> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.gladia.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Authentication

> Use your API key to authenticate your calls

### Signing Up

You will first need to create your account. Sign-up to [app.gladia.io](https://app.gladia.io/?utm_campaign=197609689-Website\&utm_source=documentation\&utm_content=sign-up). You can sign-up through Google
and more sign-up methods will be available in the near feature.

### Get your API key

Now that you signed up, login to app.gladia.io and go to the [API keys section](https://app.gladia.io/apikeys). We should have already
created a default key for you. You can use this one or create your own.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/gladia-95/dCtyYcUded_eabB9/assets/images/account-api-keys.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=dCtyYcUded_eabB9&q=85&s=1f2e37c25940ef956aa7476fdeba6ce8" width="2574" height="1030" data-path="assets/images/account-api-keys.png" />
</Frame>

<Tip>Gladia offers 10 Hours of free audio transcription per month if you want to test the service!</Tip>

With your API key, you're now ready to use Gladia APIs.

## Authenticate your API calls

Once you got your API key, pass it in the header `x-gladia-key`, like this:

```bash theme={"system"}
curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.gladia.io/v2/transcription \
  --header 'x-gladia-key: YOUR_GLADIA_API_KEY'
```

The header authentication method ensure that you are able to use Gladia in any environment or any cloud-based third party
service.

This is the **only** authentication method you'll need to use all the API endpoints.

Next, we'll see what's the general pre-recorded flow and how to manage it on your side.