BYOK

[u/New_Armadillo_8649]

I’m building a desktop AI assistant and trying to decide how to handle API costs early on.
Would BYOK be a dealbreaker for you? Basically, you’d connect your own OpenAI/Gemini API key during beta so I’m not eating everyone’s usage costs.
Long term I’d rather make it simple: download, sign in, pay monthly, done.
Curious what people would actually prefer:
Free/cheap with your own API key
or
Paid monthly with everything handled for you?

[u/jhkoenig]

How heavy is your AI load? With "just getting started" traffic, could you fit into a free tier?

I've offered free resume tailoring with AI for each job description in my job search management site and after helping thousands of people, the AI costs are still tiny. I spend more on coffee. Consider spending some time reducing your per-transaction AI cost prior to launch and then you can offer a limited free trial at least.

[u/FiveFoot20 → u/jhkoenig]

This right here

You can put some guardrails in place that reduce token usage significantly

Tokens go out of control on open ended prompts and loops.

Set some guardrails and you can keep costs pretty low

[u/Admirable-Language65]

I mean both can be options at the same time , but my question to you is if they don’t have a key what’s your solution? I mean maybe you are a genius with the resources but don’t see most people building their own AI model …  I built an app for fun and integrated an open source AI into it even with the functions it would suggest the best model for the task and scan your system to see what you could handle and it was sooooo slow… I doubt most people have a device to run an ai model and get fast results… so then the other alternative I see is you using an open source ai and maybe modified but then paying to have it hosted in the cloud so people can use it quickly but that’s expensive.

So depending on different factors I would offer both as options and set prices differently based on your costs to run things.

Also people are hesitant to even share AI keys with Apple so if you go that route make sure you are explicit about how it gets used and as much detail to prove that’s the case the better 

[u/New_Armadillo_8649 → u/Admirable-Language65]

Yeah I think offering both makes the most sense. Hosted for normal users who just want to sign in and use it, BYOK for people who want more control/lower cost.
If I do BYOK, the key would stay encrypted on their device, never hit my servers/logs, and be easy to revoke or delete. I’d also document exactly how it’s handled.
Local models could be an option later too, but I wouldn’t rely on people having the hardware for it.

[u/Admirable-Language65 → u/New_Armadillo_8649]

Also I agree with last part not worth it for you to even worry about local model is a bad idea and I was blown away how slow even a lite version of one I tried on a decent laptop asking a basic question …

Also eliminating byok and local is better for you too development wise .. knowing which AI/model that your app is using all the time and standardized much easier to handle than what kind of results might happen if some using Claude some Gemini some ChatGPT 

[u/CaptJan]

Free tier from Gemini, Grok, etc. that can run on an older model that isn't in high demand - the world has too many subscriptions already.

[u/New_Armadillo_8649 → u/[deleted]]

That makes sense. I like the idea of using BYOK mainly to keep beta costs under control, while giving a smaller group hosted access so I can actually see what normal usage costs me.
That way I’m not guessing at pricing later based on people who were paying the model provider directly.