What Bring Your Own API Keys Means

Most voice note and transcription tools work the same way. You pay a monthly subscription, and somewhere buried in that price is the cost of the AI services they use on your behalf. The markup is usually significant.

We decided to do things differently with Lua Voice.

How It Typically Works

When you use a transcription tool, your audio gets sent to an AI service like AssemblyAI or Google Speech. That service charges the tool provider per minute of audio. The tool provider then marks it up and passes the cost to you through your subscription.

A 10 minute recording might cost $0.05 to transcribe through AssemblyAI directly. But your subscription is priced to cover that cost plus a healthy margin, customer support, infrastructure, and profit. You end up paying a lot more per minute than the actual AI cost.

The BYOK Approach

With Lua Voice, you have the option to bring your own API keys. Here's what that means in practice:

1. You create an account with AssemblyAI (for transcription) and Anthropic (for note generation)
2. You paste your API keys into Lua Voice settings
3. When you transcribe or generate notes, the requests go directly to those services using your keys
4. You pay the AI providers directly at their standard rates

The result is that you only pay for exactly what you use, at the lowest possible price.

Real Cost Comparison

Let's say you transcribe about 5 hours of audio per month and generate notes for each recording.

With a typical transcription service, you might pay $15 to $30 per month for a plan that covers that usage.

With your own AssemblyAI key, those 5 hours of transcription cost roughly $2.19. Note generation with Claude adds maybe another dollar or two depending on length. So your total AI cost is around $3 to $4 per month.

That's a savings of 75% to 90%.

You Stay in Control

Beyond the cost savings, BYOK gives you more control over your data. When you use your own API keys:

• Your audio goes directly from Lua Voice to AssemblyAI. We never proxy or store it on our servers.
• You can monitor your own usage and spending through the provider dashboards.
• You can set spending limits directly with each provider.
• If you ever leave Lua Voice, your API keys and provider accounts are still yours.

You Don't Have to Use BYOK

This is completely optional. Lua Voice works great with our built in plans too. The Free plan gives you 30 minutes of transcription per month, and paid plans go up from there.

BYOK is there for people who want maximum flexibility and the lowest possible cost. Power users and teams tend to love it because the savings add up fast.

Getting Set Up

It takes about 2 minutes. Go to Settings, click API Keys, and paste in your keys. We have a quick guide that walks you through creating accounts with AssemblyAI and Anthropic if you don't already have them.

Create your free account and try it out.