API Keys (BYOK)

CiteMetrix uses your own API keys to call AI platforms. This is sometimes called BYOK — Bring Your Own Keys. It’s an unusual pricing model in this category, and worth understanding before you set up your first key.

This article covers the concepts: what BYOK means, what each provider’s key actually powers in CiteMetrix, how keys are stored, and the cost picture. For the step-by-step procedure to obtain each key, see the dedicated API Key Setup Guide — that page has up-to-date instructions for every supported provider, including which buttons to click in each provider’s console.

What BYOK means

Three things, in order of impact:

• You pay AI providers directly at their list pricing. No middleman markup. CiteMetrix’s subscription covers the platform; the underlying AI calls are your costs, billed to your card on file with each provider.
• You own the credentials. If you ever leave CiteMetrix, your keys keep working in whatever else you connect them to. There’s no platform lock-in on the AI access side.
• Your scan results reflect each platform’s current responses to your account. Platforms occasionally personalize, and your account’s API responses are the closest thing available to “what AI says about you.”

The trade-off: you have to set up an account with each AI provider you want CiteMetrix to scan. The Setup Guide walks you through that for each one.

What each key powers

Minimum viable setup

If you only set up two keys, make them Anthropic and OpenAI. Together they cover Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot — the three most-used AI assistants. Add Gemini and Perplexity for broader platform coverage. Add Grok if your audience leans that way. Add DeepSeek and Mistral for category breadth or specific regional reasons.

Don’t try to set up every key in one sitting. Start with Anthropic + OpenAI, run your first scans, see what kind of data you’re getting, and add platforms as you find gaps.

Where to get each key

→ API Key Setup Guide is the procedural reference. It’s organized by provider, walks through account creation, billing setup (most providers require a payment method before generating a key), and shows where to copy each key into CiteMetrix’s settings.

The Setup Guide stays current with each provider’s UI as those change; this docs article doesn’t try to keep up with every minor “the button moved” change.

How keys are stored

CiteMetrix takes API key handling seriously because the alternative is bad:

• Keys are encrypted at rest in your user record.
• Keys are decrypted only when needed for an outbound API call. They never appear in logs, debug output, or the dashboard UI.
• Keys never leave your CiteMetrix install. Calls go directly from your CiteMetrix to the AI provider — there’s no third-party proxy in between.
• If you suspect a key has been compromised, revoke it at the provider’s console and generate a new one. CiteMetrix is happy with rotation; nothing breaks except the brief gap until you save the new key.

Per-user, not per-account

This is worth flagging because it surprises people on Pro/Agency plans:

Each team member configures their own API keys in their own Settings → API Keys panel. Eric’s keys aren’t shared with Jane; Jane has to enter her own. The reason is billing transparency: AI provider invoices are tied to the keyholder’s account. Sharing keys means muddying who’s responsible for the bill, which gets complicated fast — especially on Agency plans where you may want client work tracked under separate billing.

If you’re operating an agency and want to use a single set of agency keys across all your team members, you can — but each team member still has to enter the same key into their own settings. There’s no “shared keys for the whole team” flag.

Adobe Analytics has a deliberate exception via an admin-controlled agency-credentials toggle (off by default), which lets one set of Adobe credentials serve all users on an account. This was added because Adobe relationships are typically held by the agency, not the individual operator.

Validation

When you save a key, CiteMetrix tests most providers with a cheap API call to confirm the key works. A wrong key gets caught immediately at save time.

Adobe Analytics is the exception — Adobe needs the full credential set together (Client ID + Secret + Org + Company + Report Suite) to validate, and CiteMetrix lets you save fields one at a time. So Adobe validation happens lazily on first use rather than at save. If your Adobe credentials are wrong, you’ll see the error the first time CiteMetrix tries to fetch Adobe data, not when you saved them.

Quota banner

If a key hits a quota cap or fails authentication during a scan, CiteMetrix surfaces a quota banner in the dashboard with a direct link to that provider’s billing page (for Anthropic that’s console.anthropic.com/settings/billing, for OpenAI it’s platform.openai.com/usage, etc.). The banner is informational — your other configured providers keep working. It clears automatically when the next scan against that key succeeds.

A note on cost

The first month with CiteMetrix usually surprises people in one direction or the other:

• You pay less than expected because your scan volume is low and per-call costs add up to surprisingly little. Typical Pro-tier customer with 30 keywords across 5 platforms running daily scans: $20–$40/month combined provider costs.
• You pay more than expected because you have a lot of keywords, broad platform coverage, and frequent force-rescans. Power-user pattern (100 keywords, 8 platforms, multiple daily sweeps): $80–$150/month.

CiteMetrix has a built-in Spend Monitor (Settings → Spend Monitor) that you can configure to circuit-break automatically if Anthropic spend exceeds a daily threshold. Enabling it is recommended, especially while you’re getting a feel for your steady-state cost. The monitor uses a daily threshold you set; if exceeded, background AI work pauses until midnight UTC, then resumes. A tripped breaker costs you a few hours of staleness; an unbounded runaway costs real money.

What CiteMetrix doesn’t charge for separately

• Citation scan API costs are passed through to your AI provider keys. CiteMetrix doesn’t add a markup or a per-call fee.
• Hallucination detection runs on your Anthropic key (Haiku model, very cheap per call). Same passthrough.
• The Analyst runs on your Anthropic key (Sonnet model when reasoning is needed). Each Analyst conversation typically costs $0.05–$0.20 in Anthropic spend.
• ModelScore calculation is computational, not AI-driven — it costs nothing per run.

Next steps

• New to CiteMetrix → start with Getting Started, which walks through first-key setup at a basic level
• Ready to set up keys → use the API Key Setup Guide for the per-provider procedure
• For non-AI providers (GSC, GA4) → Google Integrations
• Before your first heavy scan day → configure the Spend Monitor in Settings