Skip to content
VectorCite
Free audit

Glossary entry byok

BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)

Pricing model where users plug in their own provider API keys, the tool pays no per-token cost.

Filed under
Core concepts

Definition

BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) is the pricing model where the SaaS tool is just the orchestrator + UI, and the user supplies their own OpenAI / Anthropic / Perplexity API keys. The user pays each provider directly. Tools using BYOK can price the platform flat (no per-token markup), which is structurally cheaper.

Example

Profound charges $499/mo for ChatGPT-only probing because they pay OpenAI per request. VectorCite ships multi-engine Deep Probe at any tier because users bring their own keys; we pay nothing per probe.

How to optimize

If you're an agency, prefer BYOK tools: your monthly bill becomes the underlying provider cost, not a 10x markup. VectorCite is BYOK-native at /app/byok.

Check a page against a real AI answer

Claude’s live answer to your buyer’s question, its sources, your readiness score and the fixes. Free, no signup, about half a minute.

Run a free audit