Why I built the Claude Usage Meter (and why it's free)
A while back I was deep in a long session with Claude. The kind where you’ve finally got a real flow going – the model gets exactly what you’re building, you’re moving fast, ideas are landing. And then, mid-thought, I hit my limit.
No warning. Just a wall.
If you use Claude every day, you know the feeling. You have no idea how much you’ve burned through until it’s already gone. There’s no fuel gauge. You’re driving blind and hoping you make it home before the tank runs dry.
So I built one.
What it actually does
The Claude Usage Meter is a small browser extension for Chrome and Edge. It shows your current session usage and your weekly limits right above the chat box on claude.ai. A quiet little strip – nothing flashy – that tells you where you stand before you kick off something big.
That’s the whole thing. No dashboard to go check. No mental math. No surprises halfway through a task that mattered.
Honestly, I didn’t set out to make a “product.” I made it for myself because the problem annoyed me enough that I spent a weekend on it. Then I showed a couple of people, they wanted it too, and here we are.
A few things I learned building it
The interesting part wasn’t the UI – it was getting the numbers right. Claude’s usage data isn’t something you can just read off a page, so the meter pulls from the same session you’re already logged into and reads the real figures. Early on I had a bug where the tool would show a usage percentage that looked terrifying for no reason. Turned out I was rescaling a value that was already a percentage. Small mistake, big panic. Fixed now, and I’m a little paranoid about it forever.
The other lesson: Claude keeps shipping new model families, and any tool that hardcodes “Opus, Sonnet, Haiku” breaks the moment a new one shows up. So the meter figures out the model dynamically instead of assuming it knows the full list. Less clever, more durable.
It’s free, and it stays free
I’m not monetizing this. It started as a personal itch and it scratches the same itch for thousands of other people now, which is reward enough. If it saves you one “wait, I’m out already?” moment, it’s done its job.
If that sounds useful, you can grab it here: 👉 https://selectorshub.com/claude-usage-meter/
Direct Chrome Store Link- https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/claude-usage-meter/kgpahkcgadpnklinijdojapiadnfelae
And if you do try it, I’d love to hear what would make it better. Half the good ideas in it came from people telling me what was driving them nuts. The other half came from me getting driven nuts. Either way works.
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