Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)
Bring your own key (BYOK): run Babelize translations on your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, or OpenRouter account, and how Automatic falls back to it.
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) lets you run babels on your own account with an AI provider instead of Babelize credits. Babels that use your key don't use any Babelize credits; the provider bills you directly.
Key Benefits
- No credit limit — Babels on your key don't count against your plan's monthly AI credits.
- Direct billing — Pay your AI provider directly for the tokens you use.
- LLM translation — An LLM handles plurals, context and brand voice best, and can inflect glossary terms.
- Choice of models — Pick the vendor, and for some vendors the model.
Supported Providers
| Provider | Model |
|---|---|
| Anthropic | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| OpenAI | GPT-6.1 Sol |
| Gemini | Gemini 3.5 Flash by default; other Gemini Flash models selectable |
| Groq | GPT OSS 120B by default; Llama 3.3 70B or GPT OSS 20B selectable |
| OpenRouter | Claude Sonnet 5.5 by default; Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama and Mistral models selectable |
Add Your Key
- Go to Settings → API keys
- Under Your own AI keys, find the provider
- Paste your key and click Save
Keys are encrypted and stored securely on the Babelize servers.
Choose What a Project Uses
Open the project, click Configure, then Advanced:
- Automatic (the default) — babels use your Babelize credits. When the credits can't cover a babel, it uses your own key instead (Anthropic, then OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter: the first one you've added) and no credits are charged. The cost line before a babel tells you which will happen.
- Babelize — always credits, never your key.
- A specific provider — always that key. The babel doesn't start if you haven't added the key. For Gemini, Groq and OpenRouter you can pick the model here too.
Auto-localize babels follow the same setting.
If the Provider Fails
A babel on your key doesn't switch to Babelize credits partway through. If your provider rejects or can't answer a request (an invalid key, a rate limit, a billing problem on your provider account), the affected strings aren't written, they're listed in the babel's issues with the reason, and the next babel retries them.
Last updated: 2026-11-01
Sync Detection
Babelize detects new pushes to your repo and shows what text is new, changed or missing a translation, so you can translate it with one click or automatically.
File Formats
Babelize writes JSON locale files for JavaScript frameworks and gettext .po/.mo catalogues for Django, one per language, with placeholders preserved, and translates Markdown and MDX docs pages.