Put your Claude and Codex quotas on the iPhone Lock Screen: a $6.99 widget that sold $7,490 in four months, and then OpenAI built it themselves
What it is An iPhone widget app that shows how much quota you have left on AI coding subscriptions like Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, and when it resets, right on your lock screen and home screen.
Why it took off Since spring 2026, Claude and Codex subscription limits have tightened, and developers paying for several at once check them many times a day. It logs in right on your phone with no Mac needed, it's polished, it ships updates fast, and the author got the first users by posting on Reddit himself.
CHow you could get in Don't build another Claude + Codex version. Instead, do a lock-screen quota widget for China-market coding plans it doesn't support (GLM, Kimi, Alibaba, and MiniMax coding plans). Copy its free single account, multi-account, and paid lock-screen model, and get users by posting in developer communities and building a landing page for each provider.
- Data (updated daily) · launched 2026-07-14 · US store rating 45 · charted in 11-08 of 64 stores
iOS · best category chart rank · by store US storeJapanBrazilData 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · rating count · US store Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
Limits is an iPhone app by an indie dev that puts your Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Grok and Antigravity 5-hour quotas, weekly quotas and reset countdowns on your lock screen and home screen widgets. Launched in Jul 14 2026, it had made $7,490 in total revenue by Nov 6 and ranks #1 among iPhone apps in its category. But the pie is small: there are already about 30 similar apps. In October, ChatGPT shipped a Codex quota widget on iOS itself, and that same month Limits' revenue nearly halved. The lesson worth taking is how it found demand. Copying the product isn't worth it.
"I'm out and just want to know if my limit is back"
On Jul 2026 15, the day after launch, developer Pranav Karthik Mruthyunjayan posted a Show HN, opening with why he built it:
Like say you're outside and just wanna know if your weekly or session limit is back. That is, you're out and just want to know whether your weekly limit, or the 5-hour limit, has reset yet.
He listed three selling points: everything is done on your phone, with no Mac companion app and no server; you get a push notification when a limit resets; and when Codex resets globally you get a heads-up, "so you don't have to keep refreshing Twitter waiting for their team to post an announcement." The post got only 2 points and no comments. On Product Hunt it fared no better: no feature, and it ranked #128,4 for the day.
What actually brought in users was Reddit. He posted in r/ClaudeCode with the title "I made some iPhone widgets to make Claude Code's rate limits easier to see," opening with a candid line:
I know we're all tired of the rate limit monitors or apps, but I wanted a clean, minimal way to view them… I know we're all tired of rate limit monitors and apps, but I wanted a clean, unobtrusive way to check them…
In other words, the niche was already crowded the day it launched. It came out on top by being more polished than the others and moving faster.
Why people needed it this summer
Since spring 2026, Claude's subscription limits have been very tight. A top-voted r/ClaudeAI thread put it bluntly: "since 3, April, the limits have become brutal." Codex has a 5-hour window and weekly limits, and it issues a "reset limit" that you can save up, but it expires after a few days and doesn't remind you. Heavy users often pay for two or three services at once and check "how much is left" and "when does it come back" many times a day.
On desktop, this was already solved: the open-source CodexBar is the de facto standard for the Mac menu bar, with 23k GitHub stars. But once you close the laptop, you can't see anything. Limits covers only the phone side: you log into each account directly on iPhone and check limits on the lock screen. Its website lists exactly which permissions each service gets. For Claude, for example, it only asks for org:create_api_key and user:profile, and "deliberately does not ask for user:inference, so it can't spend your quota." For developers who are already uneasy about handing tokens to third parties, that paragraph does more than any ad could.
US store reviews were specific: "I have 4 accounts to watch, and this is exactly what I needed. Bought the lifetime version" (8-11); "I was on the fence about upgrading from free, then saw the iOS widgets also work on Mac, so I bought it right away" (10-15); "The developer is very active and responds to feedback" (7-27). Less than 4 months after launch it shipped 9 versions, adding multi-account support, Grok, Antigravity, enterprise plan limits, and 11 languages.
Where the money comes from: the free tier only connects one account
The app is free to download. Paid is $1.99 a month, $6.99 a year, or $14.99 lifetime (on the US App Store page). The paywall is placed precisely: the free version connects only 1 account, and lock-screen widgets require payment. Its target users are exactly the people paying for several services at once, so as soon as they want to use it, they have to pay.
The negative reviews cluster around this same point. German store, 7-30: "Only one account is free, and the lock-screen widget costs money straight away. Too bad, I won't pay for this as a subscription." UK store, 10-27: "The most useful features are all behind the paywall. I want to see more than one limit." Brazil store, 10-31, was the harshest: "You could loosen the free tier a bit, since this is a vibe-coded app built for vibe coders."
Its revenue is public on TrustMRR, with data from RevenueCat (11-06):
| Month | Revenue |
|---|---|
| July (launched 14) | $1,994 |
| August | $1,657 |
| September | $2,284 |
| October | $1,279 |
| November 1–5 | $276 |
Total $7,490, MRR $280, 338 active subscriptions. 338 subscriptions correspond to only $280 in monthly revenue, which means most people bought the $6.99 annual plan, plus there are lifetime one-time purchases that don't count toward MRR. Ratings: 169 across all stores, 44 in the US store, averaging 4.4. From 10-28 to 11-06, it added 0 to 3 new ratings a day.
One caveat: it reached the top 15 of the Top Grossing charts in Finland, Bulgaria, Thailand, and Japan, but those were Developer Tools category charts, where the bar is low enough that a single sale can push you up. In Finland it jumped from #147 to #3 in one day, and it had only 0 ratings there. Those charts don't prove strong paid conversion.
Where users come from
- Reddit self-promotion: the main source. The author listed Reddit, ASO, and word of mouth as channels on TrustMRR, and a blog post from Jul 16 described it as "born in the developer community on Reddit."
- Per-provider landing pages: getlimits.app has 6 pages such as claude-usage-tracker, codex-usage-tracker, and cursor-usage-tracker, built to catch searches like "claude usage tracker iphone." The App Store name is the generic "AI Usage Tracker," with the subtitle "Codex, Claude, Cursor limits."
- Localization plus country pricing: 1.0.5 added regional pricing, and 1.0.9 added 11 languages. Apart from the US, the markets with the most ratings are Thailand 12, Germany 10, the UK 9, India 9, and Japan 7, which lines up with its localization (inferred).
- No paid acquisition: no ads found, and no media or major accounts wrote about it. At $6.99 a year per customer, paid acquisition wouldn't pay off anyway.
Who it's competing with
| Competitors | What it is | Scale | Where the threats are |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Codex limits widget built into the ChatGPT iOS app | An official feature that quietly launched in early October (OpenAI developer forum) | All ChatGPT users | Free, no setup, and it takes the core Codex need that Limits was built on |
| CodexBar(Peter Steinberger) | Open-source Mac menu bar tool | 23k GitHub stars | The standard answer on computers, with no native iPhone version |
| openusage, ccusage, and others | Open-source desktop tools | From a few thousand to nearly 20k stars | Desktop only, not on the lock screen |
| Nowdex | iOS, launched 6 days later | Ratings across all stores: 39 | About a quarter of Limits' size |
| Token Monitor, QuotaKit, Runlow, Headroom, Limi, TokenMaxxer, and others | iOS, launched gradually from 2026 1 through October | Most rated 0–8 | Nearly identical features, about 30 apps |
| DIY builders | Scriptable widgets, Mac scripts plus iCloud | — | Many developers spent one evening building their own and wrote blog posts teaching others how |
The last line is the killer: the users are programmers, and this thing can be written in one evening with AI. The Claude app currently has only a progress bar on its settings page, with no widget. If Anthropic adds one, a large chunk of the remaining demand disappears.
If it were you
C: worth learning from, not worth following. The need is real and the approach is clear, but the ceiling is a few thousand dollars a month. The niche is crowded, revenue is public, and the official products keep taking pieces of it.
Who it suits: iOS developers who want a weekend project to ship and earn some pocket money, or anyone who wants to learn the method of "find the anxiety around a big company's subscription and build a light phone tool for it."
Who it doesn't suit: anyone planning to run it as a serious business. Build another "Claude + Codex limits widget" and you'll be the 31th.
How to do it: Don't copy it. Pick an audience it doesn't cover. The most worthwhile target is China's coding subscriptions: Zhipu GLM, Kimi, Alibaba, and MiniMax all sell coding plans with 5-hour or weekly limits, and more and more people use them, yet Limits supports none of them (US users in the reviews have asked specifically for "Alibaba token plan" and "OpenRouter"). Whether these providers offer open APIs for checking quotas, and what their quota rules look like, you would need to verify for each one (inferred, not verified). On product, copy three things: the lock-screen widget, push alerts when limits reset, and clearly stating what permissions each service gets. On pricing, follow it too: the free tier covers 1 account, multi-account and lock-screen widgets are paid, with a cheap annual plan plus a one-time purchase option.
How to get users: Follow its playbook, but move to where the right people are: on China's side that means posts about "AI coding" on V2EX, Jike, and Xiaohongshu, plus a landing page for each provider to catch search traffic. No paid acquisition, since there's no money for it.
Before: before these official apps built their own widgets. The Codex piece saw revenue halve just one month after official launch.
What would mean we misread it: ① Anthropic or the other official providers ship their own quota widgets, and this route is basically closed; ② the reverse: Limits' monthly revenue holds at 11, and December climbs back above $2,000, meaning the official Codex widget didn't cannibalize much and the multi-provider aggregation demand is stronger than it looks; ③ the landing page and posts have been up a month and paid subscriptions are still under 50, meaning those users still check quotas on desktop and don't need a lock screen.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one steipete/CodexBar Open source 2025-11 GitHub 23,021 stars Mac menu bar and CLI, free and open source, reads local sessions; no native iPhone app. Limits connects to OAuth directly on the phone and doesn't need a Mac. Official Codex usage widget in the ChatGPT iOS app Big-company features About 2026-10 early All ChatGPT users Official and free, but Codex only. Limits aggregates multiple providers and multiple accounts. Settings > Usage in the Claude app Big-company features Already there full range Progress bars on the settings page only. No widgets, no alerts. ccusage Open source 2025-05 19,336 stars CLI that tracks local token usage and cost. Doesn't watch subscription quotas, and isn't on the phone. openusage(robinebers) Open source 2026-02 4,554 stars macOS menu bar, supports 12 providers. No iPhone lock screen. Nowdex iOS 2026-07-20 Overall rating 39 across all stores; best Top Grossing rank in Developer Tools: #9 Same-category followers, roughly 1/4× Limits' size CodexBar - Usage of AI (Yuxiao Wang) iOS 2026-04-02 US store rating 6 Launched before Limits and borrowed the CodexBar name, but didn't take off Usage for Claude + ChatGPT iOS 2025-11-19 US store rating 5 Focused on Claude and ChatGPT chat quotas; few providers - Where users come from
- Verified Organic Reddit post: the r/ClaudeAI post "I made some iPhone widgets to make Claude Code's rate limits easier to see" linked getlimits.app; Daniel Rechtman's 7-16 post says it was "born in the developer community on Reddit"; the acquisition channels the founder listed on TrustMRR include Reddit
- Verified Show HN: posted by 2026-07-15, 2 points, 0 comments (hnshowcase.com/post/48925453)
- Verified Product Hunt: not featured; #128 of the day with 4 votes (hunted.space/product/limits-2)
- Verified SEO / ASO and localization: getlimits.app has 6 landing pages by provider (sitemap); the app name uses the generic term "AI Usage Tracker"; 1.0.5 has regional pricing and 1.0.9 adds 11 languages; the TrustMRR channels include ASO and word of mouth
- Inferred Paid acquisition: no evidence found, and a $6.99/year price point can't support paid ads
Limits: AI Usage Tracker (iOS id6783130074) research report
Research date 2026-11-06. Data sources: our appstore / github databases (agent-im server), Apple's lookup API, TrustMRR, getlimits.app, HN Showcase, hunted.space (Product Hunt), the OpenAI developer forum, and more; sources are cited in the text.
One line
An iPhone app built by an indie developer (Pranav Karthik Mruthyunjayan, HN account treexs). It puts the 5-hour session quotas, weekly quotas and reset countdowns for Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Grok and Antigravity on home screen and lock screen widgets. Launched 2026-07-14; free to download, with subscription or one-time purchase: monthly $1.99, yearly $6.99, lifetime $14.99 (Apple US store page).
Verdict
It rode the "AI coding subscription quota anxiety" moment as a small utility, marketed through its founder's own Reddit posts, and polished the product along the way. It reached #1 in the iPhone niche, but the pool is small (about $7.5k cumulative revenue), revenue is public on TrustMRR, and there are already twenty to thirty copycat apps. In October OpenAI built a Codex usage widget into the ChatGPT iOS app, and in the same month Limits' revenue nearly halved. The recall scoring says it ranks high on multi-country bestseller charts, but that's the Developer Tools category Top Grossing chart. The bar for that chart is very low: in Finland it jumped from #147 to #3 in a single day, most likely one sale. That doesn't show strong paid conversion.
1. Data: how big it really is
- Ratings: 169 across all stores, 7 new in the last 15 days; 10-28 was 155, rising to 169 by 11-06, about 0–3 per day (appstore database app_day, 2026-10-28~11-06). 44 in the US store, average 4.4 (Apple US store page, 2026-11-06). Stores with the most ratings: Thailand 12, Germany 10, UK 9, India 9, Brazil 7, Japan 7 (app_profile).
- Charts: it has only charted in a category chart (Developer Tools, genre 6026) and never in an overall chart. Category Top Grossing ranks swing hard day to day, e.g. Finland 147→3, Canada 171→24, India 90→15 (chart_rank, 10-28~11-06). That means a handful of sales in a small store can push you near the top of this category. In the US store, the category Top Grossing chart bounces between #54 and #145.
- Revenue (public): the figures on the TrustMRR page are verified via the RevenueCat API (https://trustmrr.com/startup/limits.md, synced 2026-11-06):
- Cumulative $7,490; last 30 days $1,295, down 36% from the prior period; MRR $280; 338 active subscriptions.
- By month: July $1,994, August $1,657, September $2,284, October $1,279, November 1–5 $276.
- 338 subscriptions account for only $280 MRR, so most are $6.99 yearly plans; there are also $14.99 one-time purchases, which aren't counted in MRR.
- Release cadence: launched 7-14, and by 10-30 it had shipped 1.0.1–1.0.9 nine versions. In the first two weeks after launch it released about every 2–4 days, adding multi-account support, the Single Limit widget, flexible pricing (7-25), Grok/Antigravity (8-08), enterprise quotas (8-26), localization into 11 languages and smart sorting (10-30) (Apple page, Version History).
2. Competitors
Very crowded category. Its position: first on iPhone for ratings and revenue, but still behind the leaders in the Mac menu bar and open source layer.
| Competitors | Platform | Launched | Scale | How it differs from Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| steipete/CodexBar | Open source macOS menu bar app (with WidgetKit, CLI, Linux) | Repo created 2025-11-16 | GitHub 23,021 stars, +137 in the last 7 days (github database) | The de facto Mac standard, free and open source, by the well-known Peter Steinberger; no native iPhone app. Limits' angle is "no Mac needed, the phone connects directly". |
| ccusage | Open source CLI | 2025-05 | 19,336 stars | Tracks token usage and cost from local logs; doesn't watch subscription quotas, and isn't on the phone |
| robinebers/openusage(openusage.ai) | macOS menu bar | 2026-02 | 4,554 stars | Desktop, supports 12 providers; no iPhone lock screen |
| hamed-elfayome/Claude-Usage-Tracker and others | macOS / Windows tray | From ¥2025-10 | Hundreds to 3.7k stars | Desktop, mostly Claude only |
| Official Codex usage widget in the ChatGPT iOS app | Big-company features | About 2026-10 early (OpenAI forum 10-06 post calls it a "quiet launch") | All ChatGPT users | Official, free, zero setup, but Codex only. It directly undercuts the core of Limits' demand. |
| Settings > Usage in the Claude app | Big-company features | Already there | full range | Progress bars on the settings page only; no widgets, no alerts (support.claude.com) |
| Nowdex | iOS | 2026-07-20 | Overall rating 39 across all stores; best Top Grossing rank in Developer Tools: #9 (appstore database) | Launched 6 days later, roughly 1/4 the size of Limits |
| CodexBar - Usage of AI (another developer who borrowed the CodexBar name) | iOS | 2026-04-02 | US store rating 6 | Launched before Limits, but didn't take off |
| Usage for Claude + ChatGPT | iOS/Mac | 2025-11-19 | US store rating 5 | Among the first batch, focused on Claude web and ChatGPT chat quotas |
| TokenBar Mobile, LimitWatch (watch), Tempo For Claude, Code Meter, Model Usage, Token Monitor, Usages, CUStats Go ($8.99 paid), QuotaKit, Runlow, Tokenman, iCodex, Headroom, Limi, TokenMaxxer, AI Wallet, Kitty AI Usage and more | iOS | 2026-01~10 | Most rated 0–8 | Too many copycats. These are all in Limits' "You might also like" section, or you can search for them by name in our database (about 30 of them). |
| LimitsHub (limitshub.in), Nekot, Agent Cat, AI Limits (Contra), AI Usage Meter (Windows), and the Chrome extension AI Usage Tracker | iOS/Mac/Win/Chrome | 2026 | Not verified | Almost identical in name and function. Some even share the exact same name. |
3. Growth tactics (where users come from)
- Organic Reddit post (confirmed): The author posted "I made some iPhone widgets to make Claude Code's rate limits easier to see" in r/ClaudeAI, with a free getlimits.app download link (from a Brave search snippet; the Reddit body was blocked and upvotes are unverified). Daniel Rechtman's blog post 7-16 says the app was "born in the developer community on Reddit." On TrustMRR, the author self-reported Reddit, ASO, and word of mouth as channels.
- Show HN (confirmed, small effect): 2026-07-15 posted it, getting only 2 points and 0 comments (hnshowcase.com/post/48925453).
- Product Hunt (confirmed, small effect): Not featured. Ranked #128 for the day with 4 votes (hunted.space/product/limits-2).
- SEO / ASO (confirmed): getlimits.app has provider-specific landing pages: claude-usage-tracker, claude-limits, codex-usage-tracker, openai-usage-tracker, cursor-usage-tracker, grok-usage-tracker (sitemap.xml). They target long-tail searches like "claude usage tracker iphone." The app name uses the generic keyword "AI Usage Tracker," and the subtitle is "Codex, Claude, Cursor limits." It is also localized into 11 languages (1.0.9) and uses regional pricing (1.0.5). Japan, Thailand, and Germany have relatively many ratings, which fits the localization and regional pricing (inference).
- In-store cross-recommendations: Similar apps appear in each other's "You Might Also Like" sections on the Apple pages.
- Paid acquisition: No evidence found. Nothing relevant turned up on X in local-language searches or on TikTok. From the price point ($6.99/year), it doesn't look like the economics support paid ads.
- Media or big accounts: None found. Only small blogs and directory listings (danielrechtman.org, enlisted.directory, badbundle, etc.).
4. Why it can break out
- Timing: In 2026, from 3 to April, Claude usage limits got much tighter (an r/ClaudeAI limits thread says "Since March-April 2026, Claude usage limits got brutal"). Codex has a 5-hour window plus weekly limits, and reset credits that can be saved and expire (XDA 2026-06-22 reported that Codex reset credits can be saved). Heavy users subscribe to several services at once, so "when does it reset" became something they check many times a day. Limits launched in July, right as this pain point was strongest.
- Phone-direct, no Mac needed: Desktop tools like CodexBar read the local CLI session. Limits connects to each provider's OAuth directly from the phone (for Claude, org:create_api_key + user:profile, deliberately without the inference permission; for Codex, it reuses the Codex CLI scope). There's no companion Mac app and no server. You can check "have my limits reset yet?" while away from your desk, which is the motivation described in the HN post.
- Codex-specific details: Detection of "global Codex resets" (previously you had to watch the OpenAI team's announcements on X), and reminders before saved reset credits expire. Competitors that only handle Claude don't have these (HN post, official site).
- Polish and iteration speed: Reviews repeatedly say "meticulously designed," "clean," and "developer is extremely active" (Apple reviews 7-27, 9-19, 10-15). From 1.0.1 to 1.0.9 there were nine versions, it integrated 5 providers, and it supports enterprise-plan limits.
- Aggressive paywall: The free tier connects only 1 accounts, and lock-screen widgets require payment. Negative reviews complained about this from 7-25 jp, 7-30 de, 10-27 gb, and 10-31 br. The target users already subscribe to several services, so the paywall sits right on the core need. The cost is concentrated negative reviews and the "vibe coded app" jibe.
5. Differentiation, and whether it was built by accident
The differentiation comes down to four points: (1) iPhone only, connecting directly from the phone with no Mac companion; (2) multiple providers and multiple accounts in one lock-screen and home-screen widget; (3) Codex reset credits and global reset alerts; (4) very transparent privacy, listing the OAuth scope each provider requires. Points (1) and (2) are the main reasons it ranked first among its iOS peers at the time, since most iOS competitors then covered only Claude or only Codex. But the differentiation is shallow. A weekend build could copy it, and there are now about 30 apps with the same name and function. (3) This moat can be taken over by the platform: ChatGPT added an official Codex widget in early October, and the same month Limits' revenue fell from $2,284 in September to $1,279. The timing lines up, but the causal link is unverified.
6. Visibility
Revenue is public: TrustMRR shows figures verified through RevenueCat, with $7,490 in total and $280 MRR. The pie is small, though. It ranks #2142 on TrustMRR, and I found no media coverage or write-ups from big X accounts. The category itself is heavily copied, and similar iOS apps have launched by the dozens over the past 2026 years, so this isn't a "nobody knows about it" opportunity.
7. What to borrow
- Look for the anxiety that comes with big-company subscriptions: quotas, resets, expiring credits. Build a lightweight tool for it. Widgets, lock screens, and notifications are the most natural form on a phone.
- Be thorough about privacy: list every OAuth scope you request, one by one, to ease developers' worries about handing tokens to a third party. For this kind of app, that's key to conversion.
- Put the paywall on "multiple accounts and lock-screen widgets." Use regional pricing and 11 languages, with a low-priced annual plan plus a one-time purchase.
- Build provider-specific SEO landing pages to capture long-tail search traffic.
- Lesson: A tool that depends on a single big company's feature gets hit directly when that company ships its own version (ChatGPT's Codex widget). Aggregating many providers is how you avoid being wiped out by any one official feature.
8. Uncertain
- The Reddit post's date and its upvotes and comments (the Reddit body couldn't be scraped), and how much it contributed to the first month's $1,994.
- Whether the October revenue drop was caused by the official Codex widget (timing matches, causation unverified), or whether September just had a renewal or one-time purchase spike.
- Developer identity: LinkedIn has a same-named "Pranav Karthik, SpaceXAI Member of Technical Staff," but I haven't confirmed it's the same person. The developer account also has older apps like Trackr, Washo, and ImagineBooth, none of which took off.
- Whether they ran Apple Search Ads: our database doesn't have this data.