Your own AI key

Why a key

Drafting a procedure, answering a question and searching by meaning all cost money to run. On the paid plans that is our bill. On the free plan it is yours: you bring an API key from an AI provider, your provider charges you for what you use, and StepBerry adds nothing on top.

It is usually small. Writing is the expensive part, and a drafted procedure is a few tenths of a cent on a small model. Reading procedures, ticking checklists, phone pages and staff accounts never touch a model at all, so most of what your team does costs nothing.

Setting it up

Go to Settings → AI model. Then:

1. Pick your provider. The buttons fill in the address for you. OpenAI is the usual choice and the only one of them that also does voice and transcription. If yours is not listed, paste the API address from its documentation — anything that speaks OpenAI's API works, which is nearly everything.

2. Create a key at the provider and paste it in. For OpenAI that is platform.openai.com → API keys → Create new secret key; the key is shown once, so copy it before closing the page. Your provider will want a payment method or some credit on the account — StepBerry cannot add that for you.

3. Load the list and pick a model. Loading it asks your provider what this key can actually use, which is better than typing a name: a model name that is one character out is the single most common reason a key appears not to work. Pick a general-purpose chat model.

4. Press Test it. Three checks run — the address, the key, and a real question to the model. All three green means drafting, questions and search will work. Then save.

Voice and transcription

These are optional and separate, because only some providers have them. Leave them empty and read-aloud uses the browser's own voice — which costs nothing and works everywhere — while uploaded recordings are not offered, so you type what you wanted to say instead.

With OpenAI, fill in whisper-1 for transcription and tts-1 for the voice (the provider button does it for you) and both turn on.

When something stops working

StepBerry tells you what happened in words, where it happened, and keeps the last failure on Settings → AI model until it works again. The usual causes, and what to do:

“That API key was rejected.” The key was deleted at the provider, or only part of it was pasted, or it belongs to a different account than you think. Create a new one and paste it again.

“No credit left or over its rate limit.” Nothing is wrong with StepBerry or with your key — the provider account needs credit, or you have hit its per-minute limit and should try again shortly.

“Does not list that model for this key.” Press Load the list and pick from it. Providers add and retire models constantly, and a name that worked last year may be gone.

“Not allowed to use this model.” The key is real but restricted — check its permissions at the provider, and whether the model is available to your account and region.

“Had a problem of its own.” Your provider is down. Wait a minute. Do not re-paste a key that was working.

Whatever the cause, nothing you have written is affected: procedures, checklists, answers and staff accounts do not depend on the model at all.

Using ours instead

Buy the $3.99 trial, or a monthly plan, and a model is included — no key, nothing to set up, and an allowance shown in Settings → People. If you put your own key in while on a paid plan, your key takes over and the allowance stops being used: you are paying for those tokens, so nothing is metered.

Where your text goes

When you use your own key, what you type goes to the provider you chose, under that provider's terms, and they decide how long they keep it. We keep no copy beyond what is already in your workspace. If that matters for your business, choose the provider accordingly — or run the downloadable version of StepBerry against a model on your own machine, where nothing leaves the building.