diff --git a/cmd/synthetic-monitoring-agent/main.go b/cmd/synthetic-monitoring-agent/main.go
index 3ce9fc979..de6758a60 100644
--- a/cmd/synthetic-monitoring-agent/main.go
+++ b/cmd/synthetic-monitoring-agent/main.go
@@ -62,6 +62,14 @@ func run(args []string, stdout io.Writer) error {
 		return nil
 	}
 
+	// If the token is provided on the command line, prefer that. Otherwise
+	// pull it from the environment variable SM_AGENT_API_TOKEN. If that's
+	// not available, fallback to API_TOKEN, which was the environment
+	// variable name previously used in the systemd unit files.
+	//
+	// Using API_TOKEN should be deprecated after March 1st, 2023.
+	*apiToken = stringFromEnv("API_TOKEN", stringFromEnv("SM_AGENT_API_TOKEN", *apiToken))
+
 	if *apiToken == "" {
 		return fmt.Errorf("invalid API token")
 	}
@@ -235,3 +243,11 @@ func newConnectionBackoff() *backoff.Backoff {
 		Jitter: true,
 	}
 }
+
+func stringFromEnv(name string, override string) string {
+	if override != "" {
+		return override
+	}
+
+	return os.Getenv(name)
+}
diff --git a/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.conf b/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.conf
index df71fec49..0f100dc5f 100644
--- a/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.conf
+++ b/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.conf
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 # Enter API token retrieved from grafana.com here
-API_TOKEN='YOUR TOKEN HERE'
+SM_AGENT_API_TOKEN='YOUR TOKEN HERE'
 
 # Backend API server to connect to
 API_SERVER='synthetic-monitoring-grpc.grafana.net:443' 
diff --git a/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.service b/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.service
index 9bc81fbc4..1053e742b 100644
--- a/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.service
+++ b/scripts/package/config/systemd/synthetic-monitoring-agent.service
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ Type=simple
 User=root
 Group=root
 EnvironmentFile=/etc/synthetic-monitoring/synthetic-monitoring-agent.conf
-ExecStart=/usr/bin/synthetic-monitoring-agent --api-token=${API_TOKEN} --api-server-address=${API_SERVER} --api-insecure=${API_INSECURE} --listen-address=${LISTEN_ADDRESS} --verbose=${VERBOSE} --debug=${DEBUG} --features=${FEATURES}
+ExecStart=/usr/bin/synthetic-monitoring-agent --api-server-address=${API_SERVER} --api-insecure=${API_INSECURE} --listen-address=${LISTEN_ADDRESS} --verbose=${VERBOSE} --debug=${DEBUG} --features=${FEATURES}
 Restart=always
 
 [Install]