Is BYOK cheaper than credits?

For the model part it usually is, because you pay the provider’s price. It is not free, though. A gateway may add a card fee (5.5%, at least $0.80, at OpenRouter), and the tool may still charge for its plan. Compare the cost per usable photo both ways, as in the worked example above, and see how much AI product photos cost.

Is it safe to paste my API key into a website?

It depends on where the site keeps it. Ask whether the key stays on your device or goes to their servers, and whether it is encrypted. Then give that key its own low credit limit, so a leak can only spend a little.

What is the difference between an API key and a password?

A password lets a person sign in. An API key lets software act on your account and spend your credit, so treat it like a card number: keep it private, limit what it can spend, and cancel it if it leaks.

What does "bring your own key" mean in AI tools?

Checked September 24, 20266 min read

Short answer

Bring your own key (BYOK) means an AI tool runs the models on your own account with the model provider instead of its own. You create an API key, a secret code that lets software use your account, paste it into the tool, and the provider bills you for each image or word. You get the provider’s prices and your own spending limits; you also take on setup, a second bill and keeping the key safe.

How it works

You open an account with a model provider, such as Google or OpenAI, or with a gateway such as OpenRouter, a service that sells access to many makers’ models through one account.
You add credit or a card, then create an API key: a long secret string that tells the provider a request comes from you.
You paste the key into the tool.
When you make an image, the tool sends the request with your key, and the provider charges your account.
The tool charges you for its own features, if anything, but not for the model use.

Without BYOK, the tool pays the provider and sells you credits. Credits bundle the model price with whatever the tool adds. Uwear, a fashion tool, sells credits at $0.10 each and charges 5 credits for a Nano Banana Pro image, $0.50, where Google’s own price for that image is $0.134. The difference pays for Uwear’s tools as well as the model.

OpenRouter also uses the term the other way round: its own BYOK feature lets you bring a key from a provider such as OpenAI into OpenRouter. That costs nothing up to $25,000 of use a month on pay-as-you-go, then 5%.

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Provider prices, with no markup from the app	Setup: an account, credit and a key before your first image
A spending limit you set on each key, with daily, weekly or monthly resets on OpenRouter	Two bills: the app’s plan and the model provider
Your choice of models, where the app allows it	A card fee on top-ups at some gateways: 5.5%, at least $0.80, at OpenRouter
Your own privacy settings, such as refusing providers that train on your data	Keeping the key safe is your job
Every request listed with its cost in your provider’s activity page	Some apps offer it only on Enterprise plans

What BYOK costs for 100 photos a month

Say you want 100 finished product photos a month on Google’s Nano Banana 2 at 1K. Our own campaigns averaged about 8 renders per keeper, so plan for 800 renders.

Line	Amount
800 renders × $0.067	$53.60
Card fee to buy that much OpenRouter credit (5.5%)	$2.95
Model cost for 100 keepers	$56.55, about $0.57 a keeper

Google’s Nano Banana 2 price and OpenRouter’s card fee, September 24, 2026.

Small top-ups cost more, because OpenRouter’s card fee has a $0.80 minimum, which is 8% of a $10 top-up. For comparison, Flora, which bills models at its listed prices with no markup, charges $0.072 for the same image, so the same 800 renders would use $57.60 of a Flora plan. Budgeting across tools is covered in how to budget for AI creative tools.

Which creative tools let you bring your own key

Tool	Own key?	Details
Figma Weave	Enterprise only	The Enterprise plan lists "own API keys"; other plans pay in Weave credits
Pletor	Enterprise only	Enterprise lists "bring your own API keys"; plans from $19 a month use credits
Comfy Cloud	Two providers	Runway and Google Gemini keys, billed by the provider instead of Comfy credits; more on request for Enterprise
PlugNode	Yes, all plans	Keys for Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, ElevenLabs, fal.ai, Kling and others; you pay providers directly
Flora	Not in its pricing docs	Bills each model at its listed price with no markup, through Flora plans
Higgsfield	Not on its pricing page	Credits only
Overs	Yes, required	Runs on your own OpenRouter key; Overs adds no markup

From each tool’s pricing page, September 24, 2026.

How to keep a key safe

Make one key per tool, named after the tool, so you can switch one off without breaking the rest.
Set a credit limit on every key. OpenRouter recommends it, because a key with no limit lets a leaked key spend your whole balance. Add a daily, weekly or monthly reset.
Copy the key once, into a password manager. OpenRouter shows the full key only when you create it.
Never paste a key into a chat, an email, a shared doc, a screenshot or a code repository. GitHub scans code pushed to it for OpenRouter keys, and OpenRouter emails you if one turns up.
Never put a key in a web address. Google warns that keys sent in URLs can be stolen through URL scans.
Delete keys you no longer use, and replace active keys on a schedule.
Check the provider’s activity page each month for use you do not recognize.
If a key leaks, delete it and create a new one right away.

Where the tool keeps your key matters. OpenAI tells developers never to put their own key in a browser or mobile app they ship, because users could take it. A BYOK tool that keeps your key only in your own browser is a different case, since the key and the device are both yours, but a low credit limit still caps the damage if something goes wrong.

Questions to ask before you paste a key

Where is the key stored: only on my device, or on your servers? Is it encrypted? PlugNode, for example, says it encrypts keys with AES-256-GCM and decrypts them only when a job runs.
Do my prompts and images pass through your servers on the way to the provider?
Do you add any fee on top of the provider’s price?
Can I connect with a sign-in button instead of pasting a key? OpenRouter supports this (it calls it OAuth PKCE), and the app gets a key that you control.
What happens to my key if I delete my account?

Questions people also ask

Is BYOK cheaper than credits?: For the model part it usually is, because you pay the provider’s price. It is not free, though. A gateway may add a card fee (5.5%, at least $0.80, at OpenRouter), and the tool may still charge for its plan. Compare the cost per usable photo both ways, as in the worked example above, and see how much AI product photos cost.
Is it safe to paste my API key into a website?: It depends on where the site keeps it. Ask whether the key stays on your device or goes to their servers, and whether it is encrypted. Then give that key its own low credit limit, so a leak can only spend a little.
What is the difference between an API key and a password?: A password lets a person sign in. An API key lets software act on your account and spend your credit, so treat it like a card number: keep it private, limit what it can spend, and cancel it if it leaks.

Where Overs fits

Overs runs on your own key from OpenRouter, a service that bills many AI models through one account, and adds no markup, because requests go from your browser straight to OpenRouter. Your key stays on the device where you typed it and is not stored in your Overs account; in a shared workspace, each person pays on their own key. The plan is free for 40 photos a month, and the AI costs a few cents a photo.

Free for 40 photos a month. The AI that makes the photos is billed separately, on your own key, with no markup from Overs.

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Sources

Checked on September 24, 2026. Prices, specs and rules change; follow the links for the current versions.