Bring your own model key
Connect your own model provider key (OpenRouter one-click, or a pasted key) so model usage bills to your provider account instead of credits.
Model calls normally draw from your plori credits. If you already have an account with a model provider, you can bring your own key (BYOK) and model calls bill to that provider account instead, at their prices, with no plori markup. Compute and disk still cost credits, but the model line vanishes from your plori bill.
Which providers can I connect?
| Provider | Covers |
|---|---|
| OpenRouter | Any model OpenRouter serves, one key for everything |
| OpenAI | OpenAI models |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek models |
| Groq | Models hosted on Groq |
| xAI | Grok models |
| Together AI | Models hosted on Together |
OpenRouter is the universal option: one key routes any model, including Anthropic. Native Anthropic keys are not supported yet; connect OpenRouter for Claude.
How do I connect a key?
Open Settings in the dashboard sidebar.
OpenRouter (one click). Choose "Connect OpenRouter account". You approve the connection on OpenRouter's site and land back in Settings, connected. No key to copy: OpenRouter mints it and plori seals it server-side. Your browser never sees it.
Other providers. Paste the key from your provider's console. plori validates it against the provider on save, so a dead or mistyped key is caught immediately.
Saved keys are encrypted at rest and never shown again. Settings only shows that a key exists. Remove a key anytime; routing falls back to plori's hosted credits.
How does routing pick my key?
The model name decides the provider. Save an OpenAI key, run an OpenAI model, and the call goes straight to your OpenAI account. Same for DeepSeek, Groq, xAI, and Together. An OpenRouter key acts as the fallback: it covers every model that has no native key of its own.
The model picker in the chat header stays the same. Once a key exists, the picker also
shows your provider's models and lets you paste a model slug in provider/model format (e.g. anthropic/claude-sonnet-4).
What do I still pay plori for?
- Model usage on your key: zero credits. You pay your provider directly.
- Compute and disk: still credits. The agent's computer time and its account disk are plori resources and bill as usual.
For long runs on frontier models the model bill dwarfs compute, so BYOK lowers the total cost significantly.
Related
- Pricing: what credits cover when you use plori's hosted models.
- Getting started: from zero to a working agent in minutes.