# Get an API key from OpenAI

> OpenAI API key, step by step: sign in to the OpenAI Platform, add credits, create the key, set a hard spend limit, and connect it to Runner.

Canonical: https://www.runtheworld.ai/guides/openai-api-key

Updated: 2026-10-20

## Sign in to the OpenAI Platform, and add credits

Keys for OpenAI's models live on the OpenAI Platform, OpenAI's dashboard for its API, at platform.openai.com. Your organization pays for what its keys use from credits it buys there in advance.

## Create a key, with an end date

The kind of key OpenAI makes for an application like Runner is a standard API key, made on the API keys page.

## Set a hard spend limit at OpenAI

A spend limit caps your organization's spend for the month. Making it a hard limit is what stops requests when spend reaches it.

## Paste the key into Runner, under Settings, then LLM providers

The key belongs to your Runner organization, so every product in it can use the key, and only an owner or admin can connect one. Runner encrypts it before storing it and never shows it again.

A key you connect is used before credits, even on AI included.

## Keep the key secret

In OpenAI's words, your API key is a secret: don't share it with others. Anyone else who needs access gets a key of their own.

- Keep it out of code, files and public repositories, and store it in a secure location instead.
- Never put it in anything a browser or an app downloads.
- Revoking a key takes effect within a few seconds, so a key you think has leaked can be stopped at once.
- Paste it only into Runner's key box, never into a chat, an email or a support ticket.

## Swap the key for a new one, or switch it off

OpenAI's advice is a regular rotation: create a replacement, move to it, and revoke the old key once the replacement works.

## Rather not make a key at all?

With AI included, your team runs on the AI credits your plan includes, with nothing to set up: no API keys, no vendor accounts, no billing with an AI company.

Every plan comes two ways, AI included or your own key, and you can change your choice later in Settings.