OpenClaw cost per month: VPS plus model API

Short answer (checked 4 Oct 2026): OpenClaw's own DigitalOcean guide runs it on a 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM Droplet at about $6 a month, with swap added. The model API is billed separately and depends on how much you use it. OpenClaw needs Node 24.16+ or 26.1+. Sources: docs.openclaw.ai/install/digitalocean, docs.openclaw.ai/install.

OpenClaw itself is open source; the running costs are the server and the model API. This page splits them. Everything is from OpenClaw's docs and vendor price pages checked on 4 Oct 2026. We did not run it ourselves and have no search-volume data.

What OpenClaw's docs say

• Requirements: Node 24.16+ or 26.1+, on macOS, Linux or Windows (docs.openclaw.ai/install).
• Its DigitalOcean guide runs the Gateway on a Basic Droplet with 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM and 25 GB SSD, about $6 a month, with swap added, and says to prefer API models because local models do not fit in 1 GB (guide).
• Project status: github.com/openclaw/openclaw. We could not verify the project's current status (whether it is actively maintained). Stars, releases and commit dates change often, and the data our tools returned was a cached copy of unknown age, so we do not print them. Open the repository for current numbers.

VPS cost per month

DigitalOcean Basic $6.00 (1 vCPU, 1 GiB), $12.00 (1 vCPU, 2 GiB), $18.00 (2 vCPUs, 2 GiB), $24.00 (2 vCPUs, 4 GiB); per year multiply by 12: $72, $144, $216, $288. Hostinger KVM 1 shows $6.49/mo with a stated renewal of $11.99/mo ($143.88 a year). Sources: DigitalOcean, Hostinger, checked 4 Oct 2026.

Model API cost (separate from the VPS)

If the agent calls a hosted model, the model provider bills you per token. Anthropic's pricing page (platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing, checked 4 Oct 2026) lists, per million tokens (MTok), input and output prices of: Claude Haiku 4.5 $1 and $5, Claude Sonnet 5.5 $2 and $10, Claude Opus 5.5 $4 and $20. Other providers have their own prices; we did not check them for this page, so they are not shown.

Your real usage depends on what the agent does, and we did not measure any agent. To show the arithmetic, assume an illustration of 5 million input tokens and 1 million output tokens in a month. That is not a typical or measured figure. Monthly API cost = 5 x input price + 1 x output price: Haiku 4.5 = 5 x $1 + 1 x $5 = $10; Sonnet 5.5 = 5 x $2 + 1 x $10 = $20; Opus 5.5 = 5 x $4 + 1 x $20 = $40. Prompt caching and other discounts are ignored.

VPS prices: digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets, checked 4 Oct 2026. Multiply any total by 12 for a year; tax and backups are not included.

The guide's $6 plan with Sonnet 5.5 under the illustration comes to $26 a month, or $312 a year. Change the token assumption and the API part changes with it; the server part stays at $6.

More VPS plans with specs and per-year prices are on the VPS specs and cost page. How we check prices: editorial policy.