BotCost

## The problem I kept seeing

I kept noticing AI crawler entries in server logs

and wondered how much they actually cost. Most

developers have no idea until they look.

GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Bytespider, CCBot — they crawl

your site constantly for AI training data. You pay

the bandwidth bill. They get your content for free.

## What I built

BotCost.dev is a free browser-based log analyzer.

Drag and drop your Nginx, Apache, Cloudflare, or

Vercel log file and see:

- Which AI bots are hitting your site

- How many requests each one made

- How much bandwidth each one wasted

- Estimated monthly cost in dollars

- Ready-to-paste Cloudflare WAF or Nginx block rule

## The privacy angle

Everything runs in your browser. Your log file

never leaves your device. Zero uploads, zero

tracking, no account required.

You can verify this yourself — open your browser

Network tab while running an analysis and you will

see zero outbound requests.

## Where it stands today

Launched on Hacker News today and got good technical

feedback. 16 points, real users testing it on

production logs.

The free tool is live and working. The paid sync

API that auto-updates WAF rules when bot IP ranges

change is coming next.

## What I would love to know

If you run a site with real traffic, try it on your

actual logs and tell me what bot percentage you see.

I'm trying to understand what numbers are typical

in the wild.

botcost.dev