# Bring Your Own Key

> Connect your own AI provider key to power Alfred Scholar's AI. When a key is active, the monthly message allowance stops applying.

Source: https://www.alfredscholar.com/docs/v1.x/bring-your-own-key/

If you already pay an AI provider directly, you can connect your own key and have Alfred Scholar use it for AI work. When your key is active, the AI runs on your account with the provider, and Alfred Scholar's monthly message allowance stops applying.

This is an optional setting for people who want to use their own provider allowance. If you do nothing, Alfred Scholar's shared engine keeps working exactly as before, within your plan's limits.

## Supported providers

You can connect a key from any one of these providers:

- **Anthropic**
- **OpenAI**
- **Gemini**
- **OpenRouter**
- **Amazon Bedrock**

You can have **one active provider at a time**. Switching providers means making a different key the active one.

## Who can use it

- **Owner only.** Only the workspace owner can add, switch, or remove a key.
- **Paid plans and the trial.** Bring your own key is available on Plus, Pro and Lab, and during the 7-day Pro trial.

## What your key powers

When a key is active, it powers **all of your AI**: chat, research tools such as Telescope, and the writing assists in the manuscript editor. Because the requests run on your provider account, Alfred Scholar's monthly message allowance no longer applies. Pages processed, Telescope analyses, reviews by Alfred and plagiarism checks still count against your plan's allowance.

Two things always stay on Alfred Scholar's shared engine, whether or not you have a key connected:

- **Embeddings**, which power document search and grounding.
- **Originality checks** (plagiarism detection).

This keeps those features consistent and available for everyone, regardless of the provider you connect.

## Adding a key

1. Go to **Settings** > **AI keys**.
2. Choose the provider you want to connect.
3. Paste the API key from that provider.
4. Save. The key becomes your active provider, and your AI now runs on it.

> **Tip:** Keep the key handy in your provider's dashboard. If you ever rotate it there, update it here so your AI keeps working.

## Switching providers

To move to a different provider, add the new provider's key in **Settings** > **AI keys** and make it active. The previous provider is deactivated, since only one provider is active at a time.

## Removing a key

Remove your key from **Settings** > **AI keys** at any time. When no key is active, Alfred Scholar falls back to its shared engine, and your plan's monthly message allowance applies again as normal.

## Requirements

- You must be the **workspace owner**.
- Your workspace needs an active paid plan or an in-progress trial.
- You need a valid API key from one of the supported providers.

## Next steps

- **[Chat with your documents](/docs/v1.x/chat-with-documents)** - See where your key powers AI answers.
- **[Plans & Billing](/docs/v1.x/plans-and-billing)** - Understand the limits your key lifts, and the ones that stay.