What BYOK means for your GTM budget
Not every team should use BYOK. Here is a straight breakdown of who benefits most and who should skip it. Best for teams with existing provider contracts. If you already pay Apollo, Crustdata, Hunter, or People Data Labs directly, BYOK lets you route those same keys through Deepline without double-paying. You keep your negotiated rates, your existing usage dashboards, and your billing relationship. Deepline adds waterfall logic and unified output schemas on top — nothing changes on the provider side. Best for cost-conscious operators. Clay charges $185/month on their Explorer plan and $485/month on Pro before you buy any enrichment credits. ZoomInfo starts at $15,000/year. With BYOK, your Deepline platform cost is $0/month. Your only spend is whatever you pay providers directly at their published per-call rates. For a team running 5,000 enrichments per month across 3 providers, the difference can be $2,000-$4,000/year in platform fees alone. Best for testing multiple providers side-by-side. When you are evaluating whether Crustdata or People Data Labs returns better company data for your ICP, BYOK lets you run both through the same waterfall and compare hit rates without committing to either vendor’s annual contract. Connect free-tier keys from each, run a sample batch, and measure coverage before you buy. Not ideal if you have zero provider accounts. If you do not have any existing API keys and want to start enriching immediately, use managed credits instead. Managed credits start at $0.10/credit, with volume discounts from 1,000+ credits. They require no provider signups and work across all 97+ integrations. You can switch individual providers to BYOK later as you negotiate direct contracts.Supported providers
API-key providers listed below accept BYOK connections. Connect any combination. Apollo also accepts customer-owned keys, but it must be connected in the Deepline dashboard and is not available through platform-managed env fallback.Enrichment and prospecting
Scraping and search
Outbound sequencing
CRM (OAuth)
These 3 providers use OAuth instead of API keys. Connect them through the Deepline dashboard.Internal
How to connect a key
Option 1: Dashboard (recommended)
Option 2: API
Set a key programmatically via the REST API:Option 3: Environment variable
For local development or self-hosted deployments, set supported provider env vars directly. Apollo is excluded from env fallback; connect Apollo in the Deepline dashboard instead.Connecting multiple providers
Connect as many providers as you need. Each key is stored independently. Add each provider in the dashboard athttps://code.deepline.com/dashboard/keys:
- Apollo
- Hunter
- LeadMagic
- ZeroBounce
name_and_domain_to_email_waterfall, Deepline queries each connected provider in sequence and returns the first verified hit.
Mix and match: BYOK + managed credits
You do not have to choose one model for all providers. Deepline supports mixing BYOK and managed credits at the provider level within the same workspace. Example setup:
This means a single waterfall enrichment can use your Apollo key for step 1, managed credits for Hunter in step 2, and your LeadMagic key for step 3. Deepline handles the routing transparently. You see which mode was used for each step in the enrichment response.
Switching modes per provider is instant. Connect a BYOK key and that provider switches from managed credits to your key on the next API call. For providers with platform-managed access, removing the key can fall back to managed credits. Apollo is customer-key-only, so removing the Apollo key disables Apollo calls until a personal key is reconnected.
Cost comparison for a typical workflow
Consider a monthly workflow of 2,000 email enrichments using a 3-provider waterfall:
The Deepline platform fee is $0/month regardless of which mode you use. The difference between BYOK and managed credits is purely the per-enrichment cost — and whether you want the operational overhead of managing provider accounts directly.
Key storage and security
Every API key stored through Deepline is:- Encrypted at rest using AES-256 encryption
- Scoped to your workspace — keys are never shared across workspaces or tenants
- Never logged — keys are redacted from all application logs and error traces
- Deletable on demand — remove a key instantly via the dashboard at
https://code.deepline.com/dashboard/keysor via API
Frequently asked questions
What happens if my BYOK key hits a rate limit?
What happens if my BYOK key hits a rate limit?
Deepline respects provider rate limits. If your Apollo key is rate-limited, the waterfall moves to the next provider in the chain (e.g., Hunter or LeadMagic). If all BYOK providers are exhausted, the enrichment returns a partial result with a clear status code. Deepline does not retry rate-limited requests automatically — it moves forward to avoid wasting your quota.
Can I use BYOK and managed credits for the same provider?
Can I use BYOK and managed credits for the same provider?
No. For a given provider, your workspace uses either your BYOK key or managed
credits — not both simultaneously. If you connect a BYOK key for Apollo, all
Apollo calls use your key. Removing the Apollo key disables Apollo calls until
a personal key is reconnected; Deepline cannot provide platform-managed Apollo
access. For other supported providers, removing your key can fall back to
managed credits when platform-managed access is available. This prevents
ambiguous billing where you cannot tell which key was charged.
Do I need BYOK keys for waterfall enrichment to work?
Do I need BYOK keys for waterfall enrichment to work?
No. Waterfall enrichment works with managed credits, BYOK keys, or any
combination. The waterfall engine is agnostic to how each provider is
authenticated. If you have zero keys connected, managed credits handle
everything. If you have 3 BYOK keys and 2 managed-credit providers, the
waterfall uses all 5 in the configured priority order.
How do I know which providers my key was used for in an enrichment?
How do I know which providers my key was used for in an enrichment?
Every enrichment response includes a
provider_chain array showing which providers were called, in what order, and which one returned the final result. For BYOK providers, the response shows auth_mode: "byok". For managed credits, it shows auth_mode: "managed". You can audit exactly where every credit or API call went.Related pages
Quick Start
Install Deepline and run your first enrichment in 60 seconds.
Pricing Schedule
Full per-endpoint pricing for managed credits across all providers.
API Reference
REST API documentation for keys, enrichment, and waterfall endpoints.
Waterfall Enrichment
How multi-provider waterfall logic works under the hood.