Bientôt disponibleOpenClaw cost per month by setup: API pay-as-you-go vs your subscription vs self-host vs managed. The real monthly math, and how to avoid a $700 bill.
Molted Team
molted.cloud
"How much does OpenClaw cost per month?" has the most annoying answer in tech: it depends. But it depends on exactly one thing, how you connect the AI, and once you know that, the monthly number is easy. Here's the real math for every setup.
| Setup | Monthly cost | What you handle |
|---|---|---|
| API keys (pay-as-you-go) | $50 - $800+ | Everything, plus the bill |
| Your subscription (BYOK) | $20 (no extra API) | Everything but the AI bill |
| Self-host + subscription | $25 - $40 | Server, ops, security |
| Managed (molted) | From $14 | Nothing |
The default OpenClaw setup uses pay-as-you-go API keys. Every message, every heartbeat, every time it re-reads context, that's tokens, and tokens are metered. Now run it on crons (every hour, every morning) or hand it recurring automated tasks, and the meter never stops, that's how a setup quietly climbs into the hundreds. A power user can burn 100M+ tokens a month: $200 in a day, $623 in a month, $3,600 if you really go for it.
It's not that OpenClaw is expensive. It's that metered API pricing at scale is brutal, and most people don't need it.
If you already pay for Codex ($20/month via ChatGPT Plus), Claude Pro, or Google One AI Premium, you can connect that subscription instead of an API key. Flat rate. No per-token bill on top. Your monthly AI cost goes from "unpredictable hundreds" to the $20 you already pay.
Connect Codex in two clicks and it's the sharpest default. This single change is the difference between a $700 invoice and a $20 one.
One flat price, no API roulette
A managed OpenClaw agent from $14/month. Bring your Codex subscription, zero API bills on our side.
Self-hosting looks cheapest on paper: a $5 VPS plus your $20 subscription, call it $25/month. But that price tag ignores the real line item, your time. The weekend of setup. The security config you have to get right. The 3am crash. The update that breaks an integration. The monitoring you swear you'll add and never do.
At any hourly rate above zero, the "cheap" option is the expensive one.
molted runs OpenClaw for you from $14/month. That covers the server, the security, the 24/7 monitoring, the auto-healing, and the updates. You bring your own AI subscription, so there are no API bills on our side, you just use what you already pay for.
Total monthly cost: your existing $20 subscription, plus $14 for the managed agent. No surprise invoices, no ops, no weekend. That's the whole number.
From $14/month, your subscription, zero API surprises. Live in 2 minutes, 24-hour free trial.
24-hour free trial · no credit card · cancel anytime
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