Yes. OpenClaw is free software: it costs nothing to download or use under the MIT license, business use included, and its own site says "No subscription. No hosted tier." Running it is what costs money. You pay for the AI model it thinks with, a computer that stays on, any paid tools it uses, and the hours someone spends keeping it current.
At prices we read on each company's own page on November 12, 2026, the cash side of a small setup runs from nothing extra to about $32 a month, and it climbs with how much work the agent does. The time side is usually bigger. OpenClaw shipped 11 regular updates in the 31 days to November 11, and each one needs a person.
| Line on the bill | What it covers | Price read November 12, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| The software | OpenClaw itself | $0 under the MIT license, business use included |
| The AI model | The thinking it does for you | A ChatGPT plan you already have (Plus is $20 a month), or pay per use |
| The computer | A machine that stays awake | $0 if you own one, $6 to $12 a month rented, a Mac mini from $899 |
| Paid tools | Web search and similar services | Brave Search: up to $20 of searches free each month, then prepaid |
| The person | Updates, access and fixes | Your hours: 11 regular updates in 31 days, plus checking its work |
The first four lines are published numbers you can look up. The last one is the line nobody can quote for you, and it usually decides whether running OpenClaw yourself was the cheap option. The worksheet further down puts your own figures next to the published ones.
Is OpenClaw free to use?
Yes, for a person or a business. OpenClaw is released under the MIT license, which lets anyone use, copy, change and even sell the software without paying, as long as the copyright notice stays with it. The license file is in the project's public code. There is nothing to trial and no seat to buy.
OpenClaw's home page is plain about it: "No subscription. No hosted tier." It also says the project is "Stewarded by an independent 501(c)(3)," a nonprofit.
The software being free does not make the assistant free, though. An agent that sorts your inbox and sends you a morning summary uses a paid AI model every time it works, on a computer that has to stay on, and someone has to keep it updated. Our OpenClaw review for business owners covers what the software is good at. This guide is only about the bill.
How much does OpenClaw cost per month?
For one agent doing light work, the cash cost runs from nothing extra to about $32 a month at published prices on November 12, 2026. The low end is a computer you already own plus a ChatGPT plan you already pay for. The top of that range is ChatGPT Plus plus a rented machine at OpenClaw's recommended size. Heavy work on a top AI model costs more, and your team's time comes on top of every option.
| Example setup | Cash cost a month | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| A computer you own, plus the ChatGPT Plus plan you already pay for | $0 extra | The agent pauses when that computer sleeps or restarts |
| A rented 2 GB machine, plus ChatGPT Plus | About $32 ($12 plus $20) | Someone on your side installs and updates it |
| A managed host with AI credits built in | $4.99 on Hostinger's 24-month sale price, plus credits | You live with the host's renewal price and credit prices |
These are examples to show the shape of the bill, not quotes. Hostinger's managed OpenClaw plan asks $119.76 up front for 24 months in its November sale and renews at $9.99 a month, and its AI credits are topped up from its own dashboard. Prices like these change often, so read the page before you pay.
What does the AI model cost?
The model is the line that moves the most. OpenClaw gives you three ways to pay for it: sign in with a ChatGPT plan, use a Claude plan through Claude Code, or pay an AI company per use. For a computer that runs the agent around the clock, OpenClaw's own setup guide on signing in to AI models calls a pay-as-you-go account the most predictable choice.
Signing in with ChatGPT is the easiest place to start if you already pay for it. OpenClaw's hosting and providers FAQ answers "Yes, fully" when asked whether it supports a ChatGPT subscription, and says OpenAI explicitly allows that use in outside tools like OpenClaw. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month, and the Pro plans are $100, $200 and $500. The catch is the allowance. The FAQ warns that a plan's usage windows "can differ from the ChatGPT website/app experience, even on the same account," so a busy agent can run through a plan faster than you would expect from chatting.
Claude works through a Claude Code login on the same computer. OpenClaw's page on Claude says that work comes out of your Claude plan's own limits, that pay-as-you-go billing suits shared or predictable work better, and that Anthropic can change how plan usage works without any change on OpenClaw's side.
Paying per use means the AI company bills by how much the agent reads and writes, counted in tokens, which are roughly three quarters of a word each. Here are the standard rates for five common models, from Anthropic's price list and OpenAI's:
| Model | Per million read | Per million written |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | $0.10 | $0.50 |
| GPT-6 Luna | $0.10 | $0.50 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $4.00 | $20.00 |
Haiku's rate is for shorter requests; very long ones cost more. To see what the spread means, take a made-up job that reads about a million and writes a hundred thousand in a month. It costs $0.15 a month on Haiku 5.5 or GPT-6 Luna, $3 on Sonnet 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol, and $6 on Opus 5.5. The volumes are an example, not a measurement, but the ratio is real: the same chore costs 40 times more on the top model. Picking the model per job is the biggest saving you control here. Which AI model to use for which job works through that choice, and our AI price dataset tracks the current rates from each company's own page.
Can you run OpenClaw for free?
In cash, yes. A computer you already own, an AI model running on that computer, and a search tool that needs no account add up to $0 a month. OpenClaw's own help pages advise against the free model for most use, though, so treat the free route as a way to try OpenClaw, not a way to run a business job.
The same providers FAQ asks whether a model running on your own computer is fine for casual chats, and answers "Usually no." Small models lose track of long conversations and skip the safety filters the big AI companies run, and the FAQ adds that smaller models are easier to trick with instructions hidden in an email or a web page. If you must run one yourself, it says, run the largest you can. Larger models need more memory. Apple's Mac mini starts at $899, and the M5 Pro version, which Apple sells for "higher memory options for demanding workflows," starts at $1,699.
Search can be free. OpenClaw's setup FAQ lists DuckDuckGo as a search option that needs no account, and labels it unofficial. Brave's search service gives up to $20 of searches free each month and then sells prepaid credits, with no subscription.
What does the computer cost?
Nothing, if you use a computer you already own and keep it awake. OpenClaw's FAQ says you do not need to buy a Mac mini. Its minimum is one processor core, 1 GB of memory and about 500 MB of disk, and it recommends 2 GB or more. A rented machine that size costs $6 to $12 a month.
The choice between your own computer and a rented one comes down to whether the agent must work around the clock. The FAQ puts it simply: rent a machine for reliability around the clock, or run it on your own computer for the least hassle if you are fine with it pausing when the computer sleeps or restarts. DigitalOcean's price list shows $6 a month for a 1 GB machine and $12 for 2 GB. Its $4 machine has 512 MB of memory, which is under OpenClaw's minimum.
If you would rather someone else keep the machine running, OpenClaw hosting and what each host charges lists the managed options with their published prices and what each one leaves to you.
What does OpenClaw cost in your team's time?
Usually more than any other line. From October 12 to November 11, 2026, OpenClaw published 11 regular updates, 5 more for an older version it still supports, and 10 test versions, by our count of its public release list. Someone has to read what changed, apply the update and check the agent still works.
That is a regular update about every three days. Each one comes with notes to read, and some fix problems an earlier update caused. The notes for version 2026.11.1, published November 5, list a fix for crashes in the automatic recovery step when updating from three of October's versions. Whoever applies updates needs to be comfortable reading notes like that and putting things right when an update goes wrong. This is not special to OpenClaw: Hermes Agent, the free agent our own company runs on, published 10 releases in the same 31 days.
Updates are only part of the hours. Someone also decides what the agent may touch, which our OpenClaw security guide breaks into eight questions. And someone reads its work, because the expensive hour is the one after a wrong answer that nobody caught for two days.
Our 17 agents run on Hermes Agent, so the software line on our own bill is $0 too, and the hours are what we plan for. After the first month, we budget two to four hours a month per agent for checking and fixing. That is our own planning rule rather than an industry figure, and a first agent usually takes longer while you learn what it gets wrong. On October 11, one routine update to our own setup left every one of our agents unable to reach its AI model until a stopgap went in 44 minutes later. What Hermes Agent costs a small business to run has that story and the rest of our numbers.
Price those hours at what the person doing them costs you, including payroll taxes and the work they set aside. For example, three hours a month at $60 an hour is $180, more than all the cash lines of a small setup put together.
Your OpenClaw cost worksheet
Fill in your own numbers. The first three lines you can look up. The last two you have to estimate honestly, and they are the point of the exercise.
| Line | How to work it out | Your number |
|---|---|---|
| The AI model | Your ChatGPT or Claude plan, or last month's pay-per-use bill | |
| The computer | $0 if you own one, $6 to $12 rented, or a host's monthly price | |
| Paid tools | Search or other paid services the agent uses, after any free allowance | |
| Setup time | Hours to decide its job, connect your tools and test it, times your hourly cost, spread over 12 months | |
| Upkeep time | Hours a month on updates, checks and fixes, times your hourly cost | |
| Your monthly total |
Now put that total next to having it done for you. Our build starts at $2,500 one time, including 16 implementation hours, and hosting and maintenance start at $475 a month, with the agents on their own private server and the monitoring and updates handled by us. If your two time lines cost more than the gap between your cash total and that price, running it yourself is the more expensive option, paid in hours nobody invoices.
One caution on your own arithmetic: setup hours get underestimated, because deciding what the agent should do is thinking work that does not feel like work. And the upkeep hours belong to one specific person who already has a job.
When is running OpenClaw yourself the cheaper choice?
Running it yourself is cheaper when the person running it has the hours and the job can tolerate a bad day. When neither is true, paying someone usually costs less than it looks.
| Your situation | Cheaper route | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You want help with your own inbox, and you enjoy tinkering | Run it yourself | Your hours cost little if you like spending them |
| Someone on staff knows software and has a few hours a month | Run it yourself, with that person as owner | The time line has a name on it |
| The job is shared or touches customers, and nobody can own updates | A host plus a named owner, or done for you | A host takes the machine, not the job |
| It would touch payments, client records or anything regulated | Settle the safety questions first | Mistakes here cost more than any line above |
If you are still picking between the two best-known free agents, Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw compares them for a business, and the bill has the same lines either way.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenClaw still free?
Yes, as of November 12, 2026. Its home page still says "No subscription. No hosted tier." Because OpenClaw sells no hosted plan, anything called an OpenClaw cloud is another company running the free software for you. GetOpenClaw.ai, for example, advertised its own OpenClaw Cloud at $49 a month that day. The project's own site is openclaw.ai.
Is OpenClaw free for commercial use?
Yes. The MIT license lets a business use, change and sell work built on OpenClaw without paying, as long as the copyright and license notice stay with the software. You still pay the AI company, the computer and any paid tools, the same as anyone else.
Can I use my ChatGPT subscription with OpenClaw?
Yes. OpenClaw's FAQ says it fully supports signing in with a ChatGPT plan and that OpenAI allows it. Plus is $20 a month. Expect the agent's usage limits to differ from what you see in the ChatGPT app, and move to pay-per-use if the agent keeps running out.
Is Brave Search free for OpenClaw?
Up to a point. Brave gives up to $20 of searches free each month, then you buy prepaid credits. OpenClaw also works with DuckDuckGo search without an account, which its FAQ calls unofficial.
Is OpenClaw cheaper than Hermes Agent?
Neither costs anything to download, and both bills have the same lines: the model, the computer, paid tools and your time. The difference is that Hermes Agent's maker, Nous Research, sells its own plans, while OpenClaw has no hosted tier. What Hermes Agent costs to run has those plan prices.
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