Ways to access AI in Zoho Social: Zia Credits & BYOK explained

Ways to access AI in Zoho Social: Zia Credits & BYOK explained

Zia, Zoho's built-in AI assistant, empowers you to create and manage content more efficiently by offering caption suggestions, rephrasing existing content, and providing creative inputs that align with your brand’s tone. Whether you're composing posts or responding to customers, Zia helps simplify your workflow and adds a layer of personalization to every interaction, making social media management faster, smarter, and more impactful.

Learn more about how Zia helps with publishing

Permissions and accessibility

The Portal Admin and Brand Admin have the authority to assign these permissions to individual users. Only users who have been granted Zia permissions will be able to use its features. 
Notes
Note:
  1. If Zia permissions are not enabled for a user, the AI features will not be accessible to them even if the credits are available.
To grant users access to Zia’s AI features:
  1. Navigate to Settings -> Roles & Preferences.
  2. Find the role you want to modify and check the Zia box next to it to enable AI access for users assigned to that role.

Ways to Access AI in Zoho Social

Zia can be accessed in two different ways within Zoho Social:

  1. Using Zia Credits

This is Zoho’s built-in AI assistant where users can access AI features through a credit-based model, with credits included as part of their subscription plan.

   2. Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) – OpenAI Integration

 Zoho Social also supports integration with OpenAI using the BYOK model, where users can connect their own OpenAI account by entering a valid API key.


Notes
Note:
  1. Zia Credits will be the default AI option in Zoho Social. In case you exhaust your allocated credits for the month, you can switch to the BYOK model and continue using AI features through your own OpenAI account.
  2. AI Credits are not available in the EU, South Africa, and UAE data centers due to region-specific regulations.


What are Zia credits?

Zia Credits are prepaid units that measure your usage of AI features within Zoho Social, and are included as part of your subscription plan at no additional cost. Each time you use an AI feature, a certain number of credits will be deducted from your account. For example, if you request Zia to write a caption for your social media post, it may consume one credit. However, credit consumption is dynamic and depends on the extent of your AI request; longer or more detailed outputs may require additional credits.

Notes
Note:
  1. The number of credits consumed will be based on the complexity or length of the content generated. 
  2. The credits will be renewed at the beginning of every month. Unused credits do not carry over to the next month. Once a new month begins, your credit count resets based on your plan.

Zia credit allocation per plan

Zia credits will be allocated based on your Zoho Social subscription plan. Each plan comes with a predefined number of credits. 

Notes
Note:
  1. Users on the Free plan will not have access to the Zia tab in Settings. While the Compose with Zia button will appear in the New Post window. Details such as total credits and credits consumed will not be displayed in the generated content window          

Plan
Credits per month

Free

5

Standard

40

Professional

40

Premium

80

Agency

80

Agency plus

80

Zia credit calculation

Whenever you change your Zoho Social plan, your Zia credits are recalculated instantly. Your new credit balance is automatically recalculated based on the credits already used in the current month and the monthly limit of the updated plan.

Now, let’s look at three scenarios that explain how credits will be calculated when switching between plans. 

In these examples imagine;
  1. Plan A offers 80 credits 
  2. Plan B offers 40 credits.
Scenario
Plan Change
Used Credits
New Plan Limit
Calculation
Final Available Credits
Switching from a higher plan to a lower plan
Plan A→ Plan B
25
40
40 − 25
15 credits
Used credits exceed the new plan’s limit
Plan A → Plan B
42
40
40 − 42 = −2 → Reset to 0
0 credits
Switching from a lower plan to a higher plan
Plan B → Plan A
20
80
80 − 20
60 credits

How to access Zia credit

To access Zia inside Social
  1. Navigate to Settings -> Preferences -> Create with Zia.
  2. Click the AI credits for Zoho Social button to access Zia



  3. Enable Compose with Zia to access Zia in the compose window.
  4. Enable Reply to an inbox interaction using Zia to access Zia in the Inbox tab. 



  5. Read the data privacy notice thoroughly and click on the Proceed button.


Availability and usage of Zia credits

To check the availability of Zia credit:
  1. Navigate to Settings -> Preferences -> Create with Zia.
  2. Navigate to the AI credits for Zoho Social tab to view the remaining credits.



To check the usage

Click View Details. A breakdown of your credit usage will be displayed, including the following information:
  1. Date and Time  - Displays when credit was used.
  2. Consumed By - Shows the name of the user who used the credit
  3. Category - Indicates the type of AI activity, such as image generation or content generation
  4. Credits Consumed - Reflects the number of credits deducted for that specific action


To check credit consumption for a specific action

Once a prompt is submitted and the AI generates an output, the result window will display the total credits used for that specific action along with the remaining credits available for the month.


BYOK model integrated with open AI

Zoho Social's BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) model allows users to integrate their own OpenAI account directly with the platform. Through this setup, users can connect Zoho Social to OpenAI by entering their secret API key obtained from the OpenAI Platform.  

You can view your available credits in the usage section of the OpenAI platform.

To obtain API key  

  1. Go to the OpenAI Key Platform.
  2. Either log in or sign up.
  3. Click +Create new secret key.
  4. You can enter a name to identify your secret key.
  5. Click Create secret key.
  6. Copy the key and click Done. 

To access Zia, powered by OpenAI inside Social 

  1. Navigate to Settings -> Preference -> Create with Zia.
  2. Enable BYOK by entering the secret key generated from the OpenAI platform to access Zia.



  3. Enable Compose with Zia to access Zia in the compose window.
  4. Enable Reply to an inbox interaction using Zia to access Zia in the Inbox tab. 
  5. Read the data privacy notice thoroughly and click the Proceed button.


Notes
Note: 
  1. Zoho Social currently accepts only one key per organization.
  2. When a user deletes their API key, they will need to add a new key the next time they want to use the BYOK model.
  3. A confirmation popup will appear before the key is deleted.
  4. Only the user who added the key, along with Portal Admins, can edit or delete the API key.

Data Privacy and Sharing

Some of your data may be collected by the OpenAI platform to improve its functionality and to give you a more personalized experience. The type of data collected and what it will be used depends on the product you're using and its privacy policy. Zoho Social will only share the information that is entered as a prompt inside of Social with Open AI. This is done only after users provide their consent through the privacy policy notice before they access the Compose with Zia feature for the first time.