AI image generation on your own API key, not credits
Updated October 28, 2026 · By Personifex
You pay Personifex a flat monthly fee for the app, and every image and video runs on your own WaveSpeed API key, billed by WaveSpeed at its own published prices. There are no credits and no markup: Personifex adds nothing per image, and the fee has no image quota.
This is called bring-your-own-key. The Terms put it plainly: we do not resell, meter, or mark up compute, and when you press Start, your own key calls your own provider account.
Credits versus your own key
Many AI image tools sell credits: you prepay in the tool's own unit, and each generation spends some. The tool decides what a credit costs and how many each model takes, so the price per image is the tool's own.
With your own key, you open an account with the provider that runs the models, pay its published price for each image, and pay for the software separately, as a flat price with no credit system.
| Credits | Your own key | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per image | Set by the tool | The provider's published price |
| Paid up front | Credits, in the tool's own unit | A balance on your provider account |
| If the provider reprices | Up to the tool | Your provider bill moves, the flat fee does not |
| Setup | None | A provider account and a key |
| Checking the bill | The tool's own numbers | Your provider's invoice |
Which one suits you
Credits suit occasional use: a few images a week, one bill, nothing to set up. A flat fee on your own key suits volume, where a markup on every image adds up. What your own WaveSpeed key gets you here:
- It is pay as you go, not a second subscription. You top up what you want, when you want, with no monthly minimum.
- Every model has a published price, so you can check what you spent against your own WaveSpeed invoice rather than taking our word for it.
- If WaveSpeed reprices a model, your Personifex bill does not move.
- The account is yours. Revoke the key, change the model, or take the account elsewhere without asking us.
What you pay, and to whom
Personifex charges one flat fee by plan, with no per-image fee:
| Plan | A month | A year |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $29 | $278 |
| Creator | $79 | $758 |
| Agency | $179 | $1,718 |
Generation is WaveSpeed's bill, on your account. At each model's default settings an image costs $0.005 to $0.50, and $0.045 on the default model with one reference photo. Higher resolutions and more reference photos cost more, and video is priced per second.
The Start button shows a batch's total before it runs. To price one before you sign up, use the cost calculator; every model's price grid is on the model pages.
The writing tools (captions, hashtags, the Prompt maker) are optional and run on a second key of your own, from OpenRouter, billed the same way.
How your key is kept
Only the workspace owner can save a key, under Settings, API Keys. The keys you supply are held in an encrypted secrets vault, separate from the tables that hold your account data, which store only a reference, never the key. Once saved they are never returned to your browser, not even to you: the app can tell you a key is set, but it cannot show it back. If you lose one, replace it.
With your WaveSpeed key, Personifex also reads two things from that account: its credit balance, and what WaveSpeed says it billed, per day and per model. Those requests carry the key and nothing else, and only the workspace owner sees the figures.
The Privacy Policy covers what goes to a provider and what comes back.
Or run the models yourself
If you would rather pay for hardware than per image, ComfyUI, InvokeAI and AUTOMATIC1111's Stable Diffusion web UI are free, open-source programs that run image models on your own computer, or on a GPU you rent. They load the model files you choose, your own fine-tuned checkpoints included.
The trade is the machine and the upkeep: a graphics card with enough memory, model downloads, updates and settings to look after. They are the better choice if you want full control of the model, already own the hardware, or need your own fine-tunes: Personifex runs hosted models only, and LoRA identity is not built yet (Soon).
Personifex suits the other case: hosted models such as Nano-Banana and Seedream, many at once, nothing to install, and the review and team work after. A web app for WaveSpeed batch generation covers what that looks like.
What this cannot promise
- Two bills, not one: the flat fee here, and WaveSpeed's for what you generate.
- Without your own WaveSpeed key nothing generates, and a new WaveSpeed account runs only two at a time until its first top-up.
- Images and video run only through WaveSpeed. A key from another provider will not work for generation.
- The price before Start is an estimate at WaveSpeed's list or sale price. Your WaveSpeed invoice is the final word.
- A flat fee pays off at volume. For a few images a week, a credit plan elsewhere may cost you less.
Setting up a WaveSpeed key walks through the account, the top-up and the key.