SkillKeeper vs ccusage

Use ccusage if you want tokens and estimated cost per day, week, month or session as a table in your terminal, for free. Use SkillKeeper if you want to see which skill, agent, MCP server or memory file took the tokens, live, from the menu bar. Many people run both: they read the same local logs and answer different questions.

We make SkillKeeper. What follows about ccusage is from its README, checked on 2026-10-14.

What ccusage is

ccusage is a free, MIT-licensed command-line tool. It reads usage data your coding agents keep locally and prints daily, weekly, monthly and session reports. Its blocks report shows Claude Code's 5-hour billing windows, and a statusline command (marked beta) feeds a Claude Code status line. You run it with npx ccusage@latest, so it needs Node.js but no install.

It covers many tools beyond Claude Code, among them Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Amp and GitHub Copilot CLI. Cost figures are estimates in dollars; the README says pricing data comes from a LiteLLM price file, which can be used offline or overridden per model.

What SkillKeeper is

SkillKeeper is a Mac menu bar app (plus a mod that runs inside Claude Code on Windows and Linux). It reads the same session transcripts under ~/.claude/projects/ and splits the tokens of each window by source: skills, agents, tools, MCP servers, commands, memory files, plugins and sessions. The header shows how much of the 5-hour and weekly limit is used. It can also edit skills. See the Mac monitor page.

Side by side

	ccusage	SkillKeeper
Form	Terminal CLI	Mac menu bar app; mod for Windows and Linux
Reports grouped by	Day, week, month, session, 5-hour block	Skill, agent, tool, MCP server, command, memory file, plugin, session
Cost in dollars	Yes, estimated at list prices	The app's views are in tokens
Tools covered	Many agents	Claude Code in full; Codex and Gemini CLI by skill and session; Cursor skill counts only
Live view	Run it again, or use the status line	Always in the menu bar
Edits anything	No	Skill triggers and descriptions, pause, archive (with restore)
Price	Free, MIT	Last 5 hours and 24 hours free; $19 once for week and month history, editing and notifications

Which one for which job

• "What did Claude Code cost me this month?" ccusage. It is built for that table, and it is free.
• "Why did my weekly limit run out on Wednesday?" SkillKeeper, or /usage for a quick look. You need the split by source, not the daily total. Start with why Claude Code burns through tokens.
• "Which skills never run?" SkillKeeper. A day-by-day report cannot show it.
• Scripting or CI. ccusage has --json output. SkillKeeper is an interactive app.

Using both

Keep ccusage for history and cost, and open the menu bar app when a number looks wrong and you want to know why. For the full set of options, see how to check Claude Code token usage.

Checked on 2026-10-14. Tools change; if something here is out of date, tell us.