In this guide
Many WordPress AI chatbot plugins ask you to paste in your own API key from an AI provider such as OpenAI. That works, but it means a second bill metered by tokens, a secret key to look after, and settings you manage yourself. If you'd rather not, pick a plugin whose service runs the AI for you, so installing it is a Connect button, not a key. Ours works that way: upload the plugin, press Connect, sign in, and the chat is live with your pages already being read.
Bring-your-own-key isn't a bad design, and for some sites it's the better one. This post explains the trade-off fairly, then walks through installing our plugin step by step. The short version is on our WordPress install page.
Why so many WordPress chatbot plugins ask for an API key
A plugin that asks for your key is usually a front end. It draws the chat bubble on your site, sends each visitor question to the AI provider using your account, and shows the answer. The plugin author doesn't pay for the AI; you do, directly.
That's an easy model for a plugin author to offer, because there's no server to run and no usage to bill for. It also passes three jobs to you.
A second bill, metered in tokens. OpenAI's API pricing page lists prices "per 1M tokens", with separate rates for input and output, as of October 2026. Tokens are pieces of words. A chatbot that answers from your pages usually sends some of that page text along with each question, so the input side of an answer is often longer than the visitor's question. What a month costs depends on how many people ask, how long the answers are, and which model you choose, which makes it hard to know in advance.
A secret to keep. OpenAI's API reference is direct about it: "Remember that your API key is a secret. Don't share it with others or expose it in any client-side code such as browsers or apps." A good plugin keeps the key on your server and never prints it into your pages. Still, anyone with admin access to your WordPress, and anything that can read your database, can usually get to it. If it leaks, the usage is billed to your account. It's worth setting a spending limit in your provider's dashboard if you go this route.
Setup you manage. Choosing a model, writing the instructions it follows, deciding how it should find your content, and noticing when the provider retires a model or changes a price are all yours to do. Some site owners enjoy that. Most small shops don't want another dashboard.
When bring-your-own-key is the right choice
To be fair to the other side, there are good reasons to bring your own key:
- It can be cheap at low volume. If your site gets a handful of questions a week, per-token billing on a small model can cost very little, possibly less than any monthly plan, ours included.
- You control the model. You pick which one, change it when you like, and aren't tied to a vendor's choice.
- You can see exactly what you spend. The provider's usage dashboard shows what each day cost.
If you're comfortable with an API dashboard and your traffic is small, a well-made bring-your-own-key plugin is a reasonable choice. Read its WordPress.org page to see where it stores the key and whether it sends your content anywhere besides the provider.
What "no API key" means with our plugin
With our plugin, the AI runs on our side. You don't open an account with an AI provider, there's no token bill, and there's nothing secret to paste.
The plugin does store a key, but it's a different kind. It's a public identifier for your assistant, starting with fc_, and it's printed into your pages by design so the chat knows which assistant to load. It isn't a billing credential like a provider key. The chat only answers on the web addresses saved to your assistant, and pressing Connect saves your site's address for you.
You pay us a flat monthly price for a set number of replies instead. Plans start at $49 a month for 1,000 replies on Starter, $149 for 5,000 on Growth and $449 for 20,000 on Scale. One answer is one reply, lead capture is included, and there's no fee to remove our branding. Paying yearly gets 12 months for the price of 10, and new monthly plans get 30% off their first three months. The full details are on the pricing page.
We're not the cheapest per reply. Going by their own pricing pages as of October 2026 (Botsonic, SiteGPT, Chatling), Botsonic, SiteGPT on its cheaper model and Chatling all sell more messages per dollar than our Starter plan, before you remove their branding. Our comparisons with Botsonic, SiteGPT and Chatling do the arithmetic. If you want to compare a flat plan with your own estimate of token costs, our chatbot cost calculator and our guide to chatbot pricing models help.
How to install the plugin, step by step
The plugin has been submitted to the WordPress.org plugin directory but isn't listed there yet, so for now you install it from a zip file. You need a WordPress site where you can upload plugins (an administrator account), running WordPress 6.3 or later.
- Download the plugin zip. Don't unzip it.
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins, then Add New, then press Upload Plugin at the top.
- Choose the zip file, press Install Now, then Activate.
- Go to Settings, then AI Chatbot. You'll see one button: Connect to The Biggest Nerd. (Until you connect, a small notice on the Plugins and Dashboard screens links here too.)
- Press it. You're taken to our site. Make an account, or sign in if you have one. The 3-day free trial needs no card.
- On the Connect page, press Connect yourshop.com. If you have more than one assistant, choose which one first.
- You're sent back to WordPress with the chat switched on. The notice says how many of your pages the assistant has started reading.
- Press See it on your site and look for the chat bubble in the corner. It's on every page, including posts and pages you add later.
Behind that button, three things happen that you'd otherwise do by hand: your site's address is saved to your assistant, so the chat is allowed to answer there; your sitemap is read, so the assistant learns your pages; and the assistant's public key is saved in WordPress, so the plugin can add the chat to your pages. The plugin finds the right sitemap on its own, including Yoast and Rank Math sitemaps, which live at a different address from the one WordPress makes.
If you use a caching plugin, clear the cache after connecting. WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache and LiteSpeed Cache can serve the old page for a while, without the chat on it, which looks like the install failed when it didn't.
If you already have a key from our dashboard, open "Already have a key? Paste it instead" on the same settings page. In that case, add your site's address to your assistant in the dashboard yourself, or the chat won't load.
After it's connected
The settings page then shows the chat is live, with Switch off and Disconnect buttons. Switching off or disconnecting means nothing from us loads on your site. Deleting the plugin also deletes its settings.
Everything else happens in our dashboard, which the Open dashboard button takes you to:
- Check what it learned. Look down the list of pages it read and remove any you'd rather it didn't quote, such as an old promotion. Our guide to training a chatbot on your sitemap covers which pages to leave out.
- Test it. Ask it your returns window, your hours and something your site doesn't say. It answers only from what it has read, and when the answer isn't there it says so. Our post on stopping a chatbot making up policies has a short pre-launch test.
- Watch the gaps. Questions it couldn't answer go on your list of unanswered questions, so you know which page to write next.
- Keep it current. When you change a page, press Re-read next to it in the dashboard.
If you run WooCommerce, the same plugin works. It reads your product pages from the sitemap, and you can add a Google product feed so it can answer on prices and stock. Our WooCommerce page covers that setup.
What it doesn't do
Better to know now than after the trial:
- No live chat with a person. It's an AI assistant only. When it can't help, it offers a short form, and lead capture emails you the visitor's details so you can reply.
- No orders. It can't see WooCommerce orders, so it won't answer "where's my parcel". It can point people to your order or contact page.
- No bookings. It doesn't book appointments. It can link to your booking page.
- Nothing it hasn't read. It won't guess. The chat assistant page explains how it answers from your pages.
- Not for health or legal questions. It isn't HIPAA-covered and gives no legal advice.
When the trial ends, the chat hides itself on your site until you choose a plan. Everything you taught it is kept.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a WordPress AI chatbot plugin with no API key needed?
Yes. Plugins whose service runs the AI for you don't need a provider key. Ours is one: you install it, press Connect, and sign in. You pay a flat monthly plan for a set number of replies rather than paying an AI provider per token. The only key involved is a public identifier for your assistant, which the plugin saves for you.
Is bring-your-own-key cheaper?
It can be, especially for a site with few questions, because you only pay for the tokens you use. It gets harder to predict as traffic grows, and you take on keeping the key safe and choosing the model. Compare your expected volume against flat plans with our cost calculator before deciding.
Is the plugin on WordPress.org?
Not yet. It has been submitted to the directory but isn't listed. Until it is, download the zip from our site and install it with Plugins, then Add New, then Upload Plugin.
Is it safe to put an API key in a WordPress plugin?
A well-built plugin stores the key on your server and never sends it to visitors' browsers, which is what OpenAI asks for. Anyone with admin access to your site can usually still see it, so limit admin accounts and set a spending cap with your provider. Our plugin avoids the question: the key it stores is public by design, isn't a billing credential, and the chat only answers on the addresses saved to your assistant.
Can I add the chatbot without a plugin?
Yes. Copy the script tag from your dashboard and paste it into the footer box of a header-and-footer snippet plugin. Don't paste it into your theme's footer.php, because the next theme update overwrites it. Save your site's address in the dashboard too, or the chat won't load.