OpenClaw itself is open-source and free. Your costs are Fly.io compute + AI API usage. Here's the honest breakdown.

Cost Components

1. Fly.io Compute

Fly.io charges for the VMs running your bot.

| Plan | Specs | Price | |------|-------|-------| | Free | 2 VMs, 160MB RAM each | $0 | | Starter | 1x shared CPU, 512MB | $5/month | | Standard | 1x shared CPU, 1GB | $10/month | | Performance | 1x dedicated CPU, 2GB | $20/month |

For most personal bots: $5-10/month. For production bots: $10-20/month.

2. AI API Costs

You pay your AI provider directly. OpenClaw doesn't markup AI API costs.

| Model | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | |-------|-----------|-------------| | GPT-4o-mini | $0.15 | $0.60 | | GPT-4o | $5.00 | $15.00 | | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | $3.00 | $15.00 | | Gemini 1.5 Flash | $0.075 | $0.30 |

Example: 5,000 conversations/day, 1000 tokens each:

5M tokens/day
GPT-4o-mini: $0.75/day = $22.50/month

3. Optional: Managed Services

Database: Neon free tier or $10/month
Auth: Clerk free tier or $25/month
Monitoring: Sentry free tier or $0

Total Monthly Cost Scenarios

Personal bot (100 users):

Fly.io: $5/month
AI API (GPT-4o-mini): $10/month
Database: $0 (Neon free)
Total: ~$15/month

Small product (1000 users):

Fly.io: $10/month
AI API: $50/month
Database: $10/month
Total: ~$70/month

Growing product (10K users):

Fly.io: $20/month
AI API: $300/month (optimized with routing)
Database: $25/month
Total: ~$345/month

How to Minimize Costs

Use GPT-4o-mini for simple queries — saves 95% vs GPT-4o
Enable caching — 20-40% fewer API calls
Set usage limits — prevent runaway costs
Monitor usage — set up billing alerts

OpenClaw Pricing Explained: What You Actually Pay