Your AI Key and Model Access Levels
Your Starfish subscription pays for the app. AI usage is separate: you use your own Vercel AI Gateway key, and Vercel bills you directly for the models you use. Starfish never resells or marks up AI usage.
In short
- Create a Vercel account.
- Add billing or credits to AI Gateway.
- Create an AI Gateway API key.
- Paste it into Starfish.
- Pick a model access level that matches your budget.
Get a Vercel AI Gateway key
- Go to vercel.com and sign up, or sign in. A free (Hobby) account is enough to start.
- In your Vercel dashboard, open AI Gateway.
- Set up billing for AI Gateway: add a payment method or buy credits. Vercel may give new accounts some free credit; see Vercel AI Gateway pricing for current details.
- Open API Keys in AI Gateway and click Create key. Give it a name you will recognise, such as "Starfish – MacBook".
- Copy the key. Vercel shows it only once.
Treat the key like a credit card
Anyone with your key can spend money on your Vercel account. Do not paste it into chats, emails or shared documents. If it leaks, delete it in Vercel and create a new one.
Recommended: set a monthly budget or spending alert in your Vercel AI Gateway settings so you are never surprised by a bill.
Add the key to Starfish
- During setup: the setup wizard asks for it in step 2, AI access. See Setup Wizard.
- Later: open Settings → General and paste it into the field labelled "Vercel AI Gateway key".
Your key is stored on your Mac, encrypted with your Mac's Keychain. It is not uploaded to Starfish's servers. Each AI request goes straight from your Mac to Vercel. See the Privacy Policy.
Consumer subscriptions do not work
ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Pro, Claude Pro, Claude Max, Gemini Advanced and similar chat subscriptions cannot be used with Starfish. Only an API key works.
What your key pays for
Everything AI in Starfish runs on your key:
- chat and agent work;
- small background helper calls, such as naming chats, summarising long chats, choosing tools and checking results (these use low-cost models);
- image and video generation;
- speech (read aloud) and cloud dictation;
- embeddings for searching your knowledge files;
- web search and video understanding.
Model access levels
On any plan you choose one of three levels. The level only decides which models Starfish offers you. It does not buy usage. You pay Vercel for what you actually use, and you can change your level at any time.
| Level | Good for | Example models |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | Everyday questions, drafts, summaries, high volume | GPT-5.6 Luna, GPT-6 Luna, Gemini Flash Lite, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Qwen 3.8 Flash, GLM-5.3 Flash, MiniMax M3 |
| Balanced | Most business work: research, reports, analysis | Everything in Economy, plus mid-tier models such as Gemini 3.8 Flash, GPT-5.6 Terra, DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM-5.3, Qwen 3.8 Max, Kimi K3 |
| Premium | The hardest work, long agent tasks, best writing and code | Everything in Balanced, plus Claude Sonnet 5.5, Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-5.6 Sol and premium image and video engines |
The exact models in each level change as new models are released and old ones retire.
Indicative costs
These examples use Vercel AI Gateway list prices read on 2026-10-15 from https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/models. Prices change often, and your real cost depends on how you use Starfish. Always check the current prices on Vercel's model list.
Text: one chat reply
Assumes about 10,000 tokens in (your message, chat history and Starfish's instructions) and 1,000 tokens out. Long chats, attached files and tool results make the input bigger. Prompt caching often makes repeated turns cheaper.
| Level | Example model | Price per million tokens (in / out) | About per reply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | GPT-6 Luna | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.002 |
| Economy | GPT-5.6 Luna | $0.20 / $1.20 | $0.003 |
| Economy | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.004 |
| Economy | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | $0.30 / $2.50 | $0.006 |
| Balanced | DeepSeek V4 Pro | $0.66 / $1.98 | $0.009 |
| Balanced | Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.75 / $3.75 | $0.011 |
| Balanced | GPT-5.6 Terra | $2.00 / $12.00 | $0.032 |
| Premium | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2.00 / $10.00 | $0.03 |
| Premium | Claude Opus 5.5 | $4.00 / $20.00 | $0.06 |
| Premium | GPT-5.6 Sol | $4.00 / $20.00 | $0.06 |
Rough ranges per reply: Economy under 1 cent; Balanced about 1 to 5 cents; Premium about 3 to 8 cents.
Text: a longer agent task
Assumes about 20 model steps, each reading about 30,000 tokens and writing about 1,000 (roughly 600,000 in and 20,000 out in total), before any caching discount.
| Level | Example model | About per task |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | GPT-5.6 Luna | $0.15 |
| Balanced | Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.50 |
| Premium | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $1.40 |
| Premium | Claude Opus 5.5 | $2.80 |
Automations that run on a schedule repeat these costs every time they run.
Images: one image
| Level | Example model | About per image |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | Recraft V4.1 Flash, Meta Muse Image | $0.01 |
| Economy | Seedream 4.0 | $0.03 |
| Balanced | Gemini 3.1 Flash Image (1K) | $0.07 |
| Premium | Gemini 3.1 Flash Image (4K), GPT Image 2, Recraft V4.1 Pro | $0.15 to $0.25 (GPT Image is priced by tokens, so cost varies with size and quality) |
Video: one 8-second clip
| Level | Example model | About per clip |
|---|---|---|
| Economy / Balanced | Veo 3.1 Lite, 720p with sound | $0.40 |
| Balanced | Veo 3.1 Lite, 1080p with sound | $0.64 |
| Premium | Kling 3.0 standard, with sound | $2.00 |
| Premium | Veo 3.1, 1080p with sound | $3.20 |
| Premium | Veo 3.1, 4K with sound | $4.80 |
Veo 3.1 Lite is a preview model
Starfish never chooses Veo 3.1 Lite automatically; video Auto starts on Kling 2.6. Use Veo 3.1 Lite only if you pick it yourself, and never with personal or client data: Vercel's protections do not apply to preview models.
[CONFIRM: whether video generation is offered at the Economy level.]
Other
| Use | Example | About |
|---|---|---|
| Searching your knowledge files | Indexing a 100-page document with Gemini Embedding 2 ($0.20 per million tokens) | $0.01 |
| Read aloud | 1,000 characters with OpenAI TTS-1 ($15 per million characters) | $0.015 |
| Web search | Billed per search by Vercel | See Vercel's pricing |
Keeping costs under control
- Start on Economy or Balanced and move up only for work that needs it.
- Start a new chat for a new topic. Long chats send more history with every reply.
- Attach only the files you need.
- Set a budget or alert in your Vercel account.
- Check your spend in the Vercel dashboard. Starfish's own usage numbers are estimates; your Vercel bill is the official record.
Related
- Setup Wizard
- Models & Providers
- Terms of Service, sections 7 to 9
- Privacy Policy