What Does Self-Hosting OpenClaw Actually Cost You?
Most developers count server costs and forget about their time. Plug in your numbers and see the real comparison — server + setup + ongoing maintenance vs. Clawdy managed hosting.
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Most developers count server costs and forget about their time. Plug in your numbers and see the real comparison — server + setup + ongoing maintenance vs. Clawdy managed hosting.
Your hourly rate
What's your time worth?
Initial setup time
Install, configure, SSL, reverse proxy…
Monthly maintenance
Updates, debugging, monitoring…
Monthly server cost
Cloud VM starts at ~$8/mo on AWS t3.micro
Analysis period
How many months to compare over?
Self-host
$2,496
Setup: $600
Monthly: $158/mo
Clawdy
$228
$19/mo flat
Zero setup time
Clawdy saves you $2,268 over year 1
Pays for itself in ~37 days
Start free on Clawdy →
Deploy your OpenClaw instance in under 60 seconds. SSL, auth, and monitoring included.
Deploy NowSelf-host cost = (setup hours × hourly rate) + (monthly maintenance hours × hourly rate + server cost) × number of months.
Clawdy cost = $19/month flat. No setup time, no maintenance overhead.
Hourly rate is used as a proxy for the opportunity cost of your time — what you could be building instead. Actual rates will vary. Setup time of 8 hours reflects community reports for a first-time VPS deployment with reverse proxy and SSL; experienced Linux admins may be faster.
Server cost default based on a cloud VM (~$8/mo, e.g. AWS t3.micro) — a typical entry-level configuration for self-hosting OpenClaw.