API Cost Dashboard 💰

Zero-cost, self-hosted API cost tracking for bootstrapped founders.

Stop burning money on expensive monitoring tools. Track your Claude API, Perplexity, Firecrawl, and other API costs with a beautiful local dashboard - no monthly fees, no data leaving your machine.

Why This Exists

You're building with AI APIs. Costs can spike without warning. Expensive monitoring tools like Datadog ($500+/mo) are overkill. This dashboard gives you enterprise-grade cost tracking for $0/month using tools you already have.

Features ✨

• 📊 Real-time cost tracking across multiple API providers
• 🚨 Smart alerts via Telegram when budgets are exceeded
• 🔍 Cache anomaly detection (catches expensive cache writes before they burn your budget)
• 📈 Historical trends with 30-day charts
• 🌙 Dark mode (because we code at night)
• 📱 Mobile responsive
• ⚡ Auto-refresh every 60 seconds
• 🆓 Completely free - uses SQLite + local Next.js

Quick Start 🚀

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• SQLite3
• A Unix-like system (macOS or Linux)

Installation

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/7alexhale5-rgb/api-cost-dashboard.git
cd api-cost-dashboard
npm install

2. Set up the data collector

# Create the data directory
mkdir -p ~/.api-usage/logs

# Copy the collection script
cp scripts/setup/collect.sh ~/.api-usage/
chmod +x ~/.api-usage/collect.sh

# Copy the schema
cp scripts/setup/schema.sql ~/.api-usage/
sqlite3 ~/.api-usage/usage.db < ~/.api-usage/schema.sql

# Copy the config template
cp scripts/setup/config.json ~/.api-usage/

# Set up your API keys
echo 'export ANTHROPIC_ADMIN_KEY="sk-ant-admin-..."' >> ~/.config/api-keys.env
echo 'export PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="pplx-..."' >> ~/.config/api-keys.env

3. Set up the cron job (collects data every 15 minutes)

# macOS (launchd)
cp scripts/setup/com.api-usage-collect.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.api-usage-collect.plist

# Linux (systemd)
sudo cp scripts/setup/api-usage-collect.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable api-usage-collect.timer
sudo systemctl start api-usage-collect.timer

4. Start the dashboard

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3400

Supported Providers 🔌

• ✅ Anthropic (Claude API via Admin API)
• ✅ Perplexity (sonar-pro, sonar-deep-research)
• ✅ Firecrawl (credit tracking)
• 🔜 OpenAI (coming soon)
• 🔜 Google AI (Gemini)
• 🔜 Voyage AI

Want to add a provider? See CONTRIBUTING.md

Screenshots 📸

Overview Dashboard

Cost summary, trends, budget alerts, and token usage at a glance

Alert History

Cache anomaly detection caught a $36 Haiku spike before it got worse

Emergency Response

Detect runaway cron jobs and kill them before they drain your budget

How It Works 🔧

┌─────────────────────┐
│  API Providers      │
│  (Claude, etc)      │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
           ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  collect.sh         │
│  (runs every 15min) │
│  - Polls Admin APIs │
│  - Calculates costs │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
           ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  SQLite Database    │
│  ~/.api-usage/      │
│  usage.db           │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
           ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Next.js Dashboard  │
│  localhost:3400     │
│  - Charts & Alerts  │
└─────────────────────┘

Configuration ⚙️

Edit ~/.api-usage/config.json:

{
  "providers": {
    "anthropic": {
      "daily_limit_usd": 5.00,
      "monthly_limit_usd": 50.00,
      "alert_threshold_pct": 80
    },
    "perplexity": {
      "daily_limit_usd": 3.00,
      "monthly_limit_usd": 20.00
    }
  },
  "retention_days": 90,
  "telegram": {
    "enabled": true,
    "bot_token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
    "chat_id": "YOUR_CHAT_ID"
  }
}

Budget Thresholds 💵

Default limits (customize in config):

Provider	Daily Warning	Daily Critical	Monthly Cap
Anthropic	$2.00	$5.00	$50.00
Perplexity	$1.00	$3.00	$20.00
Combined	$3.00	$8.00	$70.00

Tech Stack 🛠️

Dashboard:

• Next.js 14 (App Router)
• TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS
• Recharts
• better-sqlite3
• React Query

Data Collection:

• Bash scripts
• SQLite
• cron/launchd

Why Not Just Use X? 🤔

Datadog? - $500+/mo, overkill for indie devs CloudZero? - $500-2000/mo, great but expensive Langfuse? - Focused on traces, not cost dashboards DIY spreadsheet? - No alerts, no trends, manual work

This tool gives you 90% of the features for 0% of the cost.

Roadmap 🗺️

• OpenAI integration
• Google AI (Gemini) support
• Cost forecasting (ML-based)
• Slack/Discord alerts
• Docker image
• Multi-workspace support
• Export to CSV
• Budget recommendations (AI-powered)

Contributing 🤝

We love contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md

Ways to contribute:

• 🐛 Report bugs
• 💡 Suggest features
• 🔌 Add new API providers
• 📖 Improve docs
• 🎨 Design improvements

License 📄

MIT License - see LICENSE

Credits 👏

Built by @7alexhale5-rgb for the bootstrapped founder community.

Inspired by the need to track runaway Haiku cache writes that were burning $36/day. 🔥

Star History ⭐

If this saved you money, give it a star! It helps other founders find it.

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Made with ☕ by a vibe coder who got tired of surprise API bills