Bring your own API key
Run Mentionova's AI steps on your own key, and store keys for anything not in the catalogue.
On this page
Two different things called an API key
A connection is a key for another product — Ahrefs, Notion, Slack — that a workflow or Nova calls on your behalf. A custom API key is for the steps Mentionova runs itself: bring your own and the work runs on your account instead of ours.
The keys you can bring
- OpenRouter — runs LLM calls and Perplexity research steps on your key.
- OpenAI and Gemini — used by image generation, depending on which provider a step picks.
- Apify — runs Apify actor steps on your account.
- Screenshot — an ApiFlash access key for screenshot steps.
A step can also take a key inline instead of using the stored one, which is useful when a single workflow needs two different accounts.
What it changes about cost
Only OpenRouter changes billing: an LLM step running on your own key drops to a flat 2 tasks instead of the model-tier price of 2, 5 or 10. The others don't change the task price — they change whose provider account the usage lands on.
Keys for anything else
Add a custom API key at the bottom of the Integrations tab stores a secret under a name of your choosing. It's for HTTP request steps and anything not in the catalogue: store it once, then reference it in a step's headers as {{connections.your_name}}.
How they're stored
The same way every connection is: encrypted, per workspace, injected only at run time, and never shown again after you save. If you need to rotate one, replace it — there's no way to read it back.