Token Time vs Baton
Detailed side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right tool
Token Time
🟢No Codedeveloper-tools
A macOS menu-bar app that meters every token your AI agents burn and shows full-screen break reminders when usage crosses thresholds you set — Screen Time, but for your AI tokens.
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CustomBaton
🔴Developerdeveloper-tools
A macOS menu bar app that tracks every Claude Code and Codex session on your machine and tells you which AI coding agent is waiting on you right now.
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CustomFeature Comparison
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Token Time - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓One-time $6 launch price — no subscription, no seats, no upsell
- ✓Fully local: your token history never leaves the Mac (good for client-code or sensitive keys)
- ✓Menu-bar surface means the number is one glance away, no dashboard to open
- ✓Configurable full-screen nudges are effective at breaking agent-loop tunnel vision
- ✓Per-model breakdown makes 'is Opus worth it here?' a real answerable question
Cons
- ✗Mac-only, Apple Silicon required — no Intel Mac, Windows, or Linux support
- ✗Only meters what runs locally — remote/cloud agents need a separate observability stack
- ✗No team or cross-device sync (by design, but a real limitation for multi-machine builders)
- ✗Not an MCP server or client, so no direct integration with agent tool graphs
- ✗Very young app — expect some rough edges around less-common model catalogs
Baton - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓Free, open source (MIT), no telemetry, nothing leaves the machine
- ✓Sub-second updates via FSEvents; negligible CPU/battery cost
- ✓Handles both Claude Code and Codex in one unified view
- ✓Click-to-jump saves the biggest actual cost of multi-agent work: finding the right window
- ✓One-line install with an isolated venv — clean uninstall too
Cons
- ✗macOS only; no Linux or Windows menu bar equivalent
- ✗Requires Python 3.9+ on the host (3.11+ for Codex automation tracking)
- ✗Only tracks Claude Code and Codex — other coding agents (Cursor, Cline, Aider) not supported
- ✗No push notifications to phone / other devices; menu bar only
- ✗Read-only by design — cannot send input back to sessions
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