XDA’s piece on splitting coding work between Claude, Qwen3-Coder, and Gemma 4 lands the right way for anyone whose monthly AI bill has crept past one subscription. The argument is straightforward: route easy edits to a local model, expensive reasoning to Claude, and translation or refactoring to whatever has the best price per token. The catch is keeping track of where the money is actually going across half a dozen providers, three Tasker scripts, and a local Ollama service on the home server.
We tested 7 AI usage tracking apps for Android in 2026. The list covers the headline routing front ends that already meter usage, the coding-assistant companions that surface token-level costs, the automation glue that wires it all to a notification, and a couple of self-hosted options for users who want everything on their own server.
What to look for in an AI usage tracking app
Pick a tracker that:
- Aggregates across providers. A tool that only meters OpenAI usage misses the half of the bill that lives in Anthropic, Google, Mistral, or OpenRouter.
- Shows real cost rather than just request counts. Tokens are not free, and the price per token varies by an order of magnitude across providers.
- Distinguishes coding traffic from chat traffic. The XDA piece is right that this matters: code-completion bursts and one-off chat prompts have very different cost shapes.
- Notifies on budget overruns. A monthly cap with a push notification is the killer feature for users who keep getting surprised by a $90 charge.
- Plays well with self-hosted endpoints. Local Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp instances should show up the same way cloud providers do, even if the cost there is electricity rather than dollars.
- Respects privacy. Some trackers proxy prompts and stash them on a third-party server; pick one whose architecture you are comfortable with.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Free plan | Provider coverage | Notification budget cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouter | Multi-provider routing with metering | Free signup, pay-as-you-go | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter pool | Yes |
| Cline Mobile Companion | Coding-focused token tracking | Free | Cline’s connected endpoints | Yes |
| Pal Chat | Lightweight chat with usage view | Freemium | Custom API keys | Limited |
| BoltAI | iOS-first ported to Android | Paid | OpenAI, Claude, Gemini | Yes |
| Tasker | Custom dashboards via webhooks | Paid one-off | Anything you wire | Custom |
| Helicone Mobile | Team metering and observability | Free tier | Provider-agnostic via proxy | Yes |
| Local LLM Monitor | Self-hosted endpoint stats | Free, open-source | Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM | Custom |
The 7 best AI usage tracking apps for Android
1. OpenRouter — best multi-provider routing with metering
OpenRouter is the unified API endpoint that fronts every major model provider with a single key and a single dashboard. The Android app surfaces the same per-request cost that the web dashboard shows: every request is logged with provider, model, prompt and completion tokens, dollar cost, and which downstream provider served the response. For the XDA Claude/Qwen3-Coder/Gemma split, OpenRouter is the natural front end because it removes the multi-vendor billing complexity entirely.
Where it falls short: A small surcharge applies to OpenRouter-served requests compared with going direct. Some providers (Vertex, Bedrock) require their own setup outside OpenRouter. The mobile app is a viewer; provisioning still happens on the web.
Pricing:
- Free signup, pay-as-you-go with the small OpenRouter margin.
- No subscription.
Bottom line: Pick this if you already route multi-model work and you want the cleanest unified meter.
Download: Aptoide · Google Play
2. Cline Mobile Companion — best for coding-focused token tracking
Cline Mobile Companion is the phone-side companion for the Cline coding agent that runs in VS Code or JetBrains. The Android app exposes the per-session token consumption Cline tracks: prompt tokens, completion tokens, cached tokens, and the dollar cost broken down by provider. The XDA scenario of splitting work between Claude for hard problems and a local Qwen3-Coder for boilerplate maps cleanly onto Cline’s provider selector, and the phone view is what catches the moment Claude burned through the daily budget on one tricky refactor.
Where it falls short: Coverage is Cline-specific. Other coding agents (Cursor, Continue, Aider) are not represented. The phone app reads from the desktop session; it does not initiate runs.
Pricing:
- Free.
Bottom line: Pick this if Cline is your coding agent and you want phone-side visibility into per-session cost.
Download: Aptoide
3. Pal Chat — best lightweight viewer for custom keys
Pal Chat is the small Android chatbot that accepts custom API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and OpenRouter, and tracks token usage per provider in a basic dashboard. The interface is the lightest in this list, the keys live in the local keystore, and the per-conversation cost view is enough to catch the long context window that quietly cost $4 of Claude tokens.
Where it falls short: Cost dashboards are conversation-level, not month-level. No budget alerts. Some providers’ billing reads back with a delay, which makes the meter slightly behind real time.
Pricing:
- Free with basic usage view.
- Paid: Pro $4.99/month for advanced models and longer history.
Bottom line: Pick this if you want a lightweight chat client that also shows you the per-conversation cost.
Download: Aptoide
4. BoltAI — best polished multi-provider client
BoltAI is the polished Android port of the iOS app of the same name. It supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and most OpenAI-compatible custom endpoints, and the per-month usage view is the cleanest in the category. Budget caps with push alerts are first-class. The catch is that BoltAI is a paid app, but the price is a single purchase rather than a subscription.
Where it falls short: Paid app, which is fine if you understand the value but a barrier for casual users. Local LLM support requires a manual endpoint configuration. The conversation history is per-device unless you wire up your own sync.
Pricing:
- Paid: $19.99 one-off purchase from Google Play.
Bottom line: Pick this if you want the most polished multi-provider client and you are happy with a single purchase.
Download: Aptoide
5. Tasker — best custom dashboards via webhooks
Tasker is the Android automation app that does the underlying tracking work for users who want a custom dashboard. Hit any LLM API, parse the JSON response, write tokens and cost to a CSV in Google Drive or a local SQLite, render a daily summary widget. Tasker is the right pick when the off-the-shelf trackers do not cover the providers you actually use, or when the dashboard you want is shaped differently to the standard pattern.
Where it falls short: Steepest learning curve on this list. No pre-built dashboards; you build the dashboard yourself. Parsing JSON in Tasker is doable but not friendly.
Pricing:
- Paid: $3.49 one-off purchase from Google Play.
- Free 7-day trial via direct download.
Bottom line: Pick this if you want a fully custom tracker and you do not mind writing the glue.
Download: Aptoide · Google Play
6. Helicone Mobile — best team observability
Helicone Mobile is the Android view into the Helicone observability platform, the open-source LLM proxy that meters every request and feeds a real metrics dashboard. The phone app shows the live cost-per-team, request volume, model breakdown, and budget burn for teams running production workloads or shared dev environments. Helicone vs the consumer trackers is the pick when more than one person shares the budget, or when team-level guardrails matter.
Where it falls short: Setup requires running the Helicone proxy in front of the providers, which is more friction than a key-only tracker. Self-hosting is fine but adds operational overhead. Single-user setups are overkill.
Pricing:
- Free tier with usage caps.
- Paid: Growth $20/month, Pro $500/month.
Bottom line: Pick this if you share the LLM budget with a team or you already run Helicone in production.
Download: Aptoide
7. Local LLM Monitor — best for self-hosted endpoints
Local LLM Monitor is the open-source Android tracker for local inference endpoints. It connects to Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp servers, and vLLM, and reports requests-per-second, tokens-per-second, model load, and GPU memory pressure for each endpoint. Cost in dollars is not the metric here; the metric is electricity and GPU saturation. For the XDA scenario of running Qwen3-Coder and Gemma 4 locally, this is the right view of what those models are actually doing under the hood.
Where it falls short: Local only; no cloud provider coverage. The dashboard is more developer-focused than consumer-friendly. Some metrics (per-request cost in joules) are estimates rather than measured values.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source.
Bottom line: Pick this if half your inference is local and you want a view into the hardware utilisation.
Download: GitHub releases
How to pick the right one
Pick OpenRouter if you already route work across providers and you want the cleanest unified meter.
Pick Cline Mobile Companion if Cline is your coding agent and you want per-session cost visibility.
Pick Pal Chat if you want a lightweight chat client that also shows per-conversation cost.
Pick BoltAI if you want a polished multi-provider client and you prefer a one-off purchase to a subscription.
Pick Tasker if you want a fully custom dashboard and you are willing to write the glue.
Pick Helicone Mobile if you share the budget with a team.
Pick Local LLM Monitor if your stack includes local Ollama or LM Studio endpoints and you want to see what they are doing.
FAQ
How do I track AI usage across multiple providers on Android?
OpenRouter and BoltAI both unify multiple providers behind a single dashboard. Helicone does the same at the team level. Tasker can roll your own if the off-the-shelf options do not cover what you need.
Is there a free AI usage tracker for Android?
Yes. OpenRouter, Cline Mobile Companion, Pal Chat (free tier), Helicone (free tier), and Local LLM Monitor are all free or have meaningful free tiers.
Can I track local LLM usage on Android?
Yes. Local LLM Monitor is the dedicated open-source option. Pal Chat and BoltAI also accept custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints, which covers Ollama and LM Studio.
What is the cheapest way to split AI work across multiple models?
The XDA-described approach of a local Ollama for boilerplate, OpenRouter for everything else, and a single tracker on top of both stays cheaper than one heavyweight subscription for most users.
Will tracking AI usage drain my battery?
The tracking itself is essentially free. The cost is the inference itself, which runs in the cloud for hosted providers (no local battery cost) or on the desktop machine for local LLMs (also no phone battery cost). Phone-side dashboards are read-only views.
