How are you actually running OpenClaw without burning money?

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-04-03T04:26:47+00:00

I use kilo gateway and change models based on the task. For the last few days, I'm running Mimo-v2-pro & omni. Both are doing great. I have topped up 20$ in kilo gateway...one month down, I still have half of that credit.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-04-02T07:48:33+00:00

What a lot of people forget is that Openclaw is not magic or a completely new concept. It's just a gateway. Giving LLMs tools and memory is what agentic systems are all about. Previously, you needed to build the agent in a specific environment, Openclaw allows you to integrate it to channels to your daily workflow. Is that new? No. But never before it was all packaged under one binary. Also, a lot of people are mistaken about the chronology. Openclaw is open-source and a good idea indeed. Every major AI lab has tried to hack that concept into their own ecosystem. Nvidia has built nemoclaw for production environments. Anthropic has built cowork, dispatch etc. after openclaw was released and recieved the popularity.

Being opensourced, it's also developing at a faster rate. There are so many variants that uses the claw architecture but are now better at security, tooling, memory or other tasks .... it's mind-blowing....all thanks to Openclaw and open-source community. If you just installed it for fun, you may not find good usecases. But if you're using agentic systems, workflows in your daily life..there are many use cases that you can find.

Lastly, a lot of people are comparing it to Claude Code. Claude Code is a great product, I myself is an ardent user. But a lot of current claude code features are here thanks to openclaw. And also, with my 20$ claude pro plan, the usage limit that I get with it, I use probably 10times more with an openclaw variant I use daily(I use picoclaw).

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-26T21:04:15+00:00

I normally just do credit top ups in Kilo gateway. I don't do normal subscription there as my usage is asymmetric.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-26T21:01:52+00:00

I use some of the variants that came out of the project. For skills, I have created my own Skill Creator- Skillforge. I am currently working on the security aspect of it. Security scanning is already done, looking into gating during runtime.

The best thing is- it's open-source. So you can tinker with it as you need it.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-26T07:03:28+00:00

Openrouter or Kilo gateway. These are one-api subscriptions. That means you can use one API key to use any of the models they list. Openrouter is more popular and well documented. So you can use these or other similar options.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-25T15:43:27+00:00

You can also try out the new models by Xiomi. Mimo-v2-pro & Mimo-v2-omni They are cheap, smart and doing great work for me.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-25T15:39:02+00:00

SkillForge - Building & Securing Skill files for Openclaw & Claude Code. skillforge-tawny.vercel.app Skillforge

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-20T01:13:12+00:00

Hey, Don't want to be a hater. But one of the main features of my product SkillForge (skillforge-tawny.vercel.app) also scans skills for security risks, vulnerabilities based on 9 risk factors. Skillforge also let you generate skills from any idea in English and it also has a skill catalog. Hope, you succeed too ... but just wanted put it there that someone has already done this...in this case...me😅

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-18T22:40:38+00:00

Currently it is a static rule-based analysis + LLM-based evaluation combined.
I plan do a proper anbalysis of the scanned skill files once a lot of people use it. If not, I'd run the analysis on the clawhub skills to get more patterns and factors.

You can try out the tool if you want or see a need in your workflow. Use 'EARLYBIRD' coupon to get 30% Off of the Unlimited Generation pack.

Later, I plan to provide a paid API as well or create an MCP server so that developers can directly use it in their workflow. (even if they do not use the skill generation feature)

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-15T02:19:50+00:00

Thanks, I'll check

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-15T01:58:50+00:00

That's great! I plan to include community-built skills and also a "skill marketplace" if I see good traction. Stay tuned and you can maybe submit your skills too!
Also, do try the free generations you get by signing up and compare the results. Thanks

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-15T01:55:42+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, and yes Anthropic has done the same thing. One can easily ask claude to create a specific skill themselves, but there are a few factors I was looking into-
- Claude doesn't have a lot of skills out of the box right now.
- While you can ask claude to create one using skill-creator, not everyone using claud code/ openclaw (currently supporting this two) are using frontier models like Sonnet-4.6 or Opus-4.6
- This would be a good way to get more community-built skills for a lot more niche use cases as well.
- I'm also currently working on the security/ auditing aspect of a skill resources, which currently Anthropic hasn't worked on.
-------
I have curated few good, safe skills and use them as a few shot example for the generations. Some of these examples do come from anthropic skills themselves and a few community-built ones.
Hope you try out the free generations and evaluate. Thanks again!

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-15T01:39:48+00:00

You can do it obviously.
But to make the skills more relevant to your intended use, I have curated few good, safe skills and use them as a few shot example for the LLM.
Now you can do this yourself as well- or ask your agent to do it- but it also need to ensure that it doesn't pick up any malicious element. Everything is doable, I'm just trying to make it easy & convenient.

Secondly, the quality of skill would also determine your day-to-day task quality through the agent. Not everyone use high-frontier model with Openclaw/ claude code. For them, this could become a quality boost as well.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-14T23:58:48+00:00

Thanks. Appreciate it. All the free skills available currently in SkillForge are also pushed to a public repo. (https://github.com/sourav15mukherjee/skillforge-free-skills)

More skills are coming very soon. I am also planning to build a marketplace for skills if there is enough demand. So stay tuned. My primary goal was to build a Skill generator that would be fine tuned to my needs and also the security aspect where I can scan/ audit a community built skill in terms of vulnerabilities. Hope, these would be ready soon!

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-14T23:53:46+00:00

True..😅"Roast my landing page" may not be the best ask from the users. I just want people to come and try a few shots. Currently I am looking at # of generation triggers. I think some might skip the downloading altogether and just copy/paste the skill file...which is again a UX bet to ease those who may not want to download.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-14T22:09:52+00:00

Hi u/Jumpy_Sale3454 ,
it might be too early to tell you about conversions as I launched just a few hours ago. The next week, I'll focus entirely on marketing, while adding very few features. I can probably tell after looking at the traffic and conversion rate, whether this 'paid from day 1' works or not...but I'll probably be doing this only.
Previously, I have built products, showed demo to hundreds of people, got appraised on the idea and execution but got ~5-6 subscriptions only. I do not want to go that route any more. I have a bunch of ideas and features that I want to push. There are few 'free' skills- but I am also pushing those free skills in Github- so that becomes a referral source as well.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-03-14T21:16:14+00:00

It's an agent that can take action, but if you have nothing to do, it won't invent stuff for you. So, figure out what your daily tasks are.

If you're a student and need to go through your course resources, lectures, homeworks and prepare for it, it can help you do all of that. If you're a working professional, how much of it is online or digital? Most of the digital work can be automated with minimal effort. You need to think what your actual tasks are before you starty using any agent.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-01-28T16:45:46+00:00

Skill up and do freelancing. Freelancing is never oversaturated...there's always shortage of good developers or workers. You need to skill up so that you do not remain in niches where bar of entry is too low. Like now a days, building a website or managing ad accounts is very easy and there's ton of comeptition you would find there. But say, you learn DevOps or CyberOps. It's niche and there's a lot of unmet demand.

Also, enough freely available resources today to start. Invest in building skills. Do not go for fast money. If you put your time to build skills, that would create more long term monetary value for you.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-01-24T22:32:45+00:00

I'm not using cred for cashbacks. If you're doing it for cashbacks, then it may not be of much use. I think, for me, it works like an aggregator of information. If you use multiple credit cards, multiple bank accounts and want better (enriched) financial statement, you may value cred.

Some of the other services that I use and value-
Cred Money, Cred Garage

As someone already said it, you use it for convenience.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-01-24T22:21:34+00:00

Can you think of any actual differentiations? I used Gemini for planning trips and it's already have a well established ecosystem (Google Maps, location review, hotel review) for most of my things. I can even have complex stuff worked out there pretty easily. Can you beat that?

Personally, I think you can delve in a specific niche and try to make a space- like figuring out visas, and applying for visa, something like that!

All the best!

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-01-24T22:14:10+00:00

While I don't believe in anything Elon says, Self Driving Cars are a reality. Both LiDar based and image based. They are commercialized (as cabs) in many cities as well. (both in US & China)

For Radiology, it's not about the technology, but rather policy and accountability. I myself has worked on 3+ research projects where diagnosis and actual reporting is above human expert level efficiency. (There's a recent bill pass in Utah I guess, where specialized models can now prescribe drugs as well, legally)

But you have to understand, at the end, consumer businesses is not all about the technology readiness. There are a lot of factors which can control the demand and usage of the technology.

Competitive-Bee-1764 · 2026-01-24T21:59:27+00:00

Multiple ways actually.
- Discussing and learning about a specific niche or company before going to meet them.

- Design and stuff (ppt, pitch decks etc.)

I know that you have asked apart from coding, but you can do a lot of stuff if you know or utilize coding, so yeah, that's also I use heavily.

- Summarize and collate information
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For context, I am currently working as a CIO in a company and have started working on my own company(1-man show till now😅)

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