Stop Guessing Your API Costs: Track LLM Tokens in Real Time

If you're building with LLMs, you already know the pain: you fire off a bunch of API calls during development, then check your dashboard the next morning and wonder how you burned through $40 overnight. The problem isn't that API pricing is complicated — it's that there's zero visibility while you're working. You're flying blind until the bill shows up. The Hidden Cost of Context Windows Every time you send a prompt to GPT-4, Claude, or Gemini, you're paying for both input and output tokens. But here's what catches most developers off guard: System prompts count every single time. That 2,000-token system prompt? It's billed on every request. Conversation history adds up fast. A 10-message back-and-forth can easily hit 8,000+ tokens before you even type your next question. Retries are silent killers. Rate limit hit? Auto-retry means double the cost for the same result. Most devs don't realize how much they're spending until they've already spent it. What Actually Helps What I wanted was