Paste one API key — articles arrive as documents in your own Payload collection.
Payload has a real REST API and a first-class API key. You paste your Payload address and a key, DraftSEO asks Payload what that key is allowed to write, and you confirm which fields hold the title, the body, the slug and the featured image. Articles then arrive as documents in your own collection — written as Lexical rich text or as raw HTML to match the field you mapped — with every image uploaded into your own media collection. Payload is headless, so your own front end displays the article; you tell DraftSEO the address pattern your posts live at.
| Connection | Payload API key — enable useAPIKey on a collection, then generate the key |
|---|---|
| Versions | Payload 3 and Payload 2 — self-hosted or Payload Cloud |
| Body formats | Lexical rich text · HTML — matched to the field you mapped |
| Image hosting | Your own media collection — uploaded, never hot-linked |
| Publish modes | Auto · draft · scheduled — drafts need versions.drafts on the collection |
Who does what
Nothing — once the key is pasted and the fields are mapped, documents appear in your collection and your site shows them. Want to review first? Send them as drafts and publish from the Payload admin.
Works with whatever your collection and its fields are called.
Setup
In your payload.config.ts set auth: { useAPIKey: true } on your users collection and redeploy. This is a one-time code change — Payload has no switch for it in the admin.
~2 minutes
Open the Payload admin, go to your own user, tick Enable API Key, generate it and copy it.
~1 minute
Connect a site → Payload → paste your site address, the key and the collection the key lives in. DraftSEO lists the collections it is allowed to write to.
~1 minute
Confirm which fields hold the title, body, slug and featured image, and tell DraftSEO where posts appear, e.g. https://www.yoursite.com/posts/{slug}.
~2 minutes
FAQ
That is how Payload works: API keys are switched on per collection in payload.config.ts with auth: { useAPIKey: true }, and the setting only takes effect after you redeploy. Once it is on, generating and copying the key is done entirely in the admin panel.
Yes. DraftSEO writes a real Lexical document — headings, lists, quotes, links, images and horizontal rules — using the nodes Payload enables by default, so the article stays fully editable in the admin afterwards. A plain textarea field holding HTML works too; DraftSEO detects which one you mapped.
In your own Payload upload collection, wherever you have configured it to store files — local disk, S3, R2 or another adapter. Each image is uploaded before the document is written, so the published article never loads images from our servers.
Yes, if your collection has Draft & Publish (versions: { drafts: true }). Without it Payload has no unpublished state at all, so DraftSEO refuses to save a draft rather than quietly putting the article live on your site.
Payload encrypts API keys with PAYLOAD_SECRET, so rotating it invalidates every key at once. Generate a new key in the admin and paste it into DraftSEO to reconnect.
No card required. Images hosted in your own media collection.