Set Up Your AI Key
The AI tools run on your own API key. Here is exactly how to get one — free — and paste it in. About two minutes, no card needed.
Why your own key?
Every AI request costs the provider real money. If this platform paid for it, the tools would need a subscription, a usage cap, or ads. Instead you bring a key, the request goes out under your account, and the tools stay free and uncapped — and we never mark up what you pay.
Which provider should I use?
Four are supported. If you have no strong preference, use Google AI Studio — it is the only one with a real free tier and no card requirement.
| Provider | Model used | Free tier | Card needed | Key looks like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio Recommended | Gemini 2.0 Flash | Yes | No | AIza… |
| Anthropic | Claude Sonnet 5 | No | Yes | sk-ant-… |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o mini | No | Yes | sk-… |
| OpenRouter | You choose (200+ models) | Yes | No | sk-or-… |
Start here. It costs nothing, needs no card, and takes about a minute to set up.
Has a genuinely free tier with a generous daily request limit. No credit card required.
Best writing quality of the four for long-form documents like SOPs and job descriptions.
Pay-as-you-go. Around $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens — a long SOP costs a fraction of a cent.
A good middle ground if you already have an OpenAI account.
Pay-as-you-go, and one of the cheapest paid options. You must add credit before the key works.
Pick this if you want to switch models without changing keys.
One key, many providers. Some models are free; the rest are prepaid from your OpenRouter balance.
Get a free Google AI Studio key
This is the path we recommend. You need a Google account and nothing else.
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Open aistudio.google.com/apikey
Sign in with any Google account. If it asks you to accept the API terms, accept them — that is the free developer tier, not a paid plan.
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Click Create API key
If it offers to create a new project, let it. Accept whatever defaults it suggests; nothing here needs changing.
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Copy the key
It starts with
AIzaand is roughly 39 characters. Copy the whole thing — no spaces, no quotes around it.
Other providers
The flow is the same everywhere: sign in, create a key, copy it.
-
Anthropic —
console.anthropic.com,
key starts
sk-ant-. You must add billing details or credit before the key will work. -
OpenAI —
platform.openai.com,
key starts
sk-. You must add billing details or credit before the key will work. -
OpenRouter —
openrouter.ai,
key starts
sk-or-.
With OpenRouter you also choose the model yourself — paste a model id such as google/gemini-2.0-flash-exp:free into the model field. The profile page checks the id against OpenRouter’s live model list as you type.
Paste it into your profile
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Sign in, then open your profile
AI tools need an account so the key can be attached to you and the rate limit can be fair. Calculators and PDF tools never need one.
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Find AI API Keys (BYOK)
Pick the tab for your provider — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google AI Studio or OpenRouter.
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Paste the key and press Save
A confirmation strip appears reading Active: <provider>. That is the only signal you need — there is nothing else to configure.
Check that it works
Open the SOP Generator, type Employee onboarding, and press Generate. Within about ten seconds you should see a structured document with Purpose, Scope and numbered steps.
If you see that, you are done — every AI tool on the site now uses your key. If you see an error instead, the next section names it.
Troubleshooting
These are the exact messages the platform shows, and what each one means.
| What you see | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| API key required… (the key modal opens) | No key is saved in this browser. | Add one under Profile → AI API Keys. Keys are per-browser, so a key saved on your laptop is not on your phone. |
| Invalid API key. Please check your key… | The provider rejected it (HTTP 401/403). | Usually a partial paste, a stray space, or a deleted key. Recreate it and paste the whole string. For OpenAI, also confirm you have credit. |
| Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a moment… | Your provider is throttling you, not us. | Wait a minute. On Google’s free tier this is a per-minute cap and clears quickly. |
| Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a minute. (from us) | Our own limit: 20 AI requests per minute per account. | Wait a minute. This exists so one account cannot exhaust shared capacity. |
| Please sign in to use AI tools. | Your session expired. | Sign in again. Your saved key is untouched — it lives in the browser, not the session. |
| Model not found (OpenRouter) | The model id does not exist or you lack access. | Copy an exact id from openrouter.ai/models. The profile field validates it as you type. |
What happens to your key
- Stored in your browser only. It is kept in
localStorageunderpb_byok, on the device where you entered it. It is never written to our database. - Sent once per request, then discarded. When you run an AI tool, the key is attached to that one request, our server uses it to call your provider, and it is gone when the response returns.
- Never logged. We log which tool ran, when, and any error text. The error log records the provider name and model — never the key, never your prompt, never the output.
- Your provider sees your prompt. That is unavoidable: they are the one generating the answer. Their terms govern it, so don’t paste anything into an AI tool that you would not paste into that provider’s own console.
- Removing it is instant. Clear the field and press Save, or use Remove on the active-key strip. Signing out clears it too. To be certain, delete the key at the provider — that is the only thing that revokes it everywhere.
Because the key lives in the browser, clearing site data or using a private window means entering it again. That is the trade-off for not storing your credentials on our servers.
FAQ
Will this cost me money?
On Google AI Studio’s free tier, no — there is no card attached to charge. Anthropic and OpenAI are pay-as-you-go: a typical SOP or job description is a fraction of a cent, but you are billed by them directly. We add no markup and take no cut.
Can I use one key on my laptop and my phone?
You need to paste it on each device, because it is stored per-browser rather than on your account. The same key string works on all of them.
Which model does each provider use?
Google AI Studio uses Gemini 2.0 Flash; Anthropic uses Claude Sonnet 5; OpenAI uses GPT-4o mini; OpenRouter uses You choose (200+ models). With OpenRouter you pick any of its 200+ models yourself.
Do the free calculators and PDF tools need a key?
No. Only the AI tools do. Calculators run entirely in your browser, and PDF/image tools process files on your device without uploading them anywhere.
Can I switch providers later?
Yes, any time. Save a different provider’s key and every AI tool switches over immediately. Only one key is active at a time.
Is my key sent to anyone other than my provider?
No. It goes from your browser to our server, and from our server to the provider you chose. Nowhere else, and it is not retained at either hop.