I built a BYOK app so users can stop paying SaaS API markups
Hey everyone 👋
I’ve been working on a project called IBYOK — a simple idea:
👉 Let users bring their own API keys to any app
The motivation came from something I kept running into:
Most SaaS tools that use APIs (especially AI) quietly add markups on usage.
That means:
You don’t control costs
You can’t optimize usage directly
You’re locked into their pricing model
As a developer, that never sat right with me.
So I started building IBYOK to flip that model — apps where users plug in their own keys and stay in control of usage and spend.
With more platforms moving toward BYOK (especially in AI), it feels like this is where things are heading.
Right now I’m in the early stages, testing distribution (just launched on Product Hunt and starting to list in directories).
I’d love feedback from this community:
👉 Would you prefer using apps where you bring your own API keys?
👉 What would make a BYOK product actually useful for you?
Appreciate any thoughts 🙏
If you want to check it out:
https://www.ibyok.com/
The markup on API usage is basically a convenience tax that most founders pay because they don't want to manage the underlying infrastructure. Shifting to a BYOK model turns the software back into a tool rather than a middleman which is a huge win for anyone trying to keep their burn rate predictable. Since the biggest barrier to this is usually the technical friction of key management are you focusing on making the integration seamless for non-developers or is the primary target technical founders who already have their own tier accounts?