Bring your own Anthropic key

On the Agency plan, Clarify can run its analysis on your own Anthropic API key instead of Clarify's. Comment reading, reply drafting, briefs and reports then bill straight to your Anthropic account, and Clarify's monthly token allowance no longer applies, so a very busy page is never paused mid-month. This article walks through creating the key in the Claude Console and adding it to Clarify.

Who this is for

Every plan includes a monthly allowance of analysis tokens (2M on Starter, 6M on Pro, 12M on Agency). As a guide, 2M tokens covers about a thousand comments a month plus the replies and briefs that go with them. A page with a large, active following can get through many times that, and once the allowance is used Clarify pauses analysis until the 1st of the next month unless you buy a top-up.

Bringing your own key removes the ceiling. You pay Anthropic directly for exactly what your page uses, at Anthropic's published rates, and Clarify stops counting. It is included on the Agency plan (A$299 a month) and during the free trial.

If you are on Starter or Pro you can still save a key, but Clarify will keep using its own key within your plan allowance until you move to Agency. The moment the upgrade goes through, your key takes over.

Before you start

• You need the Edit settings permission in Clarify (owners have it).
• Use an email address that belongs to the office rather than one person for the Anthropic account, for the same reason you would for any shared service. Anthropic lets you add other people to the organisation later.
• Have a card ready. Anthropic bills with prepaid credits, so you buy a balance up front and usage draws it down.

Step 1: Create a Claude Console account

1. Go to platform.claude.com and choose Create account, or sign in if your office already has one.
2. Follow the prompts to verify your email and set up your organisation. Name it after your office so it is easy to recognise on invoices.

The Console is Anthropic's developer dashboard. Clarify only needs one thing from it: the key.

Step 2: Add credits

1. In the Console, open Settings, then Billing.
2. Click Buy credits and choose an amount. Credits are available immediately. You need the Admin or Billing role on the organisation to do this, which you have if you created it.
3. Turn on Auto-reload and set a threshold. When the balance drops below it, Anthropic tops it up automatically. This matters: if the balance reaches zero, Clarify's analysis stops until credits are added.

Credits expire a year after purchase and are non-refundable, so buy what a month or two of use needs rather than a year's worth. Anthropic's Usage page in the Console shows what each day cost, and Clarify's own Token usage card in Settings > AI shows the token count behind it.

Step 3: Create the key

1. In the Console, go to Settings, then API keys (or straight to platform.claude.com/settings/keys).
2. Click Create key.
3. Name it Clarify so you know what it is for later.
4. If you are asked for an expiry, choose No expiry or the longest option available. An expired key stops Clarify's analysis without warning.
5. If you are asked for a Linked account, choose a service account if one is offered, otherwise yourself. A key linked to a person stops working if that person leaves the Anthropic organisation.
6. If you are asked which workspace the key belongs to, pick one. The Default workspace is fine. Clarify cannot use a key that spans several workspaces.
7. Click Create and copy the key. It starts with sk-ant-. The Console shows it only once. If you lose it, create a new one.

If Create key is greyed out, your role on the organisation does not allow it. Ask whoever set up the organisation to give you the Admin or Developer role, or to create the key for you.

Step 4: Add the key to Clarify

1. In Clarify, open Settings > AI.
2. In the Anthropic Claude card, paste the key into API Key and click Save. Clarify checks the key with Anthropic before saving it. A key that was copied incompletely, revoked or expired is refused on the spot, so if you see Key saved and working you are done.
3. Scroll to the Token usage card. On the Agency plan (or during the trial) it now reads tokens used this month (no cap on your own API key) with no progress bar. That is the confirmation the key is in use.

Nothing else changes. Syncing, classification, replies, briefs and reports all carry on as before; they just bill to you.

What it will cost

Clarify uses Anthropic's fastest model for the everyday work (reading comments, drafting replies and briefs) and a more capable one for refining a reply and for case reports. Any paid Console account has access to all of them, with nothing to enable.

The Token usage card in Settings > AI breaks down your month by operation, and Anthropic's Usage page shows the dollars. Two things keep the bill down: most of the prompt text Clarify sends is repeated and is cached, which Anthropic charges at a fraction of the normal rate, and a comment that needs no action costs a few hundred tokens to classify. Replies that use web search also carry Anthropic's small per-search charge.

If you want a ceiling anyway, set one in the Console under Settings > Limits: Anthropic stops serving requests once the organisation's monthly spend reaches it.

Limits on a new Anthropic account

Anthropic gives every organisation a monthly spend limit and a rate limit (requests per minute). Both start modest and rise automatically as you use the service; there is nothing to apply for. You can see your current limits at Settings > Limits in the Console, and once you are using about half of them you can request more from the same page.

A page with hundreds of thousands of followers can bump into the starting limits in its first week, especially during the historical import when a page is first connected. If classification slows or you see failures in the first few days, check that page before anything else. Clarify retries work that Anthropic turned away, so a short pause clears itself once the limit rises.

Keeping the key safe

• Clarify stores the key with your workspace settings and only members with Edit settings can open the page that shows it. Treat it like a password: never paste it into a comment, a post or a support ticket.
• You can revoke a key at any time from Settings > API keys in the Console. Clarify's analysis stops immediately, so create the replacement first, save it in Clarify, then delete the old one.
• To go back to Clarify's key, clear the API Key field in Settings > AI and click Save. Your plan allowance applies again from the next piece of work.

Troubleshooting

Analysis has stopped and the Threat Log is not updating. Check the Console's Billing page first (balance at zero), then API keys (key revoked or expired), then Limits (monthly spend cap reached). Buying credits or creating a fresh key fixes it within a minute.

Save says the key was not accepted. Anthropic refused it. Check the whole key was copied (it starts with sk-ant-), that it has not been revoked or expired in the Console, and that it was created for a single workspace. Create a fresh key if in doubt.

The Token usage card still shows a progress bar after saving the key. Your workspace is on Starter or Pro, so Clarify is still using its own key. Upgrade to Agency in Settings > Billing and the saved key takes over.

You saved the key but a team member says it is not showing. Only members with Edit settings can see Settings > AI. Check their role under Settings > Team.

Something else. Email support@clarify.net.au. Tell us the time it stopped working and we will check our side; please never send us the key itself.