If you're evaluating tools to measure your engineering team's AI productivity, you've probably found us and Exceeds AI. Both solve the same problem: proving AI ROI to leadership. But the approaches are fundamentally different.

Here's an honest comparison.

The Core Difference

CostLens captures AI usage as it happens — via an SDK in your code, an MCP server in your AI coding tools, or a local proxy. We know which tool generated which code because we're in the loop.

Exceeds AI analyzes commits after the fact — scanning diffs and patterns to guess which code was AI-generated. They look at the output and infer the input.

	CostLens	Exceeds AI
Detection method	Live capture (SDK, MCP, proxy)	Retrospective commit analysis
Setup time	30 seconds (connect GitHub)	"Free pilot" (requires a call)
Pricing	$49/mo Pro, $149/mo Business	Not published
Who installs	Individual engineer	VP/Director decision
AI tool coverage	Any tool with MCP (Cursor, Claude Code, Kiro) + SDK	Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot
Accuracy	Knows the exact tool and session	Infers from patterns (confidence score)
Free tier	Yes — 1 repo, basic dashboard	No — "free report" requires sales

When Retrospective Analysis Breaks Down

Commit-level heuristics work for obvious cases: a 500-line file created in one commit at 2am is probably AI. But they struggle with:

Pair programming with AI — human writes some, AI writes some, in the same commit
AI-assisted refactoring — the code looks human-written because the developer iterated on AI output
Multi-tool workflows — developer uses Copilot for autocomplete, Claude Code for larger blocks, and manual coding in between

We see this in our own data. Our AI detection heuristic flags about 68% of PRs as AI-assisted. But when we check against MCP session data, the real number is closer to 90%. Retrospective analysis undercounts.

When Live Tracking Wins

If you run CostLens's MCP server alongside Cursor or Claude Code, every AI interaction is logged with:

Which model was used
Token count and cost
Which files were touched
The session duration

This means your dashboard shows not just "this PR was AI-assisted" but "this PR used Claude 4 Sonnet, consumed 45K tokens, cost $1.35, and shipped in 3.2 hours."

That's the difference between "AI helped" and "AI saved $X at Y speed."

Setup: 30 Seconds vs Sales Calls

CostLens: sign up → connect GitHub → see your dashboard. No call required. The free tier works with 1 repo.

For deeper tracking, install the MCP server:

brew install costlens

Or add the SDK to your Node app:

npm install costlens

Exceeds AI requires a "free pilot" which, based on their CTAs, involves scheduling a demo. If your team can't get budget approval without data, you're stuck in a chicken-and-egg loop.

Our Honest Take

Exceeds AI is a legitimate tool for large enterprises with dedicated vendor management. If you have 300+ engineers and a VP who wants a managed analytics vendor, they're a reasonable option.

But if you're an engineering manager or tech lead who wants to:

Show AI ROI to your CTO this week
Start without a procurement process
Track costs and productivity from inside the tools you already use

Then CostLens is built for you.

See your team's AI impact in 30 seconds. Connect GitHub free →

Score any public repo instantly → costlens.dev/score