---
title: "Run Kuro on your own API key: no Kuro credits, step by step"
description: "Add a Replicate, fal, Higgsfield, Runware, Siray or Sunra key and every generation it can run costs no credits. Where to add it and who pays."
canonical_url: "https://meetkuro.com/guides/bring-your-own-api-key/"
published: 2026-10-31
updated: 2026-10-31
locale: "en"
models: []
---

If you already pay Replicate, fal or Higgsfield for model runs, Kuro can run on
that key. **A generation your key pays for costs no Kuro credits**: no hold, no
charge, on any plan, including Free. You pay the vendor on your own bill, at
their price, and the result lands in your Kuro library like anything else.

> Your key, your bill. Kuro adds nothing on top.

## Which keys work

Six media vendors: **Replicate, fal, Higgsfield, Runware, Siray and Sunra**. Add
as many as you hold. Each one runs the models that vendor actually serves; Kuro
knows which, request by request.

## Add a key

1. Open [Settings → Provider keys](https://app.meetkuro.com/settings/api-keys).
2. Pick the vendor, paste the key, save. It is stored encrypted and only ever
   sent to that vendor.
3. Make something. The price shown before you press reads 0 credits whenever
   your key is the one paying.

## Who pays, request by request

Kuro checks whether one of your keys can run **this exact request**, not just
this model. A vendor can serve a model and still decline one combination of
inputs. With only a fal key, for example, a Seedance 2.5 take that carries a
reference video runs on credits, because fal has no channel for that input; the
same take without the video runs on your key.

One generation is paid by one payer. Kuro never splits a request across your key
and credits, or across two of your keys.

## Choose the order

If you hold more than one key, set the order under
[Settings → Agents](https://app.meetkuro.com/settings/agents), in "When an agent
creates": rank your keys and credits in one list. The first payer above credits
that can run the request pays. A key ranked below credits is used only when you
ask for it by name. With no list set, Kuro uses the first key you hold that can
run the request.

That order is what an agent follows too: Claude, ChatGPT or Codex connected over
MCP, an API token, a recipe run or a storyboard batch.

## Your own Replicate models

A Replicate key can also carry models that are not in Kuro's catalog: add any
Replicate model to that key and it shows up for you alone, runs only on your
key, and is never priced in credits.

## What still counts

Your key pays for compute, not storage. On Free, the storage quota still applies
to what you keep.

## Try it

Add your key in [Settings → Provider keys](https://app.meetkuro.com/settings/api-keys),
then open [/create](https://app.meetkuro.com/create) and make one picture. If the
price reads 0 credits, your key is paying.

---

## About Kuro

Kuro is an AI picture studio: prompt-driven images, clips, voice-overs and music, and storyboard-backed films with consistent characters across every scene.

Agents connect over MCP and can generate directly:

```
claude mcp add kuro https://api.meetkuro.com/mcp --transport http
```

The app is at https://app.meetkuro.com and requires an account.

Each guide, model page, comparison and free tool page on this site (not a tool's variants, and not the index pages) has a Markdown twin at its own URL plus `.md`, and so do /benchmarks/, the English /agents/ page (as /agents.md) and the MCP tool reference. Every guide: https://meetkuro.com/guides/