Bring your own API key: AI answers for job applications at 0 credits

Most AI writing tools sell you credits for a model you could call yourself. If you already pay OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or xAI for an API key, or run a model locally with Ollama, you can point Lazee at it and every AI feature in the extension costs 0 Lazee credits. This is “bring your own key”, BYOK, and it is available on the free plan.

What you can connect

• OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini and xAI with a regular API key from your own account.
• Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. That covers Ollama at http://localhost:11434/v1, LM Studio at http://localhost:1234/v1, OpenRouter, and a self-hosted vLLM server.

Set it up at lazee.dev/profile/ai-providers or in the extension popup. The provider switcher lists the models your key can reach and shows a latency check for each, so you can pick a fast one for short answers and a stronger one for essays.

Where the key lives

The key and endpoint are stored only in the browser’s extension storage (browser.storage.local) on your computer. When you generate an answer, the extension’s background worker calls your provider directly; the request does not go through Lazee’s servers, and Lazee never sees, logs or proxies the key. With a local model the whole round trip stays on your machine, which matters if you are pasting a job description under NDA or an answer that mentions your current salary.

The one thing that does reach Lazee is unchanged: your profile, which lives in your account so the extension and the website stay in sync. See the privacy policy for the full list.

What becomes free

With your own key active, these all cost 0 credits:

• AI Fill for single questions, with or without the job description attached.
• Express Fill, which answers every open question on a page in one run.
• Cold DMs to recruiters in Gmail and on X.
• The AI ATS rescore on top of the free offline score.

One distinction to keep straight: credits and plan are separate things. Express Fill, Cold DM and the AI rescore are Pro features. With your own key they cost no credits, but on the free plan each use still spends one Pro Pass, which you earn by referring friends. AI Fill for single questions is on the free plan outright.

When to use Lazee AI instead

If you have no key and do not want one, Lazee AI runs open models through OpenRouter and the free plan includes 200 credits every 30 days: enough for around a hundred single-question answers, or twenty-five with the job description attached. Pro raises that to 10,000. The model is selectable in the popup. Many people start there and switch to their own key once they are applying in volume.

Local models: what to expect

• Quality follows the model. A small local model writes shorter, blander answers than a frontier API model. For “Why this company?” essays, an 8B model is usable with a steering instruction; for a two-line screening answer it is fine.
• The server has to be running. If Ollama is closed, generation fails with a connection error; start it and retry.
• No CORS setup needed. Calls go out from the extension’s background worker using its host permissions, so a local endpoint works without extra flags.