Bring your own AI key: who bills you, where the key lives and what a slideshow costs

What does bring your own AI key mean?

It means the tool does not sell you AI. You supply the access, and the AI provider bills you directly. Compare that with the other common model, where the tool sells credits for its own AI features.

As of 5 November 2026, the vendor pages we read show both. SlideStorm (opens in a new tab) charges 1 credit per slideshow and 3 per AI image. Blotato (opens in a new tab) uses credits for image, video and voice generation. aiCarousels (opens in a new tab) Pro Lifetime has no AI allowance because AI runs on your own OpenAI API key, billed by OpenAI. ReelFarm (opens in a new tab) lists bring-your-own AI only on its $195 tier, as "add Anthropic API key for unlimited generations".

In short: credits are priced by the tool, and a key is priced by the provider.

Who bills you for each option?

Fyslide works with six kinds of AI. The app charges nothing for any of them. The bill, if there is one, comes from somewhere else.

The setup steps are in the Anthropic key guide, the OpenAI key guide and the AI setup docs.

Where is the key stored?

This is the question to ask any tool that takes a key. Here is what two of them state.

A key held on your own machine never has to sit in a vendor's database. A key held by a vendor depends on that vendor's security. Neither is risk-free, but you should know which one you have.

How do you work out the cost per slideshow?

You cannot get a trustworthy figure from a price list alone, because it depends on how much text the tool sends and receives. Measure it.

1. Find your provider's price per million input tokens and per million output tokens for the model you chose.
2. Note your usage in the provider's dashboard.
3. Run one job and note how many slideshows it made. A job can make up to ten slideshows from one topic.
4. Read the dashboard again. The difference is the job's usage.
5. Apply this formula: (input tokens x input price + output tokens x output price) / 1,000,000, then divide by the number of slideshows.

Here is the arithmetic with fictional numbers: a price of $2 per million input tokens and $8 per million output tokens. The token counts are made up too.

Do not read those as real prices. We have not measured real token counts; these are illustrative. They show the method, not the size of a real bill. The example assumes output costs more per token than input, which is common but not universal, so check your provider's list. Sending screenshots to a vision-capable model adds input. Replace every number with your own from step 4.

Time is a cost too. The speed page shows how long each AI took for ten slideshows on one Mac, and Ollama locally shows the free route.

What are the risks of using your own key?

• A leaked key spends your money. Anyone who holds the key can use your account. Keys leak through screenshots, shared screens, pasted chat messages and code repositories.
• Runaway spend. A loop or a long batch can use more than you expected. If your provider offers a monthly spending limit, set one before you start.
• Your text goes to the provider. With a cloud AI, the request leaves your computer for that provider. Read its data terms. The local-first guide maps where each request goes.
• Rate limits and price changes. Providers change limits and prices. A cost you computed last month may be wrong this month.
• Shared computers. A key stored on a machine belongs to whoever uses that machine.

What should you check before pasting a key?

• Create a separate key just for this tool, so you can revoke it alone.
• Set a spending limit at the provider, if it offers one.
• Paste the key only into the tool's settings screen.
• Run one slideshow first and read the dashboard before a ten-slideshow job.
• Revoke the key if you share your screen with it visible, sell the computer or stop using the tool.

If you would rather not manage keys, Ollama needs none, and a CLI uses an account you already have. Lifetime license versus subscription covers the price side of that choice.