Best BYOK Chrome Extensions in 2026

BYOK — bring your own key — means you supply your own AI provider API key, the key stays on your device, and your source text goes direct from your browser to the provider with no vendor server in the middle. This is structurally rare in mainstream Chrome AI extensions. Most products that advertise "multi-model" actually route through the vendor's own backend using the vendor's keys. You're picking a brand, not bringing a key.

Nico is the canonical BYOK user — a developer who reads provider terms, knows what an OpenAI usage tier costs, and would rather pay $3 of Anthropic usage than $12 of vendor markup. Theo is a researcher with a department-issued OpenAI account; he wants his summarization activity charged to that account, not to a separate subscription. Anya doesn't think of herself as a BYOK user but is privacy-conscious — she likes that her summarization workflow doesn't need a vendor account between her browser and OpenAI.

This roundup compares the best BYOK Chrome extensions by real key handling, provider coverage, and workflow polish. Reduz appears in the list because Reduz is one of the products in the category — see the methodology box for what each tool was judged on, and the closing section for tools that look like BYOK but aren't.

Why use a BYOK Chrome extension?

Three reasons people choose BYOK over a vendor subscription. Cost: provider API pricing is usually well below the vendor's subscription markup, especially for users who don't hit the subscription's included quota anyway. A heavy day of summarization on Claude Haiku 4.5 costs cents. Privacy: no vendor relay means the prompt and source text go directly from your browser to the AI provider — one less party in the data path. Control: when Anthropic ships a new model, you switch on the day it lands; you're not waiting for a vendor to update their backend. The trade is that BYOK requires you to manage an API key, and not every browser extension treats keys with the same care. The right BYOK tool stores the key in Chrome extension storage on your device, never sends it to a vendor server, and doesn't silently fall back to a hosted relay when something goes wrong.

The list

AI summarizer

Reduz

Reduz turns whatever you have open in Chrome into a clean summary: YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, webpages, and selected text. Use your own key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, or xAI for unlimited use, with the key stored in Chrome on your device. Or start with 100 free credits a month, no card needed. Every summary saves to a searchable local history. Export to PDF, Markdown, or ZIP.

Best for:People who summarize YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, and webpages in Chrome and want to use their own AI key or start with free credits.

Fits Anya scanning competitor articles, Theo working through research papers, and Nico routing requests through a personal Anthropic key. Same extension, no account needed when you use your own AI key.

Strengths

Works on YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, webpages, and selected text from one extension.
Use your own AI key across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, or xAI. Keys stay on your device.
History, settings, and exports are local. Cloud backup is opt-in.

Tradeoffs

Focused on summaries. Not a chat assistant or browser automation tool.
AI generation still uses your selected provider in the cloud (local-first, not offline-only).

How to get started

Install Reduz from the Chrome Web Store.
Pick your own AI key or free credits in the first-run chooser.
Open the YouTube video, PDF, or article you want to summarize.
Click the Reduz toolbar icon.
Save, export, or copy the summary. Local history keeps it searchable.

Pricing:Free with 100 credits a month, no card. Using your own AI key is unlimited at provider rates (typically cents per article). Pro is $3/mo for 1,000 credits, Premium is $9/mo for 5,000 credits.

Read the Reduz comparison

Automation-heavy browser assistant

HARPA AI

HARPA AI is a browser-agent assistant with 100+ predefined commands for summarization, web automation, monitoring, price tracking, and content workflows. It supports multi-model routing across GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and OpenRouter, and is notable for being one of the few mainstream extensions where bringing your own AI key is part of the offering — though on a paid tier rather than as the default.

Best for:Power users who want page-aware commands, web automation, monitoring, and summaries from one Chrome extension.

Fits Nico when the workflow extends past summaries into web automation and monitoring. Heavier than needed if the job is just reading a source and saving a clean summary.

Strengths

Strong automation posture with many predefined page-aware commands.
Supports webpage, YouTube, file, and PDF summarization workflows.
BYOK is genuinely supported, even if gated behind the lifetime tier.

Tradeoffs

More complex than a dedicated summarizer.
Automation depth can be unnecessary if the job is only reading, saving, and exporting summaries.
BYOK is on the paid tier, not the default mode.

How to get started

Install HARPA AI from the Chrome Web Store.
Sign in and choose a connection: CloudGPT, ChatGPT web session, OpenAI API, OpenRouter, or others.
Open a page and trigger a command like /summary or /youtube-summary.
Use the chat panel or quick-access bar to chain commands.
Add a personal API key on the X-tier plan if you want BYOK routing.

Pricing:Tiered monthly subscriptions plus a one-time X-tier lifetime plan that supports bringing your own provider key. A free tier exists with usage caps.

DIY fallback

Custom provider-key workflow

Some developers build their own summarization workflow using a provider SDK and a userscript or a private Chrome extension. Maximum control, no third-party in the middle, but every part of the system — request handling, prompt template, history, export — has to be maintained.

Best for:Technical users who are comfortable wiring a provider API key into their own extension, userscript, or browser automation.

Fits Nico when no packaged extension meets a strict key-handling requirement or a specific provider integration matters more than UX polish.

Strengths

Maximum control over provider, prompts, and request handling.
Can be tuned for a narrow internal workflow.
Useful when no packaged extension meets a strict key-handling requirement.

Tradeoffs

Requires maintenance, provider API knowledge, and careful secret handling.
Usually lacks polished history, export, and support workflows unless you build them yourself.
Chrome MV3 service-worker constraints add surface area to debug.

How to get started

Generate a provider API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, or xAI).
Pick a delivery surface: userscript, private Chrome extension, or local CLI.
Wire the SDK and prompt template.
Add at least minimal history and export to avoid losing summaries.
Maintain the project as provider APIs and Chrome MV3 rules change.

Pricing:No software cost beyond provider API usage. Time investment to build and maintain is the real cost.

All-in-one browser side panel

Sider

Sider is a multi-model side-panel AI assistant covering chat, summarization, writing, translation, and PDF analysis. It supports many AI models through a side-panel workflow — useful when summary is one job among several. Sider is paid-mostly: the free tier is small and the paid tiers gate model variety.

Best for:Users who want summarization, chat, writing, translation, PDF analysis, image tools, and multi-model access in one browser assistant.

Fits a user who wants chat, writing, and summarization in one panel and is comfortable with a subscription. Less suitable for Nico when local-first storage or BYOK is a hard requirement.

Strengths

Broad browser assistant with webpage and YouTube summarization.
Supports many AI models through a single side-panel workflow.
Covers reading, writing, translation, PDF analysis, and image workflows.

Tradeoffs

Broader than a focused summarizer, which can be more UI and account surface than needed.
Summary history and provider-key locality are not positioned the same way as Reduz Bring your own AI key.
Verify the pricing tier and renewal terms before subscribing.

How to get started

Install Sider from the Chrome Web Store.
Sign in or create a Sider account.
Open the side panel via the toolbar icon or shortcut.
Pick the model and command (summary, chat, translate, etc.).
Upgrade to a paid tier to unlock model variety and higher quotas.

Pricing:Tiered subscription model from a low monthly entry price up to higher-tier plans. Verify current credit limits and renewal terms on the Sider site before committing.

General AI assistant

Monica

Monica is one of the largest all-in-one AI assistants in the Chrome extension category. It bundles chat with multiple models, summarization, translation, writing, and image and video generation. The trade-offs to weigh are free-tier prompt limits and the broader browser permission scope it requests.

Best for:Users who want an all-in-one assistant across browser, desktop, mobile, model chat, writing, search, and media tools.

Fits users who want one AI brand across browser, desktop, and mobile. Less suitable for Anya and Nico when direct from your browser-to-provider or local-first history is the goal.

Strengths

Large all-in-one AI assistant surface across devices.
Good fit when chat, writing, search, image, and video tools matter alongside summaries.
Useful for users who prefer a single assistant brand instead of a task-specific summarizer.

Tradeoffs

Not focused on local-first summarization workflows.
Full-access permission posture is flagged by privacy-conscious reviewers.
Free-tier prompt limits hit quickly on advanced models.

How to get started

Install Monica from the Chrome Web Store.
Sign up or sign in.
Use the toolbar icon or side panel to chat, summarize, translate, or generate images.
Choose model in settings (GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.).
Upgrade for higher quotas and unlimited memory.

Pricing:Free tier with monthly prompt limits on advanced models, plus a paid Max plan. Check current pricing on the HARPA site.

Other BYOK Chrome extensions worth knowing

Smaller BYOK extensions and adjacent tools, useful when the main list doesn't fit a specific provider or workflow.

Page Summary (BYOK)
Lightweight BYOK summarizer focused on the provided-key path. Smaller than Reduz, fewer features, but clean BYOK by default.
NexTool
Multi-tool browser AI with BYOK support across providers. Useful when summarization is one job among several in a developer workflow.
GROQ Summarizer
Summarizer wired to Groq's API specifically — bring your own Groq key and route to LLaMA, Mixtral, or other Groq-hosted models. Narrow but cheap.
AI Summarizer-Gemini
Gemini-only BYOK summarizer. Bring your own Google AI Studio key. Limited to Gemini, but free Google AI Studio quota makes it effectively free for moderate use.
LocalSum
Bring your own AI key plus offline mode with PII redaction. Free tier with a daily cap, plus an inexpensive paid plan. Privacy specialist at small scale.

Check the key path before calling it BYOK

A tool that lets you choose between hosted models is not the same as BYOK. Sider, Monica, NoteGPT, and most all-in-one AI extensions let you pick a model (GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) from a dropdown — but the request goes through their server using their key. You're picking a brand, not bringing a key. True BYOK means your API key lives in Chrome storage on your device, requests go direct from your browser to the provider, and the vendor never sees your prompt or your key. Reduz makes BYOK the default mode across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, and xAI Grok. HARPA AI supports BYOK on its X-tier lifetime plan. LocalSum supports BYOK plus offline. The DIY path is always an option — write your own userscript wired to a provider SDK — but the maintenance cost is real. Pick by which provider you actually want to bring a key for, and verify the key path before installing.

Frequently asked questions

What does BYOK mean for a Chrome extension?

BYOK — bring your own key — means you supply your own AI provider API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, xAI, etc.), the key is stored in Chrome extension storage on your device, and requests go direct from your browser to the provider without the extension vendor seeing the prompt or relaying through their server.

Is BYOK cheaper than a Chrome extension subscription?

For most users, yes — usually significantly. Provider API pricing is well below vendor subscription markup. A typical week of summarization on Claude Haiku 4.5 or GPT-5.4 Mini costs cents, where the equivalent vendor subscription is $10-20/month. BYOK breaks even quickly unless you summarize huge volumes daily.

Does Reduz send my AI provider key to Reduz servers?

No. When you bring your own AI key, Reduz stores provider keys in Chrome extension storage on your device and sends source text directly to the selected provider. The Reduz server never sees the key or the source text in Bring your own AI key. (Hosted Free is a separate mode where source text does go to the Reduz relay — there's no BYOK key involved there.)

Which providers can I bring keys for?

Reduz supports BYOK for OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, and xAI Grok. HARPA AI on its lifetime tier supports OpenAI and OpenRouter (which fans out to many models). Most smaller BYOK extensions target one provider — LocalSum, Page Summary, NexTool, GROQ Summarizer, and AI Summarizer-Gemini each cover a narrower slice.

How safe is storing an API key in a Chrome extension?

Chrome extension local storage is local to your browser profile but is not designed to protect API keys from someone or another process that can read your Chrome profile on disk. For most personal use this is acceptable; for high-value or production keys, scope the key to a small monthly budget at the provider, use a separate key per extension, and rotate periodically.

What's the difference between BYOK and multi-model dropdowns in Sider or Monica?

BYOK means you bring the key and the request goes direct from your browser to the provider. Multi-model dropdowns in Sider, Monica, NoteGPT, MaxAI, and others mean you pick a model from a list — but the request goes through the vendor's server using the vendor's key. You're picking a brand from a menu, not bringing your own key. Both have value but they're not interchangeable.

* Sources:Monica, Sider, HARPA AI, Chrome extension statistics (chrome-stats.com).