Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) mode allows you to bypass the standard Babelize AI translation credit system. By providing your own API credentials for supported LLM providers, your translation jobs run directly against your accounts with those providers.

Key Benefits

• Unlimited Translation Volume — Bypasses the monthly AI credit limit of your Babelize subscription plan.
• Direct Billing — Pay your AI provider directly for your LLM token consumption.
• Zero Credit Consumption (Conditional) — No Babelize AI credits are reserved or consumed while BYOK is active and functioning normally. However, credits will be consumed if a fallback to Babelize's models occurs due to your provider's failure or rate limits.
• Choice of Models — Switch between different translation models and vendors depending on your requirements.

Supported Providers

Babelize supports key integrations with major AI services:

Configuration

To set up your API keys:

1. Log into the Babelize Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings → API Keys (or Translation API Keys (BYOK)).
3. Find the provider card you want to configure (e.g., OpenAI or Anthropic).
4. Enter your API key and click Save.
5. All credentials are encrypted and stored securely on the Babelize servers.

Running Translations with BYOK

When starting a translation job:

1. Click Run Babelize on your project page.
2. In the configuration modal, toggle Use BYOK (or select your preferred BYOK provider).
3. Babelize will auto-detect your configured API keys or use the explicit provider you specified.
4. The translation pipeline executes, routing LLM requests to your provider.

Fallback & Warnings

• Key Validation — Before starting a job, Babelize performs a lightweight validation check on your key. If the key is missing or invalid, the interface will display a "BYOK API Key Required" message.
• Automatic Fallback — If a BYOK request fails during a translation run (e.g., due to rate limits or billing issues on your AI provider account), the translation engine can fall back to using your plan's Babelize AI Credits (if available) to ensure your pipeline completes. This fallback will consume your Babelize credits, and a warning message will be shown in the job log.