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Overview

Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) lets you connect your own AI provider API keys to Harmonica. When BYOM is active, your sessions use your own keys instead of Harmonica’s — removing usage limits and giving you full control over which models power your facilitation.

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Why use BYOM?

  • No credit limits — BYOM sessions don’t consume your Harmonica balance
  • Model choice — pick the exact model for your use case (faster, cheaper, higher quality, or open-source)
  • Data control — requests go directly to your chosen provider under your own terms of service
  • Self-hosting — combine BYOM with a self-hosted Harmonica instance for fully self-contained deployment

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Supported providers

Harmonica supports API keys from these providers:
ProviderExample modelsNotes
OpenAIGPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, GPT-5Most widely used
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4.6, Claude HaikuHigh quality facilitation
GoogleGemini 2.5 Flash, Gemini 3.1 ProGood balance of speed and quality
OllamaLlama, Mistral, QwenLocal models, fully offline
OpenAI-compatibleAny provider with an OpenAI-compatible APICustom base URL supported

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LTD plan requirement

If you are on the Lifetime Deal (LTD) plan, BYOM is required to create sessions. LTD accounts do not use Harmonica’s monthly AI credit balance — all LLM calls must go through your own keys. If you try to create a session without any BYOM keys configured, the session creation flow will block with a prompt to set up your keys first. A banner on the dashboard also reminds you when no keys are detected.

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Setting up BYOM

1

Go to Settings

Navigate to Settings → Integrations in your Harmonica dashboard. The AI Models section at the top of that tab is where you manage your BYOM keys and model assignments.
2

Add an API key

Click Add API Key and enter:
  • Provider — select from the supported list, or choose “OpenAI-compatible” for custom endpoints
  • API Key — your key from the provider’s dashboard
  • Base URL — auto-filled for standard providers, customizable for self-hosted or compatible APIs
  • Name — a label to help you identify this key
3

Select models for each tier

Harmonica uses three model tiers for different tasks:
  • Small — lightweight tasks (e.g., classification, short responses)
  • Medium — main facilitation conversations
  • Large — summaries, synthesis, and complex analysis
Choose which of your available models to use for each tier.
4

Create sessions as usual

Once configured, all new sessions automatically use your models. No other changes needed — the facilitation experience is the same.

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Platform models vs BYOM

Even without BYOM, Harmonica provides platform models:
ModelProviderTierAvailable on Free plan
GPT-4o miniOpenAISmallYes
Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogleSmall / Medium / LargeYes
Apertus 70BPublicAI (Swiss AI)Small / MediumYes
Claude Sonnet 4.6AnthropicMedium / LargePro only
GPT-5OpenAIMedium / LargePro only
Gemini 3.1 ProGoogleMedium / LargePro only
BYOM gives you access to any model from any supported provider, regardless of your Harmonica plan.

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How billing works with BYOM

  • BYOM users pay their AI provider directly — Harmonica doesn’t charge for LLM usage
  • Session creation doesn’t reserve balance — no credit checks when creating or running sessions
  • Summary generation skips settlement — no per-participant costs deducted
  • You still need a Harmonica account (free plan is sufficient with BYOM)
BYOM is especially useful for organizations that already have enterprise agreements with AI providers, or for self-hosters who want to run Harmonica with local models via Ollama.