Gumloop AI Costs: Included Models vs API Keys

Short answer: stay on Gumloop's bundled model credits unless you have a specific reason to move model spend onto your own provider account. Gumloop bills bundled model calls at the provider's list cost, and bringing your own key (BYOK) raises the agent orchestration fee from 8% to 16% of the run's full value. At list provider prices, BYOK therefore does not lower the total bill. It saves money when your own provider price is lower than list by more than a threshold this guide shows how to calculate, and it can be worth it regardless of price when your organization needs direct provider agreements, data-retention terms or its own rate limits.

For the full plan matrix, see Gumloop pricing. For the product itself, see the Gumloop profile. For budget comparisons across tools, see AI workflow automation pricing explained and AI subscription vs API pricing.

How Gumloop credits work

Gumloop prices everything in credits with a list value of $0.005 each. The Pro plan costs $37 per month and includes 20,000 credits: 7,400 at the list price plus 12,600 bonus credits. Credits reset each billing period and do not roll over on Pro. If you enable overage, extra usage bills at $0.005 per credit up to a cap you control (1,000,000 overage credits per period by default).

For every agent run, Gumloop charges:

• Chat & Reasoning: the model's token cost at the provider's list price, converted at $0.005 per credit.
• Compute: 5 credits per session-minute of active processing.
• Tool calls: paid APIs at the provider's list price, with a base cost of 1 credit per call.
• Orchestration fee: 8% of the three items above.

Because the $37 subscription buys 20,000 credits, credits inside the included allowance cost about $0.00185 each ($37 ÷ 20,000). That matters for BYOK: model spend you move to your own provider account is paid at full price, while the credits it frees up were already prepaid.

What BYOK changes

BYOK is available on Pro and above with your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, Perplexity, SpaceXAI or Fireworks AI account. Each key only covers the models that provider serves.

Two other surfaces work differently:

• Chat completions API. Gumloop's OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint charges by token usage and gives BYOK users a 50% discount rather than the zero-credit rule. Budget programmatic use separately.
• Workflows. Gumloop's pricing page now lists visual Workflows as Legacy, and its current Credits documentation describes agent billing only. Older per-node workflow rules are no longer published, so read a workflow's actual run breakdown instead of relying on them.

The break-even rule

Let T be a run's value before the orchestration fee (model + compute + tool calls) and M the model part. Let d be your discount on the provider's list price.

• Bundled: you pay 1.08 × T in credits.
• BYOK: you pay (T − M) + 0.16 × T in credits, plus M × (1 − d) directly to the provider.

When credits are bought at the $0.005 list rate (that is, in overage), BYOK is cheaper only if d × M > 0.08 × T. The larger the model share of the run, the smaller the discount you need:

Inside the included 20,000 credits the bar is higher still, because the credits BYOK saves were already paid for by the subscription.

Worked example: an agent-heavy month

This example uses the per-run figures from Gumloop's own Credits documentation. The monthly volumes and discounts are assumptions for illustration.

One research-agent run: 400 credits of model usage ($2.00 at list price), 10 of compute and 15 of tool calls.

• Bundled: 400 + 10 + 15 = 425, plus an 8% orchestration fee of 34, for 459 credits.
• BYOK: 0 + 10 + 15 = 25, plus a 16% fee on 425 (68), for 93 credits, plus $2.00 billed by your provider.

Reading the table:

• At 40 runs, everything fits in the included credits, so BYOK only adds a provider bill.
• At 200 runs with list provider prices, BYOK costs $41 more a month.
• At 200 runs, BYOK needs a provider discount above about 10.25% to break even ($400 × (1 − d) ≤ $359). With a 30% discount it saves $79.

Gumloop's documentation describes BYOK as "far cheaper" because it compares credits only (459 versus 93). That comparison leaves out the provider invoice, which is where the model cost moves.

Non-price reasons to use BYOK

• Provider agreements. Negotiated commitments, zero-data-retention terms or business associate agreements with a model provider generally apply only when calls run on your own account.
• Rate limits. Model calls generally draw on your provider account's rate limits rather than Gumloop's. Gumloop's own limits still apply: on Pro, 25 concurrent agent interactions, beyond which work is rejected and scheduled triggers are skipped.
• Model coverage. A key only waives the models its provider serves, so check that the models your agents use are covered.

The costs are operational. Someone has to create, restrict and rotate keys, fund the provider account, and watch for failed payments that would stop agents mid-run.

Who should not switch to BYOK

• Teams that fit inside 20,000 credits a month. BYOK adds a provider bill and leaves prepaid credits unused.
• Buyers without a provider discount or a compliance requirement. At list prices, BYOK increases the total by about 8% of each run's value.
• Teams without anyone to own provider accounts. Key rotation, rate-limit tiers and billing failures become your problem.
• Anyone hoping to skip the subscription. BYOK requires Pro or higher; it does not replace the plan.

Checklist before changing billing

1. Open a few representative agent chats and read their credit breakdown: model, compute, tool calls and orchestration.
2. Work out the model share (M ÷ T) and your real provider price, then apply the break-even rule.
3. Check whether monthly usage stays inside the 20,000 included credits; if it does, BYOK rarely saves money.
4. Confirm your provider tier, automatic top-ups and spending limits before moving production agents.
5. Set Gumloop's overage cap and credit notifications so neither bill can grow unnoticed.
6. If you call the chat completions API, budget it on its own 50% BYOK rule.

For current plans, see the Gumloop pricing guide. To compare metering across tools, see AI subscription vs API pricing and AI workflow automation pricing explained.