OpenClaw is free, but your time isn't. This calculator prices the hours you'll actually spend, then compares that against paying someone else to host it. Setup work is no longer what we lead with, so nothing here is a pitch.
Setup + troubleshooting + security
No setup labour, first month included
99% less than doing it yourself
Launch in 1 days vs 9 days
Whether you spend 34 hours or $30 a month, you still have to decide what the agent is for. If the role you're automating has KPIs and SOPs somebody wrote down, an agent will very likely beat the status quo. If not, that's the job to do first.
30 minutes, no pitch. If the answer is “build it yourself”, we'll say so.
The install is the short part. This is the rest of it, and the third column is the one people forget to budget for.
VPS provisioning, Docker setup, OpenClaw installation, reverse proxy (Nginx) with SSL, and API integrations. Production-ready from day one.
Our RAK security framework protects against the most common attack vectors. Most DIY setups skip this entirely.
This never ends, and it is the cost people leave out. Budget roughly 2 hours a month, forever, or accept that it will rot.
The software itself is free (open-source), but the total cost includes your setup time (15-20 hours at your hourly rate), VPS hosting ($5-20/month), troubleshooting time (5-10 hours in the first month), and security hardening (another 5-8 hours if done properly). For a developer earning $75/hour, the real first-month cost is $2,000-$3,500 when you factor in opportunity cost of your time.
Yes, and the service page is still live. Promoting it is the part that stopped: demand was thin, and the free self-hosting guide covers the same ground. This calculator prices your own hours honestly; it doesn't pitch you. If you want an automation without running a server at all, n8n, Make or Zapier will be faster than hiring anyone. Our focus is agent work inside companies: Agentic OS and Company Second Brain.
The default values are based on real data from community reports (Reddit r/selfhosted, GitHub Issues, Discord). Setup time estimates (15-20 hours) come from multiple developer testimonials. The hourly rate default ($75/hr) represents a mid-level developer in the US. Your actual costs may vary based on your experience level and specific requirements.
After initial setup, self-hosted OpenClaw requires approximately 2 hours/month of maintenance (updates, monitoring, occasional troubleshooting). At $75/hour, that's $150/month or $1,800/year in time costs. That line is invisible on every DIY-is-free comparison, and it is usually the one that decides whether managed hosting is cheaper.
Yes, Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier provides enough resources (ARM instances with 4 OCPUs and 24GB RAM) to run OpenClaw. However, you still need to invest significant time in setup, and the free tier has limitations on network bandwidth and storage. Our self-hosting guide covers this option in detail.
Most people should read the free guide and do it themselves. If you'd rather not, the OpenClaw setup service covers deployment, security hardening and multi-model support. It's a side door, not the front one — if you want to talk about agents doing real work in your company, book the call instead.
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