How to Get an OpenAI ChatGPT API Key

Aleksi
3 min readMar 3, 2023

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If you’re interested in using OpenAI’s ChatGPT language model for your own projects or applications, you’ll need to obtain an API key from OpenAI. This API key will allow you to access the ChatGPT model and use it to generate conversational responses.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of getting an OpenAI ChatGPT API key and provide an overview of the pricing plans that OpenAI offers.

Getting an OpenAI ChatGPT API Key

To get started with OpenAI’s ChatGPT API, you’ll need to create an account on the OpenAI website (https://openai.com/). Once you’ve signed up for an account, you can navigate to the “API Keys” section of your dashboard and create a new API key.

During the API key creation process, you’ll need to choose which OpenAI language model you want to use. If you want to use the ChatGPT model specifically, you’ll need to select the “davinci” engine, which is the largest and most powerful model that OpenAI offers.

Once you’ve created your API key, you can start using the ChatGPT model by sending requests to the OpenAI API with your API key included in the request headers. OpenAI provides documentation and example code in multiple programming languages to help you get started with making requests to the API.

OpenAI API Pricing

OpenAI offers both free and paid plans for using their API. The free plan provides up to 5,000 API requests per month, with a limit of 4 requests per second. This plan is a good option for small-scale experimentation or development.

For higher levels of usage, OpenAI offers several paid plans with varying levels of access and support. The pricing for these plans depends on the number of API requests, the level of support, and other factors. OpenAI offers flexible monthly or annual billing options to suit your needs.

Here’s a summary of the paid plans that OpenAI offers:

  • Developer: This plan offers up to 250,000 API requests per month and prioritized support. The cost is $0.008 per request.
  • Team: This plan offers up to 1 million API requests per month, access to additional OpenAI models, and priority support. The cost is $0.006 per request.
  • Business: This plan offers up to 10 million API requests per month, access to all OpenAI models, dedicated account management, and 24/7 support. The cost is customized based on your usage needs.

It’s worth noting that OpenAI’s API terms of service prohibit the use of multiple accounts to circumvent the request limits or other usage restrictions. Each user or organization must have their own API key and comply with the usage limits associated with that key.

Conclusion

OpenAI’s ChatGPT language model is a powerful tool for generating conversational responses in a variety of applications. By obtaining an API key from OpenAI and following their documentation, you can start using ChatGPT in your own projects.

OpenAI offers a range of pricing plans to suit different levels of usage, so you can choose the plan that works best for your needs. Whether you’re just starting out with ChatGPT or you’re ready to scale up to higher levels of usage, OpenAI’s API has you covered. By the way, this article is written by chat GPT. Impressed? Try it now!

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