Question 1

What is bring-your-own-key (BYOK) pricing?

Accepted Answer

Bring-your-own-key means you use your own OpenAI API key and pay OpenAI directly for API usage, while paying Machined only for the software platform. This eliminates markups on AI costs. Most AI platforms bundle API costs into subscriptions with a markup, whereas with BYOK you pay for exactly what you use.

Question 2

How much does it cost to generate one article?

Accepted Answer

The average cost per article ranges from  $0.01 to $0.40  depending on your configuration: GPT-4o mini:  $0.01-0.10 per article (fastest, most affordable) GPT-4o:  $0.10-0.40 per article (higher quality, more detailed) Costs increase if you enable research mode, AI images, or generate longer articles (3,000+ words). These are costs you pay directly to OpenAI, not to Machined.

Question 3

Is the free plan really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes! The Machined free plan is genuinely free—no credit card required to sign up. You get 10 articles per month with access to all core features. However, you still need to cover your own OpenAI API costs (typically $0.10-4.00/month for 10 articles depending on settings). This is paid directly to OpenAI, not to Machined. The free plan is perfect for testing the platform, creating sample content, or maintaining a small blog without monthly subscription costs.

Question 4

How much do I save with annual billing?

Accepted Answer

Annual billing saves you  33% compared to monthly , effectively giving you 4 months free: Starter: $29/month → $20/month annually (save $116/year) Professional: $49/month → $33/month annually (save $196/year) Unlimited: $99/month → $66/month annually (save $396/year) Plus, we offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on all annual plans if you're not satisfied.

Question 5

How do I set up my OpenAI API key?

Accepted Answer

Setting up your OpenAI API key takes less than 5 minutes: Create an account at  platform.openai.com Add billing information and credits ($5-10 is a good start) Generate an API key in your OpenAI dashboard Paste the key into Machined settings We provide step-by-step guidance during onboarding. You can also check our  complete setup guide .

Question 6

Is the Unlimited plan really unlimited?

Accepted Answer

Here's the deal, we offer our Unlimited plan for personal use by individuals. If you run a blog or even a few blogs, you likely never face any restrictions. Write, rewrite, try different settings, go all out. Fair usage policy In order to guarantee availability and reliability for all users and protect our service from abuse, we operate a fair usage policy that might impose some rate-limits on accounts who are obviously running a business-scale workload or generating mass spam. See our  terms and conditions  for more details. Businesses and agencies If you're a business or an agency who needs to run at scale, we have plans just for you - please reach out to the team.

Question 7

Can I cancel or downgrade my plan anytime?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can cancel or downgrade your subscription anytime with no penalties or fees. After canceling, you'll maintain full access until the end of your current billing period. Your content, clusters, and settings are preserved, you can always upgrade again later. Downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle, so you never lose access you've paid for.

Question 8

Do you offer refunds?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we offer a  14-day money-back guarantee  on all paid plans. If you're not satisfied within the first 14 days, contact us at   support@machined.ai   for a full refund. Note that OpenAI API costs are non-refundable as they're paid directly to OpenAI, not to Machined. Refunds only apply to Machined subscription fees.

	Free	Starter	Professional	Unlimited
Account and Billing
Platform pricing This is how much you pay us to use our platform, including all the features in the plan you choose	$0 per month	$20 per month	$33 per month	$66 per month
Content cost This is how much you pay OpenAI for generating content with their api. We are a bring-your-own-key platform so your AI costs are paid directly to OpenAI	$0.01-$0.40 per article	$0.01-$0.40 per article	$0.01-$0.40 per article	$0.01-$0.40 per article
Plan Benefits
Included article generations How many individual articles you can write in every period, resets on every renewal. If you reach your limit, you can upgrade to the next tier.	10	30	300	Unlimited *
Included content clusters How many individual content clusters you can create in every period, resets on every renewal. If you reach your limit, you can upgrade to the next tier.	5	20	100	Unlimited
AI Writer
OpenAI Integration Use the latest OpenAI models including o1, GPT-4o-mini, and GPT-5.1	✓	✓	✓	✓
Multiple Languages Write in high quality in over 120+ languages with full support for a variety of perspectives and tones of voice.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Tone and Perspective Choose from multiple tones of voice and control the perspective of the content to match your website or brand.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Content Length Control the length of your content from 1,200 to 3,000+ words.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Humanized Voices Make your content sound more human to people by removing fluff, verbosity and phrases commonly used by AI - resulting in more natural and casual content.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Custom Brand Voice Train the AI to write in your brand voice, so that it sounds like it was written by a you and your team.	-	-	✓	✓
Custom Instructions Create custom briefs and instructions for the AI to follow, so that it writes content that is exactly what you want.	-	-	✓	✓
Custom Outlines Control the structure of your content and make sure the AI covers the angles that you care about - you can create articles, listicles, reviews and lots more.	-	-	✓	✓
Content Clusters
Auto-Pilot Mode Automatically use realtime keyword and SERP data to build clusters for your target topics.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Manual Mode Create larger clusters and bring your own keywords - very useful if you have a keyword strategy or want to target keywords that you discovered through keyword research tools - this one is for the pros!	-	-	✓	✓
Research and Knowledge
Automated Research Automatically research and scrape webpages for context on the topic you wish to write about, you can include competitors and other sites.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Directed Research Specify the exact webpages you want our research agents to scrape for context, so that your content includes exactly the information you want it to.	-	-	✓	✓
Automated Linking
Internal Linking Automatically create internal links between the articles in your clusters, to boost your content and your site's authority.	✓	✓	✓	✓
External Linking Automatically create external links to authoritative external websites, to boost your content and your site's authority.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Citations Include contextual citations to useful information, statistics and quotes from your research - as either inline links or footnotes.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Featured Images
Pexels Integration Automatically find Pexels stock photos for your articles or choose your own.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Unsplash Integration Automatically find Unsplash stock photos for your articles or choose your own.	✓	✓	✓	✓
AI Image Generation Automatically generate featured images with DALL-E, Flux, and Nanobanana using 70+ predefined styles or your own prompt.	-	✓	✓	✓
CMS Connections
CMS Connections How many Content Management Systems you can connect and publish to.	-	1	3	Unlimited
WordPress Integration Connect directly to WordPress to publish your content in one-click.	-	✓	✓	✓
Webflow Integration Connect directly to Webflow to publish your content in one-click.	-	✓	✓	✓
Automations
Webhooks Send articles to third-party tools including Zapier, Make and more - for post processing and publishing to other platforms.	-	-	✓	✓

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What is Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)?

Full Cost Control

Volume Without Markup

Own Your API Key

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Account and Billing

Plan Benefits

AI Writer

Content Clusters

Research and Knowledge

Automated Linking

Featured Images

CMS Connections

Automations

Frequently Asked Questions

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