SyntaxCue BYOK Cost Pass-Through

SyntaxCue's $79 one-time license covers unlimited use for 6 months, but every hint stream bills the client's own OpenAI or Anthropic key. That split is the whole margin model: the agency charges a flat retainer for setup and coaching, while token spend lands on the client's card and never touches agency gross margin. A coaching agency running the $1,800 Interview Starter Kit at 16 hours of setup keeps that fee intact because inference cost sits outside the invoice. The failure mode is bundling tokens into a fixed retainer, which turns a variable cost into an agency liability that scales with every mock interview. Price the license and labor as the deliverable, route the key to the client on day one, and the retainer stays predictable across the full 6-month window.