Novel Mage Feature
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)
Connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and OpenRouter with your own API keys. Control costs, select models per task, and keep full ownership of your manuscript.
Novel Mage's Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) system lets you connect directly to the AI providers you already use OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or any OpenRouter-compatible model using your own API key. There is no Novel Mage token pool, no markup on API calls, and no hidden metering. You pay the provider directly at their published rate, and that's the only cost.
This approach puts you in complete control of your AI spending. Choose GPT-4o for fast generation, Claude Opus for nuanced character work, or Gemini for cost-effective brainstorming and switch between them per task, per chapter, or per project. You're not locked into a single model or a single provider's pricing structure.
For writers who have already invested in an OpenAI or Anthropic subscription, BYOK means those credits work immediately inside Novel Mage's full feature set: generation, rewriting, chat, character interviews, summaries, and codex-grounded AI all without paying Novel Mage a second time. Your API key, your costs, your data.
Key benefits
- Pay only for what you actually use no subscription markup on AI calls
- Choose any model from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter
- Switch models per task fast for generation, powerful for complex rewrites
- Your API traffic goes directly to the provider, not through Novel Mage servers
- Works alongside local models mix cloud and offline AI in the same project
How it works
In Novel Mage settings, paste your API key for any supported provider. Novel Mage stores the key locally on your device it is never transmitted to Novel Mage's servers. When you trigger generation, chat, or editing tools, Novel Mage calls the provider's API directly from your machine. You can set different default models for generation versus editing versus chat to balance cost and quality per task.
When to use it
You already pay for ChatGPT Plus or Anthropic Claude Pro and want to use those credits in a dedicated novel writing environment
You want the flexibility to use different models for different writing tasks within the same manuscript
You work on multiple novels and want to track AI costs per project through your provider's dashboard
You want to compare output quality between GPT-4o, Claude, and Gemini without leaving Novel Mage
Related features
Try Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) in Novel Mage
Novel Mage is $99 once lifetime access. Every feature including bring your own key (byok) is included. Fully offline, local AI support, your data stays on your machine.
Free to download. No credit card required.