# Get started with the API

> Create an API key, send your first detection request, and understand limits and credit usage.

Canonical page: https://winstonai.ai/help/api-quickstart

Help center: API. Updated 2026-10-10.

The API runs the same detection as the app and returns the same scores and sentence results, so you can build checks into your own tools.

## Create a key

1. Open **Settings** and select **API keys**.
2. Select **Create key**, give it a name you'll recognize later, and copy it. We show the full key only once.
3. Store it as a secret on your server. Never put it in front-end code or a public repository.

## Send a request

Request:

```
curl https://api.winstonai.ai/v1/detect \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Paste at least 40 words of text here..."}'
```

The response includes the document's human score from 0 to 100, a verdict and a result for every sentence:

Response:

```
{
  "id": "scan_8f2k1q",
  "human_score": 72,
  "verdict": "human",
  "word_count": 412,
  "credits_used": 412,
  "sentences": [
    { "text": "I burned the first three loaves.", "ai_probability": 0.04 }
  ]
}
```

## Limits and credits

- API calls use the same credit balance as the app: 1 credit per word for AI detection.
- Each request accepts up to 25,000 words.
- The default rate limit is 60 requests per minute per key. [Contact us](https://winstonai.ai/contact?topic=support) if you need more.

> **Tip:** Endpoints, error codes and webhooks are covered in full in the [API documentation](https://winstonai.ai/api-docs).