AI Provider settings

Settings > AI Provider controls where your article text comes from. It has a status card at the top and the provider setup below.

The status card

The "AI generation source" card tells you which mode you're in:

• BYOK active: you have your own key connected. Articles generate through your provider and you pay them directly, up to your plan's BYOK allowance (30 lifetime articles per site on free).
• Cloud active (Pro): you're on a paid plan with no key connected. Articles generate through SEOBetter Cloud; you don't need any API keys.
• Not configured: no key and no paid plan. You still have your 2 free cloud articles (lifetime, on Claude Haiku); after those, connect a key or upgrade.

Quick Pick: the easy way to connect

The Quick Pick section has preset buttons for tested provider and model combinations. Click one and it fills the form below for you. The recommended pick (OpenRouter with Claude Haiku) works for most people worldwide at roughly $0.02 per article.

Take the "avoid these models" warning under the presets seriously. Some popular models (Llama, DeepSeek, Mixtral, OpenAI o3/o4) ignore SEOBetter's rules under complex prompts and will invent business names even when real data is available.

Choosing a model: cost vs quality

For Anthropic models (direct or via OpenRouter):

• Claude Haiku: the baseline. Fast, roughly $0.01 to $0.04 per article, strong GEO articles. This is what we used in launch testing. Start here.
• Claude Sonnet: richer prose for pillar pages, at roughly 5 to 10 times the cost per article.

A practical approach: generate everything on Haiku, and switch to Sonnet only for the handful of pages where writing quality matters most. You can switch any time; it just changes which model your next article uses.

In the Add AI Provider form, each model in the dropdown carries a colored dot: green means best compatibility with SEOBetter's requirements, amber is good, red is basic.

Adding a provider manually

1. Pick the provider from the dropdown.
2. Paste your API key (the Get Key button links to the right page for each provider).
3. Pick a model.
4. Click Connect Provider.

Ollama needs no key. Custom needs an API URL as well.

Removing or replacing a key

Connected providers show in a table with a Remove button. On the free plan you can have one provider saved at a time, so to switch providers: Remove the old one, then connect the new one. Pro allows several saved providers.

Replacing the key for the same provider is simpler: connect it again with the new key and it overwrites the old one.

What Pro changes here

Pro ($39/mo) makes keys optional: 50 cloud articles per month, generated on Claude Haiku with a Sonnet "Max quality" toggle on the generate page (a Max article counts as 2 of your 50). You can also keep BYOK active on Pro and use it for the advanced features only.