How Much Does OpenClaw Cost? Full Pricing Guide

Introduction

One of the most common questions new OpenClaw users ask is: "How much is this going to cost me?" The short answer is that OpenClaw itself is completely free. But "free to download" and "free to run" are different things. Understanding the full cost picture — API fees, hardware, hosting, and potential for runaway costs — is essential before running an autonomous agent that makes API calls on your behalf around the clock.

This guide breaks down every cost component honestly, including the scenarios where OpenClaw can accidentally generate surprising bills, and the strategies to keep costs predictable and reasonable.

OpenClaw Is Free & Open Source

OpenClaw is distributed under an open-source license on GitHub. There is no software license fee, no monthly subscription to OpenClaw itself, no freemium tier with locked features. You download it, you run it, you extend it, and you pay nothing to the OpenClaw project. This is a fundamental difference from commercial AI platforms and one of the primary reasons for its explosive community adoption.

As a foundation project (following its transition in February 2026), OpenClaw remains committed to the open-source model. The Foundation is supported through donations, corporate sponsorships, and OpenAI's strategic backing — not through charging end users. Your usage of OpenClaw is entirely free from a software perspective.

What you do pay for is the intelligence layer (LLM API usage), the hardware to run the agent on, and optionally the cloud hosting or VPS if you're not running on a local machine. Let's break each of these down.

LLM API Costs

LLM API costs are the most variable and potentially most significant expense. They depend on three factors: which model you use, how much you use the agent (conversations and heartbeat cycles), and the length of your prompts and responses.

API pricing for major providers as of early 2026 (approximate, subject to change):

The most important cost-control insight: model selection matters enormously. Running a Claude Opus agent for 30-minute heartbeat cycles generates roughly $1–3/day in API costs — perhaps $50–90/month — purely from automated background tasks. Switching to Claude Haiku for those same tasks reduces that to under $5/month. For most heartbeat tasks (checking server status, summarizing news, monitoring conditions), cheaper models perform perfectly well.

One documented cautionary tale: a power user reported burning through 180 million tokens in a matter of weeks after enabling aggressive heartbeat monitoring with an expensive model and accidentally creating a feedback loop in their task configuration. With frontier model pricing, that represents hundreds of dollars. Always set spending limits with your API provider before running an autonomous agent.

Hardware & Hosting Costs

OpenClaw needs a machine to run on. Your options span a wide range:

Your existing laptop or desktop: Zero additional hardware cost, but your agent goes offline when you close the lid or power off the machine. Fine for testing and part-time use. Not suitable for 24/7 operation or heartbeat monitoring.

Dedicated hardware — Mac Mini: The community's most popular recommendation for always-on OpenClaw getting it running. An M4 Mac Mini starts at around $600, consumes under 10 watts at idle, runs silently, and can be left on permanently. One-time hardware cost with no monthly fee. For heavy cloud API use, the Mac Mini pays for itself in a year compared to an equivalent VPS.

Raspberry Pi 5: The budget option. A Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM costs around $80 plus a power supply and SD card (~$30). Total investment: around $120. It runs OpenClaw with cloud models well, though it's too slow for local model inference beyond tiny models.

Cloud VPS: If you don't want to manage physical hardware, a small VPS from DigitalOcean, Linode, or Hetzner costs $5–20/month depending on specs. This is the most flexible option — accessible from anywhere, easy to upgrade. Monthly cost is ongoing but predictable.

Real-World Cost Examples

Let's model three typical usage patterns to give you concrete expectations:

The Light User ($5–15/month): Uses OpenClaw for occasional tasks and a simple morning briefing heartbeat. Runs on a Mac Mini they already own. Uses GPT-4o Mini for most tasks, GPT-4o for complex ones. Heartbeat runs every 60 minutes. Total: ~$5–15/month in API costs, near-zero hardware cost (amortized).

The Power User ($30–60/month): Active heartbeat monitoring of servers, finances, and calendar. Regular interactive use for work tasks. Runs on a Mac Mini. Uses Claude Haiku for heartbeat tasks, Claude Opus for complex interactive work. Total: ~$30–60/month in API costs.

The Enterprise Automator ($100–300/month): Multiple agents running in parallel across different departments. High-frequency heartbeat. Using frontier models for quality. Runs on a managed VPS with redundancy. Total: $100–300/month including hosting and API costs. Justified by the labor costs it replaces.

If you switch fully to local models via Ollama on a Mac Mini with 16GB RAM, your recurring monthly cost is essentially zero — just electricity (roughly $1–2/month for a Mac Mini at typical usage).

Cost-Saving Strategies

Five strategies that meaningfully reduce OpenClaw operating costs:

1. Use cheap models for heartbeat tasks. Most automated monitoring tasks don't require frontier model intelligence. Configure a cheaper model specifically for heartbeat cycles and reserve expensive models for interactive conversations.
2. Set API spending limits immediately. Both OpenAI and Anthropic allow monthly spending caps. Set one before your agent starts running unattended. A $30 cap lets you test freely without risk of surprises.
3. Extend the heartbeat interval. Going from 30-minute to 60-minute heartbeat cycles cuts background API usage by 50%. For most monitoring tasks, hourly checks are sufficient.
4. Use local models for privacy-sensitive tasks. If you're processing confidential data, you should be using local models anyway. The privacy benefit and zero API cost reinforce each other.
5. Optimize prompt efficiency. Long system prompts and bloated memory files increase every request's token count. Periodically prune your memory files and tighten your system prompt to keep context windows lean.

vs. SaaS AI Tools

How does OpenClaw's total cost of ownership compare to SaaS alternatives? It depends heavily on what you're replacing:

Compared to ChatGPT Plus ($20/month): OpenClaw costs more if you're a heavy user of expensive models. It costs less (or nothing) if you use local models or cheaper cloud models for most tasks. OpenClaw adds autonomous capabilities that ChatGPT doesn't offer at any price.

Compared to Zapier (automation, $19–49/month): For equivalent automation workflows, OpenClaw is typically cheaper once you own the hardware. Zapier has a polished UI and requires no technical setup; OpenClaw requires configuration but offers far more flexibility and AI-native intelligence.

Compared to a human virtual assistant ($500–2000/month): OpenClaw is dramatically cheaper. For the categories of work it can handle autonomously — monitoring, scheduling, summarizing, routine communications — the cost-effectiveness vs. human labor is extraordinary.

Wrapping Up

OpenClaw is free. Running it isn't — but the costs are manageable, predictable, and controllable with basic configuration hygiene. The most important actions: set API spending limits before your agent goes live, choose models appropriate to each task's complexity, and consider whether local model deployment makes sense for your use case. Done right, OpenClaw can replace hours of human work for $10–50 per month — an ROI that's hard to match with any other tool in 2026.