Burnstate review, pricing and verdict
Mac menu bar app that measures Claude Code, Codex and Cursor limits against the clock and forecasts when each will run out; first released 28 October 2026.
- Best for
- Software developer on a Mac
- Not for
- Engineering manager who needs team-wide reporting
Should you use Burnstate?
Best for developers on a Mac who hit five-hour or weekly limits across several AI coding tools and want one menu bar view of all of them. Setapp reviewers rate it 88% across 17 ratings, but one reported heavy memory use, so install the latest version, which the changelog says cut idle CPU use twice.
Measures each AI coding limit against the clock and forecasts the time it would run out, while letting you answer Claude Code permission prompts from a card.
Its privacy policy says it reads logins and logs that already sit on the Mac, so switching trackers means no data export; its edge is covering five providers in one menu bar.
Also for
- Solo founder who builds with AI coding tools
- Mac-based developers with a daily Claude Code, Codex or Cursor habit
Show 2 more
- Freelancers and indie hackers who pay for more than one AI coding subscription
- Engineers who run several agent sessions at once
Also not for
- Developer on Windows or Linux
Main trade-off
One reviewer reported heavy memory use, the changelog logs two idle CPU fixes, and coverage stops at five providers.
Burnstate pricing
| Plan | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Direct download, monthly subscription | $3.99/mo | Priced from $3.99 a month, Every update while you subscribe, Cancel any time and keep what you paid for |
| Direct download, one-time licence | Custom | $49.99 for 1 Mac, $69.99 for 2 Macs, $89.99 for 3 Macs, Updates included, Creem handles the receipt and VAT |
| Direct download, yearly subscription | Custom | $24.99 a year for 1 Mac, shown as 48% less than monthly, Activates on 1 Mac, Every update while you subscribe |
| Setapp edition | Custom | Part of one Setapp membership with 260+ Mac apps, after a 7-day trial, Setapp AI answers insights in this edition |
Direct download: a one-time licence for 1, 2 or 3 Macs, or a subscription priced from $3.99 a month or $24.99 a year. Setapp members get Burnstate inside their membership. The Mac App Store edition is a one-time purchase that is not yet available.
Before you commit
- Licence price rises with the number of Macs covered: one, two or three.
- The Setapp edition needs a Setapp membership.
What Burnstate does
Burnstate 1.0, released in October 2026, is a native macOS menu bar app that measures usage limits for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Vercel AI Gateway and Setapp AI against the clock. A forecast says when a limit will run out before it resets, and a session list shows tokens and estimated cost computed from local logs.
Limits paced against the clock
Each meter carries a tick for how much of its window has passed, and a forecast names the time a limit would run out and how long before reset that falls.
Five providers in one menu bar
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Vercel AI Gateway credits and Setapp AI credits each show their own limit type, from session and weekly windows to billing cycles and balances.
Permission and question cards
Claude Code permission prompts and up to four questions appear as a card with allow and deny, and whichever you answer first, the card or the terminal, wins.
Session list with cost
Claude Code and Codex sessions are listed with tokens, estimated cost, models and cache hits, plus a copyable command that resumes one in the right folder.
Show all 6 features
Cooldown breaks
A break counts only time away from the keyboard, with default reminders after 90 minutes, at lunch and dinner, at wind-down and at a stop time you can move.
Burn report and widgets
Up to a year of Claude Code, Codex and Cursor history becomes one shareable page with the numbers inside the link, and native widgets come in three sizes.
Works with
- Claude Code
- Codex
- Cursor
- Vercel AI Gateway
- Setapp AI
Capabilities
- Usage tracking
- Usage forecasting
- Menu bar app
- Session monitoring
- Cost estimation
- Developer tools
Strengths and limits
Strengths
- Usage and cost are computed from logs on the Mac, and the privacy policy lists the network destinations it contacts and says no analytics are collected.
- The developer replied on the same day to both Setapp reviews that raised a problem or a request, and shipped five updates between 11 and 14 November 2026 (changelog and Setapp listing).
- The direct edition is a one-time licence with updates included, so a developer who dislikes subscriptions can pay once (pricing page).
Limits
- A Setapp reviewer reported on 13 November 2026 that version 1.0.2 used gigabytes of memory with two or three workflows running; the developer replied that a memory issue in 1.0.0 was fixed in 1.0.2 (Setapp listing, read 15 November 2026).
- The direct and Setapp editions run outside the macOS App Sandbox so they can read login and log files, which is a wider access footprint than a sandboxed app has (privacy policy); a sandboxed Mac App Store edition is listed as coming soon.
- Only five providers are covered, and a Setapp reviewer asked for DeepSeek on 12 November 2026, so developers who use other tools are not served yet.
Burnstate alternatives
| Tool | Price from | Free plan | Runs on | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burnstate This page | $3.99/mo | No | Mac | 3.6 |
 SwarmiaPick Burnstate if you want one developer's AI coding limits on a Mac; pick Swarmia if you need AI coding tool cost and delivery metrics across a team. | €42/mo (about $46) | Yes | Web | 3.8 |
 WaydevWaydev turns Git, Jira and AI coding tool data into DORA and SPACE delivery metrics; every plan is a custom quote. | Quote | No | Web | 3.8 |
 LinearBEngineering intelligence platform that measures DORA metrics and AI coding impact across Git and Jira, with public per-user plans. | $29/mo | Trial | Web | 3.7 |
Burnstate facts
- Training-data policy
- The privacy policy says its makers do not receive your usage, sign-ins or logs, and the homepage says it collects no analytics.
- Works offline
- Yes
- Minimum skill level
- Basic
- Price band
- Budget
Questions about Burnstate
How much does Burnstate cost?
The direct download is a one-time licence priced at $49.99 for one Mac, $69.99 for two and $89.99 for three, with updates included. The same licence is sold as a subscription from $3.99 a month, or $24.99 a year for one Mac, through Creem, which emails the receipt and key. Setapp members get Burnstate inside their membership, which Setapp lists from $14.99 a month, and the Mac App Store edition is described as coming soon.
Is there a free version of Burnstate?
The direct download has no free plan or trial on its pricing page. The only free way in is Setapp's 7-day trial, which includes Burnstate along with the other apps in that membership, so the cheapest paid route is the monthly direct subscription.
What does Burnstate change in my Claude Code settings?
On first launch it adds a hook to ~/.claude/settings.json so permission prompts and questions can appear as cards, and saving that file again sorts its keys while leaving your settings as they were. The hook reaches Burnstate over a loopback connection with a per-install token, and if Burnstate is not running Claude Code behaves exactly as before.
Which Macs and macOS versions does Burnstate run on?
Any Mac on macOS 15 Sequoia or later, as a native SwiftUI menu bar app. Version 1.0.2, released on 11 November 2026, added macOS 15 support after earlier builds required macOS 26.5, and on macOS 15 the cards use the standard material while Apple Intelligence insights stay off.
Does Burnstate send my usage or prompts to its makers?
No, according to its privacy policy: sign-ins, prompts, code and transcripts stay on the Mac except for requests to the provider a sign-in belongs to, or an AI insight you ask for. The homepage lists 12 network destinations, and the direct edition's licence check with burnstate.dev is the only thing sent to its makers.
About Burnstate
Burnstate is a native SwiftUI menu bar app for Mac that watches the usage limits of the AI coding tools a developer pays for and measures each one against the clock. Its Terms of Use name individual developers based in Ukraine as the operators, and the changelog dates the first release to 28 October 2026. It tracks Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor plus two credit-based services, and a white tick on each meter shows how much of a limit's window has passed so that a forecast can say when it would run dry.
Read the full background
Beyond the meters, it lists coding sessions with their cost, shows Claude Code permission prompts as cards, and reminds you to rest. To do that it adds a hook to Claude Code's settings file, reads the logins that your tools already keep in the Keychain or in local files, and computes cost from local logs instead of asking a provider. Per its privacy policy, requests go from the Mac straight to each provider and your usage never reaches its makers.
It fits developers who use Claude Code, Codex or Cursor most days on a Mac, hit five-hour or weekly windows, and would rather glance at the menu bar than open each tool's usage page. On 15 November 2026 Hokai opened the free pace calculator on burnstate.dev with its default inputs, a 5-hour window with 2h 30m to reset and 40% left; it answered burning fast, a run-out in 1h 40m and 50 minutes before the reset, which matches the straight-line sum of 60% used over 2.5 hours, or 24% an hour. The page says it runs the same code as the app's meters.
Version 1.0.0 shipped on 28 October 2026 and 1.0.5 followed on 14 November 2026, with idle CPU fixes in 1.0.1 and 1.0.4 and macOS 15 support added in 1.0.2.
Skip it on Windows or Linux, because it runs only on macOS, or if you need reporting for a whole team. Hokai files Burnstate in the AI engineering intelligence category, whose other tools report on teams rather than one developer's Mac, and a platform such as Swarmia tracks AI coding tool cost across an organisation. If you only use Claude, LimitBar is a macOS menu bar app that shows Claude usage limits, according to its Hunted listing, and it has no Hokai record yet. The decision: buy the direct licence if you are a solo developer on a Mac who uses two or more of the five supported tools, take the Setapp edition if you already pay for Setapp, and skip it if you work on Windows or Linux or use only Claude, where a Claude-only menu bar app is enough.
Sources and guides
Official sources
- Burnstate official site Vendor
Product facts on this page (pricing, plans, integrations, compliance) are read from Burnstate's own pages and documentation. The verdict is Hokai's reading of them, not the vendor's claim.
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