Use your own AI provider key

DataMaker Cloud can run its AI features on your Anthropic or OpenAI key instead of Automators'. Your provider then bills you directly for those calls, so they use none of your credit allowance and are never paused when it runs out.

This is not a discount. The cost moves from your Automators invoice to your provider's.

Add a key

1. Open Settings → License.
2. Find Your own AI provider key.
3. Choose Anthropic or OpenAI, paste the key, and select Save key.

You need the license management permission on the workspace. Only your own administrators can add a key: Automators staff cannot, and never see the value.

Where the key applies

A key is held per subscription, not per workspace, which is the same grain credits pool and bill in. Every workspace your licence covers uses it.

It applies per provider. An Anthropic key does not make OpenAI calls free: OpenAI calls keep consuming credits and keep pausing when the allowance is spent.

After you save it

• The key is stored encrypted and is never shown again. The panel identifies it by its last four characters instead, so you can tell which key is in place without it being readable back.
• Select Replace key to rotate it, or Remove to return that provider's usage to your credit allowance.
• Automators can see which providers you hold a key for, never the key itself.

Usage is still reported

Spend on your own key is still measured and shown to you, listed separately in the Plan usage panel as Plus 3.10 on your own provider key. It is reported so you can see what the product spent on your behalf, and it is deliberately kept out of the credit figure so it can never eat an allowance it is not billed against.

Automatic fallback to Datamaker AI

Your key is tried first on each new request. If it is rejected, your provider balance or quota is exhausted, or the provider cannot be reached, DataMaker retries once using Datamaker's metered AI route. This includes recognized provider billing errors, temporary server outages, and a connection that fails or takes more than 60 seconds to return response headers.

Successful fallback calls consume your Datamaker credit allowance. Your remaining allowance is checked before the metered call, even though you have saved your own key. If credits are exhausted or cannot be verified, fallback stops with an explanation. Calls that succeed on your own key still consume no Datamaker credits.

The selected provider and model stay the same, including the request's tool and streaming format. Where an independent compatible Datamaker route is configured, it can serve the request during an upstream outage. If the available routes are also down or do not support the model, DataMaker explains that no working compatible route is available. Switching keys alone cannot fix a provider-wide outage.

Ordinary rate limits do not switch billing. A temporary rate limit is returned to the caller. Recognized balance/quota errors are different: they trigger fallback even when the provider reports them as a 400 or 429 response. Invalid requests do not trigger fallback.

DataMaker never restarts a response that has already begun. Requests containing provider-hosted tools or background work are not automatically retried: an action may already have happened, so their error asks you to check the outcome before retrying. Client-executed function tools retain their original request and are only returned once to the caller.

See when fallback was used

Settings → License and the AI composer show the last successful metered fallback, its provider, and the reason. These notices refresh while the app is open and describe a past call, not a permanent switch. The model is unchanged.

Your key is tried again on the next request. A successful own-key response clears the notice, so topping up your account or recovering from an outage does not require removing and re-adding your key. Replacing the key also clears it. Only administrators with the license management permission can change stored keys; fallback follows the same automatic policy across the subscription.

See also

• AI usage and credits