Hi there,

Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience!

Team-GPT works thanks to the OpenAI API. As you mentioned, during the onboarding process, we ask you to connect your own OpenAI API key. This is needed so you can chat with GPT models :)

Since you're using OpenAI's API infrastructure to power your AI interactions through our app, OpenAI charges for their services based on usage. This is handled entirely by OpenAI, and Team-GPT is not in any way involved in the transaction.

This is why our tool is extremely cost effective: you use your own API and you pay for your exact usage directly to OpenAI.

And your usage is calculated based on the number of messages you send to and receive from the bot.

For the API key to work, you must fill out your billing information on OpenAI's platform:

1. Go to your OpenAI account
2. Navigate to Billing settings
3. Go to Payment methods: Click “Add a payment method” and add the necessary details
4. Set usage limits: Navigate to Usage limits and set limits your comfortable with. Do this to prevent unexpected charges and get usage alerts.

💡 Here’s a 1-minute walkthrough video on how to this: https://youtu.be/X2bET1m1O5E?feature=shared&t=69

**Why did it work until now without billing info?**

It's possible that you had "free credits" in your OpenAI account -- it's common that new OpenAI accounts get $5 of credit. After some use, your credit has now depleted, and you need to set a billing method.

I hope this helps.

Please note that we are aiming for full transparency about usage costs on all our communication. If you feel we haven't managed your expectations about usage costs, please let us know how we can be better.

Sincerely,
Simona