# Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) BYOK is a model where users supply their own API keys to access AI or other cloud services through a third-party platform. Instead of the platform paying for API access and reselling it, users authenticate directly with the underlying provider (e.g., [[Anthropic]], [[OpenAI]]) using their own credentials. ## How it works 1. User creates an account with the AI provider (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI) and generates an API key 2. User provides that key to the platform/application they want to use 3. All API calls are made under the user's account, billed directly to the user 4. The platform acts as a UI/orchestration layer without handling the billing ## Benefits **For users:** - Direct billing — no platform markup on token costs - Data stays within the user's own API account (privacy) - Full control over rate limits, usage, and spend - Not dependent on a platform's quota or pricing changes **For platforms:** - No infrastructure cost for AI inference - Simpler pricing model (pay for the platform, not the AI calls) - Reduced liability around data handling - Can serve power users without subsidizing high usage ## Trade-offs - Users must manage their own API keys and security - Users are responsible for their own rate limits and spend caps - More friction in onboarding (users need a separate provider account) - Platforms can't optimize or cache model calls centrally ## Relevance BYOK is particularly relevant as a mitigation for [[SaaS Misalignment with User Objectives]] — it aligns incentives between the platform and user by removing the platform's financial stake in AI usage volume. It also connects to data sovereignty: the user's queries don't pass through a middleman's account. Examples: many AI coding assistants, [[Claude Max API Proxy]], and various LLM-powered SaaS tools offer BYOK modes. ## References - ## Related - [[Large Language Models (LLMs)]] - [[Anthropic]] - [[OpenAI]] - [[Claude]] - [[Software as a Service (SaaS)]] - [[SaaS Misalignment with User Objectives]] - [[Claude Max API Proxy]]