Mostly no. Bringing your own OpenAI and Deepgram keys changes who invoices you, not what you pay. Vapi charges its US$0.05 per minute hosting fee either way and passes models through at cost, so the model line only moves bills. Deepgram publishes a credit: US$0.010 per minute for your own text-to-speech, from 15 September 2026.
What this covers
- If I bring my own OpenAI and Deepgram keys, do I actually pay less?
- What a provider key changes on the invoice, and what it does not
- Worked example: one call-minute, line by line, at published rates
- Where bringing your own key actually crosses over
- At what monthly volume does bringing my own key start to pay?
This is a technical summary. The full guide — with the tables and worked examples — is on our site: *Bring Your Own API Key: Does It Cut Voice Cost?*.
Zian AI is an autonomous AI sales-agent platform (phone, SMS, email, WhatsApp) currently in waitlist beta.
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