Hardly ever have I extra appreciated the chasm between me and Silicon Valley than I’ve whereas utilizing OpenClaw.
This new AI program, which beforehand glided by Moltbot and earlier than that Clawdbot, has achieved virality over the previous week for its capacity to regulate your digital life through textual content message. It’s an unashamedly geeky device in the intervening time, however those that’ve been utilizing it have hailed it as the future of digital assistants.
There’s only one drawback: OpenClaw is exorbitantly costly to make use of. Okay, perhaps not for the AI boosters who suppose nothing of dropping $200 per 30 days on ChatGPT Professional or Claude Max. However positively for me as somebody who balks at even a $20 per 30 days AI subscription. Persevering with to make use of OpenClaw would value me much more than that, which isn’t well worth the time it saves on a handful of menial duties.
What’s Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw?
OpenClaw isn’t like different AI instruments that you just entry in an online browser or cellular app. As an alternative, you set it up in your laptop through command line directions and plug it into present AI fashions from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others. So long as your machine stays on, it’s out there.
A lot of what OpenClaw does is just like present AI assistants resembling ChatGPT and Claude. It may well reply questions, browse the online, and join with an array of third-party providers, together with your e mail and calendar. However it additionally does a number of key issues otherwise:
- It may well entry something in your laptop.
- You may entry it via common chat providers resembling WhatsApp and iMessage.
- As a result of it’s all the time working, it could possibly proactively message you and run duties robotically.
Like lots of AI instruments, OpenClaw is in the end what you make of it. And whereas I’m not essentially the most ingenious AI person, I shortly discovered a number of methods during which it may very well be extra helpful than typical AI assistants.
As an example, I gave OpenClaw entry to my weekly to-do listing board in Obsidian, which allowed it to summarize my agenda, add new objects to the listing, and take away or rearrange present objects. I might do all this simply by dictating right into a WhatsApp message.
I additionally had OpenClaw deal with the tedium of invoicing. After stating an present bill in my Obsidian vault, I requested it to create a replica and switch it into a brand new bill primarily based on a block of textual content from my FastCo creator web page.
From there I began enjoying with OpenClaw’s scheduling talents. I requested it to create a 9 a.m. roundup of Techmeme headlines that centered on shopper information and omitted issues like earnings stories and personnel adjustments. Then I had it arrange a bi-hourly digest of some completely different subreddits, thereby discouraging me from compulsively checking them throughout work hours.
At this level I used to be feeling fairly good about what OpenClaw might do, and was even trying ahead to pondering up extra concepts. Then I spotted how a lot it could value to maintain utilizing it.
Value creep
Though OpenClaw makes use of main AI fashions from firms like OpenAI and Anthropic, it doesn’t tie into their consumer-facing merchandise. As an alternative, you will need to join with these firms’ developer APIs, whose pay-as-you-go mannequin prices for each question.
A pair years in the past, after I dabbled in these APIs to generate playlists in Plexamp, every request value a fraction of a penny. Utilizing OpenClaw is wildly dearer, particularly in the event you go for Anthropic’s Opus 4.5 mannequin, because the developer recommends.
Simply getting OpenClaw arrange value me about $4, as a result of I didn’t belief it with entry to my total file system given the numerous safety issues concerned . Establishing OpenClaw’s “sandbox” mode, which helps you to select which folders it could possibly entry, took some back-and-forth troubleshooting. By the point I’d arrange my different automations, I used to be already about $10 deep.
If these have been simply one-time prices, I wouldn’t have cared an excessive amount of. However each time I requested OpenClaw something, I’d see a shocking leap on Claude API value chart. Simply asking why a specific story was excluded from its morning Techmeme roundup, as an example, value $0.64. Confirming which language mannequin OpenClaw was utilizing value one other $0.37. These fractions of a penny snowballed.
Finally I made a decision to ask OpenClaw why it was so dear, which revealed a part of the issue: Every question was drawing on our total dialog as context—together with my preliminary sandboxing setup—and that will get costly. (It could have additionally defined the occasional price restrict errors I used to be getting in response to some queries.)
“Both settle for it (continuity has a value) or periodically begin recent after we swap contexts,” OpenClaw’s AI knowledgeable me.
Finally, I did wipe OpenClaw’s reminiscence, which meant I needed to educate it my to-do listing and digest duties over again. I additionally switched from Claude Opus 4.5 to Claude Sonnet 4.5, which is cheaper, as some users have noted.
Even with these adjustments, the prices added up shortly. Managing my to-do listing value about 5 cents. Delivering my every day Techmeme digest value about 10 cents. The bihourly Reddit briefings value about 20 cents. It doesn’t sound like a lot, however it places me on monitor to spend over $30 per 30 days, and that’s with out even bothering to present OpenClaw any new duties or ask it any additional questions.
Once more, the AI fanatics in Silicon Valley may shrug off such prices, however it’s greater than I care to spend on any particular person service, not to mention one which’s solely offering a number of modest conveniences.
What I’ve realized
OpenClaw’s in a single day fame has at the least confirmed a number of issues: Interacting with AI through an present messaging app will be fairly neat if it’s helpful sufficient, particularly when it could possibly can attain out proactively. Giving AI entry to your laptop additionally opens up some attention-grabbing potentialities (but additionally some serious security risks).
For me, although, the largest takeaway is how a lot these things truly prices when it’s not being sponsored by enterprise capital or being given away by an enormous tech firm in development mode. OpenClaw is the uncommon AI product that truly appears sustainable. However until the economics of AI API entry change, mass adoption could escape its grasp.
