How to Get an API Key for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok
Step-by-step setup for all five AI providers your workspace measures against, with the spend limits to set first so nothing surprises you on the bill.
Why your workspace needs your own keys
Measuring what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok actually say about your business means asking each of them, repeatedly, on a schedule. That costs money per question, and the only honest way to sell that is to let you pay the provider directly. So the workspace ships with the software and you bring the keys. Your usage is billed by each AI company at their own rates, you can see it on your own statement, and you can revoke a key at any time without asking us. Click Elevate uses your keys only to run the measurements you ask for. After the seven-day setup window it does not spend its own model credits on your behalf, and it does not resell provider access to you.
Do this first: set a spend limit
Before you create any key, set a budget. Every one of these providers lets you cap monthly spend or usage, and doing it first means a mistake or a runaway loop costs you a known maximum instead of an open-ended bill. This is the single most important step on the page, and it is the one people skip. A workspace measurement run asks a handful of questions across the providers you have connected. It is not a heavy workload, but the limits are what make it safe to leave running unattended.
OpenAI / ChatGPT
Sign in at platform.openai.com and open the API keys page from the left sidebar. Choose "Create new secret key", give it a name you will recognise later, and copy it immediately — OpenAI shows the full key once and never again. Before you create it, open Settings → Limits and set a monthly budget. Note that an API key is not the same thing as a ChatGPT Plus subscription: they are separate products with separate billing, and a Plus subscription does not give you API access.
Anthropic / Claude
Sign in at console.anthropic.com and go to Settings → API Keys. Choose "Create Key", name it, and copy the value straight away — like OpenAI, it is shown once. Then open Plans & Billing and set a monthly spend limit. As with ChatGPT, a Claude Pro subscription is a different product from API access and does not include it.
Google Gemini
Open Google AI Studio at aistudio.google.com and choose "Get API key". You can create a key in a new project or an existing one. Gemini has a genuinely usable free tier, which makes it the easiest provider to start with and the cheapest to leave connected — but free-tier keys have rate limits, so a busy measurement schedule may need a paid tier eventually. Once the key exists you can restrict it in Google Cloud so it only works with the Gemini API, which limits the damage if it ever leaks.
Perplexity
Perplexity is the one provider worth understanding before you decide on it, because it works differently. Sonar, the API model, searches the live web before answering, so it reflects what is on the internet right now rather than what a model learned during training. That makes it the closest thing to asking a real customer's question of a real answer engine, and it is why Perplexity tends to be the most informative platform in a measurement run. It is also the most expensive per question, because each call includes a search fee on top of token costs. Add credit under API settings, then generate a key.
xAI / Grok
Sign in at console.x.ai and open API Keys from the sidebar. Create a key and copy it immediately. Before you use it, add credits and set a monthly billing limit under Billing — xAI will not serve requests without a positive balance, and a key with no credits looks identical to a broken key when you are debugging. One practical note: xAI retires model names without much notice, so if Grok stops answering it is usually a retired model ID rather than your key.
What a measurement run actually costs
These are measured figures from our own runs at real prompt lengths, not estimates, and provider prices change — check current rates before budgeting. Perplexity Sonar runs about $0.005 per question because of the search fee. Gemini Flash and Claude Haiku are roughly $0.0003 each. Grok is around $0.001. ChatGPT on gpt-4o-mini is about $0.0002. A full pass across all five lands in the region of one to two cents. At that scale the spend limits you set above are a safety net, not a constraint — you are protecting against a bug, not against normal use.
You do not need all five to start
Connect one, run a measurement, and see the output before wiring up the rest. Gemini is the usual starting point because of the free tier. Perplexity is the one to add next if you want the most realistic picture, since it searches the live web. The workspace runs with whatever you have connected and tells you which providers are missing, so there is no reason to do all five at once.
Keeping your keys safe
Keys are stored encrypted and are only used to make measurement calls on your behalf. Treat them like passwords anyway: create a separate key for Click Elevate rather than reusing one from another tool, so you can revoke just this one without breaking anything else. Never paste a key into a support ticket, a screenshot, or a chat message. If a key is ever exposed, revoke it in the provider console and create a new one — the old key stops working immediately, and you can paste the replacement into your workspace settings.
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