# Getting started on the Free plan

The Free plan is the gateway and nothing else: you send text to the API, personal values come back as tokens, and you restore them in your answer. No card is needed. This page takes you from sign-up to your first masked request.

## What the Free plan includes

- The gateway API — `/v1/mask` and the model proxy — with the same detection as every paid plan.
- 1 M characters a month, counted by the gateway, never declared by you.
- Up to 60 requests a minute and 200 kB per request.
- One gateway key, and no limit on the people who use the account.
- Case tags for inflected languages, so the answer is restored in the right grammatical form.

### What it does not include

- The browser add-on for people using an AI chat.
- Reading scans and photographs (OCR).
- Your own formats (custom patterns).
- Agent loops (the tool gateway).
- A model-provider address of your own per key on the proxy.
- Buying characters above the monthly volume: at the cap, traffic stops until the next period.
- More than one key.

Everything on that list starts at the Starter plan. Detection quality is the same on every plan; plans differ in volume and in these features. To upgrade, open the **Billing** tab of your panel and press *Change plan*.

## 1. Open the account

1. Enter your e-mail address on [https://app.obvelo.com](https://app.obvelo.com/?plan=free), keep the plan on *free*, accept the terms and press *Send confirmation*.
2. Open the link in the message. It works once and expires; it carries no key and no password. On the page it opens, confirm the address and choose a password.
3. Sign in at [https://app.obvelo.com/panel](https://app.obvelo.com/panel) with your e-mail address and that password. Accounts opened before sign-in existed use the panel token that was shown once at confirmation instead.

## 2. Create a key

In the panel, open the **Keys** tab, give the key a label (for example the system that will use it) and press *Mint a key*. The key is shown once, at that moment: copy it into your secret store. We do not store it, log it or send it by mail, and a lost key is replaced, never recovered. The Free plan holds 1 live key.

## 3. Send your first request

Everything in this example is fictional. Put your key in the environment and call the gateway:

```
export OBVELO_KEY="paste-your-key-here"

curl https://api.obvelo.com/v1/mask \
  -H "x-obvelo-key: $OBVELO_KEY" -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Write to Jan Przykladowy at Acme, jan@acme.example."}'
```

The answer carries the masked `text`, the `map` that restores it, and `stats`. The tokens carry a random namespace, so yours will differ:

```
{
  "text": "Write to [Person AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-1] at [Company AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-2], [Email AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-3].",
  "map": {
    "[Person AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-1]": "Jan Przykladowy",
    "[Company AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-2]": "Acme",
    "[Email AG26KCY5GDJM76NS73FA6RKFNP-3]": "jan@acme.example"
  },
  "stats": { "matches": 3, "labels": ["Person", "Company", "Email"], "ms": 3.1 }
}
```

Send the masked `text` to your model provider with your own provider key. Your provider credential never reaches us. The field list and the other endpoints are in the [Direct API](https://obvelo.com/docs/#direct) section.

## 4. Restore the answer

The model's answer repeats the tokens. Put the real values back in your own process with an SDK: the SDKs only restore, masking always happens on the server, so a fix reaches every client at once. Download the TypeScript, Python or .NET SDK from [Downloads](https://obvelo.com/downloads/); the [SDK section](https://obvelo.com/docs/#sdks) shows the calls. Keep the `map` of the conversation and send it back with the next request, and a person keeps the same token across turns.

## 5. Watch your usage

The **Overview** tab shows the characters used this period against the 1 M characters the Free plan includes, and the requests counted. The amount comes from the gateway's counter, never from a declaration. On the Free plan there is no overage to buy: at the cap, traffic stops until the next period or until you change plan.

## Manage the account

| to do this | open this tab |
| --- | --- |
| Rotate or revoke a key, mint a new one | **Keys** |
| Choose countries, add groups of rules, set case-tag languages, name-model and long-text behaviour | **Masking** |
| Change plan, pay, set billing details and the VAT number, download invoices, switch the hard limit | **Billing** |
| Connect an application: proxy, SDK, MCP connector | **Install & docs** |

No plan limits the number of people on an account; what the Free plan limits is keys. Share the account with your colleagues as you would any tool, and give each system its own key once your plan allows it.

The data plane stores nothing from request content; the control plane stores contract data — accounts, plans, usage in numbers — and never sees content.

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OBVELO is a risk mitigation and control point.

© 2026 OBVELO · all example data on this site is invented

Page: https://obvelo.com/docs/getting-started/