Frequently Asked Questions

Kontinuity is a Chrome extension that tracks your token usage and costs across AI platforms — currently Claude and ChatGPT. It shows you in real time how many tokens each message uses, what it costs, and how your spending adds up over sessions and projects.

Install directly from the Chrome Web Store — just click "Add to Chrome". No account or credit card needed. You get a 14-day free trial with full access to every feature. Once installed, open Claude or ChatGPT and the K icon appears in your toolbar. Click it to see live stats.

Yes. Kontinuity currently supports claude.ai and chatgpt.com. It auto-detects which platform you're using and applies the correct model pricing. More platforms (Gemini, Grok) are on the roadmap.

No. Kontinuity works with the regular web interfaces at claude.ai and chatgpt.com — no API key required. It monitors network calls to count tokens, so your existing subscriptions work as-is.

100% on your device, in your browser's IndexedDB storage. No data is ever sent to our servers. We don't have servers that receive your usage data. Your conversations, costs, and session history are completely private to you.

Kontinuity intercepts the network stream to count characters and tokens — but it doesn't store or transmit your conversation content. Only token counts, costs, timestamps, and model names are saved locally. Your actual messages are never logged.

Kontinuity requests access to claude.ai and chatgpt.com — the sites it tracks. It also uses a few background permissions to keep tracking reliable: alarms and tabs to periodically check that tracking is active, notifications to alert you if a tab needs refreshing, and scripting to restore tracking if it stops. None of these access other websites or your browsing history. All data stays on your device.

Yes. Use the CSV export buttons in the Dashboard to download your full session and message history. To delete your data, go to Settings in the extension and use the clear data option, or clear site data for the extension in Chrome's settings.

A token is roughly 4 characters of text, or about ¾ of a word. AI models don't process raw text — they break your input into tokens and price their responses by the token. A typical sentence is 15–25 tokens. A long coding prompt might be 500–2,000 tokens. The exact breakdown depends on the model's tokenizer.

Very accurate for OpenAI models — Kontinuity uses a precise tokenizer that matches OpenAI's own encoding for exact counts. For Claude, it uses a calibrated heuristic that closely approximates Anthropic's tokenizer. Small variations from the exact count are possible, but the cost estimates are reliable for budgeting purposes.

Every message you send includes more than just your text. The full API payload includes system prompts (Claude's instructions), the entire conversation history so far, and any tool definitions. This "overhead" is often 5–10x your actual message — which is why costs add up faster than expected. Kontinuity shows both so you understand the real cost.

It reads the model identifier from the API response stream. For Claude this is the claude-opus-4-6 style slug; for ChatGPT it's the model field in the response. The pricing table is updated with current rates for all major models.

This means Kontinuity is loaded and ready, but hasn't intercepted any messages yet on this tab. Simply send a message on Claude or ChatGPT and the popup will update immediately with your token count, cost, and context health. If you just refreshed the page, the extension resets and waits for new activity.

This usually means the tracking connection was interrupted. Try these steps in order: (1) Send a message on the page — the popup updates after your first exchange. (2) Refresh the tab (Ctrl+R or Cmd+R) and send another message. (3) If it still shows dashes, go to chrome://extensions, find Kontinuity, click the reload button, then refresh your AI tabs. This restores the tracking connection.

Kontinuity runs a background health check every 30 seconds. If it detects that tracking has stopped on a tab (usually after a Chrome update or extension reload), it sends a notification asking you to refresh. Just click back to that tab and press Ctrl+R — tracking will resume immediately.

No. The popup is just a display window. Tracking runs in the background via content scripts injected into your AI chat tabs. You can close the popup, switch tabs, or minimize Chrome — tracking continues as long as the tab is open. Your data is always there when you reopen the popup.

Check two things: (1) The popup's "This Session" cost only counts messages sent while Kontinuity was active on that tab. If you started a conversation before installing or before refreshing, earlier messages aren't counted. (2) If you're using a model like Claude Haiku or GPT-4o-mini, costs are genuinely very low — often fractions of a cent per message. Check the "Full API Breakdown" section in the popup to see the full token count including system overhead.

Context health shows how much of the AI's context window is still available. As conversations get longer, earlier messages start getting pushed out. When health drops to Declining (yellow), the AI may start forgetting earlier context. At Critical (red), consider starting a new conversation. For Claude, this uses exact data from the server. For ChatGPT, it's an estimate based on token counting.

Your data isn't lost — it's in the Dashboard. The popup tracks the current session on the active tab. Refreshing the page starts a new session. All previous sessions, costs, and token counts are preserved in the Dashboard (click "Dashboard" at the bottom of the popup) and in your CSV exports.

Free Trial gives you 14 days with all features unlocked — both platforms, full dashboard, project tagging, CSV/JSON export, 18 currencies, and full history. Plus ($5/mo or $48/yr) continues all the same features after your trial ends. Pro (coming soon) will add prompt onboarding, a smart tips engine, and drift detection when Phase 2 launches — pricing will be announced at launch.

Coming soon in a future update. As a conversation grows longer, AI models start "forgetting" your original intent — earlier instructions get pushed out of the active context window. Kontinuity's drift detection (coming in Phase 2) scores each response against your stated project goals and alerts you when the AI starts going off-track, before you waste hours heading the wrong direction.

Coming soon in a future update. Tips is a planned Phase 2 feature that analyses your usage patterns and surfaces personalised prompt engineering suggestions — things like "Your overhead is 10x your message size, try shorter system prompts" or "This conversation is 60 messages long — context drift risk is high, consider summarising and starting fresh." The goal is to help you get more value from every token, not just track what you spend.

You get 14 days with every feature unlocked — no credit card required. After 14 days, subscribe to Plus ($5/mo) to keep full access. Pro launches alongside Phase 2 features like drift detection and the smart tips engine — pricing announced at launch. You can also earn extra free days through feedback, sharing, and referrals.

Yes. You can earn extra days without paying: submit feedback (+14 days), share Kontinuity on LinkedIn, X, or Reddit (+7 days per share), or refer a friend (+14 days for both of you). Days are cumulative with no cap. Visit the Earn Free Days page for details.

The extension continues tracking your usage in the background — no data is lost. The popup dashboard is covered by a lock screen until you subscribe or enter a loyalty code. You can subscribe to Plus ($5/mo) or earn free days to unlock it again.

Click Subscribe on the lock screen, or visit the pricing section on our homepage. You'll be taken to a secure checkout powered by Dodo Payments. After payment, you receive a license key by email. Paste it into the extension at Settings → Account → Enter Code.

Yes. Your subscription is managed through Dodo Payments. You can cancel at any time and retain access until the end of your billing period.

Credit and debit cards, PayPal, UPI, and 30+ payment methods across 220+ countries. All payments are processed securely by Dodo Payments.

Not yet — Chrome only for now. Firefox and Edge support are on the roadmap. The extension is built with modern build tooling which supports cross-browser builds, so it's coming.

The tab needs a quick refresh for tracking to resume. Just press Ctrl+R (or Cmd+R on Mac) on the tab where you're using Claude or ChatGPT. This usually happens after the extension updates or Chrome restarts — it's nothing to worry about, and tracking picks right back up after the refresh.

Kontinuity is waiting for the AI to finish its response. Once the model stops streaming, the dots clear automatically and your cost updates. No action needed on your end.

That's your estimated cost today in cents — so ".29" means about $0.29. If your daily spending reaches a dollar or more, it switches to a dollar format like "$1.2". It means tracking is active and working normally.

Your license key needs to be re-entered. This can happen if you've been offline for an extended period. Open the extension, go to Settings → Account, and paste your license key again. If you don't have one, your trial may have expired — you can subscribe to Plus or earn free days.

Your 14-day free trial has ended and no license key was found. Open the extension to see your options: subscribe to Plus ($5/mo), enter a license code, or earn free days through feedback, shares, and referrals. Your data is still being tracked in the background — nothing is lost.

Tracking is paused. You (or someone using your browser) clicked the pause button in the popup. Open the extension and click Resume to start tracking again.

The tilde (~) means Kontinuity estimated some messages that existed before it started tracking that conversation. For example, "~42 messages" means some of those messages were already there when Kontinuity first loaded the page. The cost tracking is still accurate for everything that happened after the extension was active.

It means there's been no activity on the tab for 10 or more minutes, so the displayed data might be slightly stale. As soon as you send another message or interact with the AI, it refreshes automatically. You can also close and reopen the popup to clear it.

When you open the popup, you'll see a small colored dot next to the platform name. Green means ChatGPT is detected, purple means Claude, blue means Gemini, and grey means the platform couldn't be identified. This tells you which AI model's pricing Kontinuity is using to calculate your costs.