What does a Brave Search key unlock in BackTalk?

It turns on monitoring for Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, and Reddit (as a fallback), the platforms without a usable public search API. Sources with their own APIs don't need it.

How much does a Brave Search key cost?

Billed by Brave, not BackTalk. It's a single metered Search plan: $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 of free credit every month (roughly the first 1,000 requests). A card is required even for the free credit.

Why does a Brave-powered platform show no results?

Confirm the key is saved (green card), that you have keywords set, and that your Brave plan is active. Brave rate-limits per plan, which can also slow very large keyword sets.

Is my API key stored securely?

Your key is encrypted at rest and only decrypted server-side at the moment it's used. The plaintext never reaches your browser and is never logged. Settings shows only a masked hint.

Brave Search key

Some of the places developers talk have no usable public search API. BackTalk reaches them with a Brave Search key: one metered web index that covers them all.

What it unlocks

A Brave key turns on monitoring for:

Substack
Medium
LinkedIn
Reddit, used as a fallback when no dedicated Reddit credentials are configured on the deployment.

Sources with their own APIs (Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Overflow, YouTube, Bluesky, …) don't need this key. Without a Brave key, the platforms above are simply skipped during a sync.

Get your API key

Go to the Brave Search API dashboard and sign up.
Subscribe to the Search plan. A card is required, but Brave applies $5 of free credit every month (roughly the first 1,000 requests) before charging.
Open API Keys and create a key. It looks like BSA….

Add it in BackTalk

Go to Settings and find the Brave Search card under Search platforms.
Select the Search plan (it drives the in-app cost estimate) and paste your BSA… key.
Save. BackTalk runs one test query to confirm the key works, then stores it encrypted.

Plans & cost

You're billed by Brave, not BackTalk; the plan you pick here only sets the cost estimate shown in Settings. Each watched platform costs roughly one query per keyword per sync.

Brave retired its standalone free tier in early 2026. Web search is now a single metered plan:

Search: $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 of free credit every month (roughly the first 1,000 requests). A card is required even to use the free credit.

Brave also sells Answers and Enterprise products, but BackTalk only uses the web-search endpoint, so Search is the plan to pick.

Watching more keywords and platforms uses more requests against the monthly credit, so keep an eye on the usage ledger in Settings.

Troubleshooting

"The provider rejected that API key." The key is wrong, or the subscription isn't active yet. Confirm a plan is selected in the Brave dashboard, then recreate the key.
Rate-limit / 429 errors. Brave throttles requests per plan tier, and heavy keyword sets can hit it. Spread out or reduce keywords, or move to a higher Brave tier.
A platform still shows nothing. Confirm the key is saved (green card) and that you have keywords set; Brave-powered platforms only sync once a valid key is in place.

Your key stays private. It's encrypted at rest and only decrypted server-side at sync time. It is never returned to your browser and never logged. Settings shows only a masked hint.

Rotating your key: create a new key in the Brave dashboard, paste it into Settings to replace the old one, then delete the previous key in Brave.