Bring your own key: how SaySo's pricing and privacy actually work
BYOK means the AI accounts belong to you, not to us. SaySo is the app on your computer; Deepgram and Groq are services you sign up for yourself, in about two minutes. This one design choice is why SaySo costs $19.99 once instead of $15 a month — and why your voice never passes through a SaySo server.
The exact data flow
audio → your Deepgram account → text comes back
text → your Groq account (only when an AI style runs) → tidied text
tidied text → typed at your cursor
history → stays on your device, in a local database
- Audio streams directly from your machine to Deepgram, under your account, and comes back as text. SaySo has no server in that path and never receives your audio.
- Text goes to Groq only when an AI style runs — Clean, Formal, a History re-polish, or Roman Urdu/Hindi — and never the audio. The As-spoken and Brush-up styles don't use Groq at all, and without a Groq key you simply get your words with Deepgram's punctuation.
- History is a local database on your computer. Nothing is uploaded anywhere by SaySo.
- How Deepgram and Groq handle data under your account is governed by their terms, not ours — we won't make promises on their behalf. Review Deepgram's documentation and Groq's documentation when you sign up.
What BYOK costs in practice
You pay the providers at their own rates, with no markup — SaySo never touches the money or the data:
- Deepgram (required — the ears): pay-as-you-go, roughly 50¢ per hour of actual talking, billed only while you speak. New accounts include free credit to start.
- Groq (optional — the brain): powers the Clean and Formal styles. It offers a free tier subject to published rate limits; heavier usage can reach them.
Provider pricing can change, so treat those figures as a guide and check current Deepgram pricing and Groq pricing. The 2-minute key guide shows every click of the signup.
Why we built it this way
- No rent. With no per-user server costs, SaySo can be a one-time $19.99 purchase instead of a subscription.
- No middleman for your voice. Your audio's only cloud stop is a provider you chose and can audit yourself.
- No lock-in on usage. Your Deepgram and Groq accounts are yours — you can see exactly what you used, use whatever spend controls your provider offers, or revoke keys any time.
The tradeoffs, honestly
- A real setup step. One required signup (Deepgram) plus an optional one (Groq), each ending in a pasted key (~2 minutes total). Subscription apps hide this from you; we walk you through it instead.
- Keys are your responsibility. SaySo stores them in your system's keychain, but the accounts and their billing are yours to manage.
- Cloud processing. BYOK is not offline dictation — audio still goes to a cloud provider, just your provider. If your threat model requires fully local processing, SaySo is not that tool.
- If your Deepgram credit runs out, dictation stops until you top up — SaySo's notification bell tells you when that happens.
Common questions
Does SaySo ever see my API keys?
The keys are stored on your computer in the operating system's keychain and are used to call the providers directly. They are not sent to SaySo's servers.
Is BYOK harder than a subscription?
There is one extra setup step at the start, then it disappears. Day-to-day use is identical: hold a key, speak, release. The difference is who owns the account your voice runs through.
What happens if a provider changes its prices?
Your usage bill changes with it — that is the deal with any pay-as-you-go service. Because usage is on your own account, you can see it plainly, use the spend controls your provider offers, or switch off AI cleanup entirely. The SaySo license itself never costs more.
Own the app. Own the keys. Own your voice.