AI budget, photos and your own key

When the first build of an app or website includes AI, a card before the build asks who pays for it. When a later change in the chat adds AI, a note in the chat asks the same. Skipping the question means frascati AI. You can switch at any time in the Cloud tab, in the section AI budget.

frascati AI

Each answer is paid from your credits, at least 0.1 credits, within a monthly limit you set. The Cloud tab shows what this month used.

Your own key

An API key from OpenRouter or OpenAI. The provider bills you directly, and the answers use none of your credits. You add the key in the Cloud tab, never in the chat.

Either way, the AI answers while you have a plan or the free trial. Your app or website always asks frascati's server, which answers with frascati AI or with your key: the key never reaches the app, the website or a browser.

With frascati AI, the section AI budget in the Cloud tab shows:

• This month's credits for the AI against your monthly limit, as a bar. From 80 percent it turns yellow, at the limit red.
• The monthly limit: 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 or 250 credits for an app, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 or 1000 credits for a website, or off. A new app or website starts at 10 credits.
• Your credits: what is left in your account, for building and for the AI together.
• The last 7 days, with the answers and the credits of each day.

Answers to the people using your app or website count toward the limit. In an app, your own tries in the preview count like everyone's; on a website, your tries in the preview are paid but do not count.

frascati tells you before the AI stops, by email and with a notice in the dashboard and in the editor:

• When this month's answers reach 80 percent of the monthly limit.
• When the monthly limit is reached.
• When your account's credits are no longer enough for the AI.

The emails about the limit come at most once a month for each app or website, the one about your credits at most once a month for your account.

Raise the limit

Choose a higher monthly limit in AI budget. The AI answers again at once.

Top up

Buy a credit pack: 22 credits for $10, 60 credits for $25, 125 credits for $50. Stripe's payment page opens, and you come back to the Cloud tab. Packs are for a running paid plan.

Start your plan now

During the free trial there are no packs: start your plan early to get its full credits.

Choose a plan

Without a plan, the AI does not answer. Any plan switches it on again.

After topping up, the AI answers again right away; there is nothing to switch on.

When the limit is reached, your credits are used up, the AI is off, or your own key stops working, the people using your app or website see one short sentence in its language, never anything about credits, budgets or money. In German and in English:

• “Die KI ist gerade nicht verfügbar. Bitte später noch einmal versuchen.”
• “The AI is not available right now. Please try again later.”

Everything else in the app or on the website keeps working.

The AI can look at a photo and answer about it: recognise a plant, describe a damage for a quote, name a dish or a product. Ask for it in the chat, for example “People photograph a plant and the AI says which one it is”.

In apps

People take a photo or choose one with frascati photos, up to 2 per question. It goes with the question through frascati to the AI and is deleted after the answer, at the latest after a day, unless it is also sent with an entry.

On websites

Visitors choose a photo, on a phone also straight from the camera. The website makes it smaller in the browser and sends it with the question; frascati passes it to the AI and does not keep it.

The AI can be wrong about a photo. Your app or website says so under each answer about one, and tells people never to rely on it alone to decide whether a plant or a mushroom is safe to eat or touch.

Each answer is paid by what the AI used, at least 0.1 credits. A photo adds about 1,600 tokens, and a question with a photo goes to the better model first (Claude Sonnet 5.5, or GPT-6.1 Sol with an OpenAI key), because it recognises far more reliably: such an answer usually costs about 0.2 credits.

1. 1

   Create a key at OpenRouter or OpenAI, and set a spending limit there.

2. 2

   In the editor, open Cloud, go to AI budget, choose Your own key and paste the key.

3. 3

   Click Save key. frascati checks the key with the provider before it saves it.

OpenRouter

The same models as frascati AI: Claude Haiku 4.5 for Fast and Claude Sonnet 5.5 for Smart, billed to your OpenRouter account.

OpenAI

GPT-6 Luna for Fast and GPT-6.1 Sol for Smart, billed to your OpenAI account. The AI notice and the privacy note of your app or website then name OpenAI: frascati writes them that way with the next change, or ask for it in the chat.

The key is stored encrypted. It never goes to a browser, into the code of your app or website, into the chat or to the AI. Never paste it into the chat: frascati takes a key out of a message and opens the key field in the Cloud tab instead.

With your own key, the AI uses no credits and has no monthly limit in credits. The limits per person stay, and frascati stops at 600 answers an hour per app or website. What caps your bill is the spending limit you set for the key at the provider. Answers switches the AI off and on again, as Off does for frascati AI. AI budget shows this month's answers, tokens and cost, for OpenAI estimated from its list prices, and for OpenRouter also the limit of your key and what is left of it.

When the provider rejects your key or its credit is used up, the people using your app or website see the sentence above, and you get an email, at most once a day, and a notice in the Cloud tab, the dashboard and the editor. The AI answers again as soon as the key works, or after you save a new one.

Replace key saves a new one, Remove key switches back to frascati AI.

With frascati AI, the questions go through frascati to OpenRouter, which has Claude answer them. With your own key, the provider you chose is your own service, under your own agreement with it, like your own Stripe account; frascati passes the questions to it for you. See the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement.