically in the background.
It’s subtle and unobtrusive. Most of the time you ignore it. When you need the number, it’s right there.
Project links:
- OpenAI credits balance: xbar-openai-credits-balance
- Anthropic credits balance: xbar-anthropic-credits-balance
Setup guides (step-by-step instructions):
A quick note about credentials
To keep the plugins lightweight, they use the same session credentials your browser uses for the billing pages (session tokens/cookies), rather than API keys.
That means there’s no extra key management. If your web session changes, you may need to paste an updated token.
Privacy
Everything runs locally on your Mac. The scripts store data on your machine and send requests directly to the provider endpoints.
If you want the detailed installation steps, check the two setup posts linked above.