OpenClawHosting.io Charges $29/mo. Your VPS Charges $10/mo. Your LLM API Charges $60/mo. That Is Three Bills for One Tool.

OpenClawHosting.io sits in a middle ground. It is not fully managed like MyClaw or ClawCloud. It is not raw self-hosting. It is a management layer you pay for on top of a server you are already paying for.

The pitch is straightforward: you bring your own VPS, and OpenClawHosting handles the OpenClaw installation, updates, and configuration. $29/month for managed expertise and the freedom to use any VPS provider you trust.

That works for a specific kind of person. But that person is almost certainly not a solopreneur trying to get their inbox under control.

"The hidden cost of 'budget' OpenClaw setups isn't the hosting. It's the three separate invoices you're reconciling every month and the Saturday afternoon you lose when one of them fails." — r/openclaw user, 287 upvotes

If you run a small business and you just want your email follow-ups and receipts handled without becoming a part-time sysadmin, keep reading.

What Is OpenClawHosting.io?

OpenClawHosting.io is a managed OpenClaw service with a BYO-VPS (Bring Your Own Virtual Private Server) model. Instead of providing the server infrastructure itself, OpenClawHosting connects to a VPS you already have (or helps you provision one) and handles the OpenClaw layer on top.

Note on available data: OpenClawHosting.io has a smaller public profile than some competitors. Community discussion and independent reviews are thinner than for providers like ClawCloud or MyClaw. This page is based on the BYO-VPS model as described and public community posts about self-managed OpenClaw setups. If any details are outdated, the disclaimer at the bottom explains how to flag that.

What OpenClawHosting.io offers:

• OpenClaw installation and configuration on your own VPS
• Managed updates so you are not manually pulling Git changes
• $29/month management fee (server costs are separate)
• Targets technically-inclined users who want infrastructure control but do not want to babysit OpenClaw itself

What OpenClawHosting.io does not include:

• The VPS itself (you provision separately: $5-20/month depending on provider and specs)
• LLM API costs (you supply your own API keys: typically $40-100+/month in real usage)
• Pre-configured workflows for email, receipts, or calendar
• WhatsApp or mobile-first interface
• Memory management, skill configuration, or workflow tuning

The Three-Bill Problem

This is the core issue with any BYO-VPS OpenClaw setup, including OpenClawHosting.io.

Every month, you receive separate invoices from:

Bill 1 -- Your VPS provider. A minimal server capable of running OpenClaw (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) costs roughly $10-20/month on Hetzner, Vultr, or DigitalOcean. Budget providers go lower, reliable providers go higher.

Bill 2 -- OpenClawHosting.io. $29/month for the management layer. This is the fee for not having to SSH into your server and run updates yourself.

Bill 3 -- LLM API costs. OpenClaw requires you to supply your own API keys. Claude, GPT, Gemini, all billed by token. A detailed r/openclaw analysis of real usage put realistic costs at $40-100+/month, and that is for a carefully optimized setup:

"It got caught in a doom loop once — no matter what I did couldn't stop it from eating credits/tokens from a variety of services. I still have no idea what happened." — r/openclaw user, 361 upvotes

Your realistic monthly total: $79-149+/month, with no ceiling and unpredictable usage spikes. And that is before you count the hours you spend configuring OpenClaw to do anything useful.

Cora charges $0-199/month. Everything included. One invoice. No API keys. No VPS.

What "Managed" Actually Means Here

The word "managed" is doing a lot of work in the BYO-VPS model. It is worth being specific about what is managed and what is not.

OpenClawHosting.io manages:

• OpenClaw installation on your VPS
• Software updates (you do not have to pull from Git manually)
• Likely: basic server configuration and initial deployment

OpenClawHosting.io does not manage:

• Your VPS infrastructure (you pay for it, you own it, you deal with it when it has problems)
• OpenClaw configuration for your actual use case (email triage, calendar management, receipts)
• Memory management (OpenClaw's context window is finite, and you need a strategy when it compacts)
• Skill selection and setup (the marketplace has 824+ options, 41.7% with documented vulnerabilities)
• LLM model routing and cost control
• Agent loops that burn your API credits overnight

A community member who went through the setup process on a self-managed VPS:

"Out of the box OpenClaw is dumb. It will loop, repeat itself, forget context, and make weird decisions. You need to add guardrails... anti-looping rules, compaction summaries, task checking. The agents that work well are the ones with heavily customised instruction sets." — r/openclaw, 510 upvotes

Getting OpenClaw installed on your server is step one. The other fourteen steps are still yours.

The Security Arithmetic

BYO-VPS setups have a specific security profile worth understanding. You control the server, which is either a comfort or a burden depending on your technical background.

What you control: Firewall rules, SSH access, security patches, what software runs alongside OpenClaw.

What you inherit from OpenClaw itself:

• 6 documented CVEs against the OpenClaw platform
• 824+ malicious skills identified in the community skill marketplace
• CVE-2026-25253: a malicious link achieves full remote code execution
• ZeroLeaks security score: 2 out of 100
• Gartner recommendation: block OpenClaw enterprise deployments immediately
• 41.7% of popular skills contain serious vulnerabilities per Northeastern University research

BYO-VPS does not change any of those numbers. Your server might be locked down. OpenClaw's threat surface is independent of where it runs.

One of OpenClaw's own contributors put it this way:

"If you can't understand how to run a command line, this is far too dangerous of a project for you to use safely."

Cora uses TEE-based privacy (hardware-secured enclaves), has zero CVEs, and does not have a third-party skill marketplace. The security model is not comparable, and that is intentional.

Cora vs OpenClawHosting.io: Honest Comparison

The Real Cost Comparison

OpenClawHosting.io (realistic solopreneur setup):

• VPS: $14/month (mid-range, reliable provider) = $168/year
• OpenClawHosting management fee: $29/month = $348/year
• LLM APIs: ~$60/month (carefully optimized) = $720/year
• Setup time: 4-8 hours VPS provisioning + weeks of OpenClaw configuration
• Ongoing maintenance: 2-4 hours/month (monitoring, debugging, API key rotation)
• Total first year: $1,236+ plus 40-60 hours of your time

If you value your time at $75/hour, the configuration hours alone add $3,000-4,500 in year one. A real estate agent billing $150/hour is looking at $6,000-9,000 in opportunity cost.

Cora:

• Starter plan: $49/month = $588/year
• LLM costs: included
• VPS: not required
• Setup time: 3 minutes
• Maintenance: zero
• Total first year: $588 plus 3 minutes of setup

The BYO-VPS model looks cheap at $29/month until you add the other two bills and count the hours.

Who Should Choose OpenClawHosting.io

OpenClawHosting.io is the right fit if:

• You already run a VPS for other services and want to add OpenClaw without adding another vendor
• You are technical and want to control your own infrastructure, including backups and server specs
• You have already invested time learning OpenClaw and want a management layer without full lock-in to a hosted provider
• You are experimenting with OpenClaw as a project and want the flexibility of your own server
• You prefer to keep your data on infrastructure you own
• You are comfortable managing three separate billing relationships and variable monthly costs

The BYO-VPS model is a real trade-off, not just a worse version of full managed hosting. Some technical users prefer this arrangement.

Who Should Choose Cora

Cora is built for you if:

• You are a real estate agent, consultant, or coach whose core job is not managing servers
• You want your admin automated (email follow-ups drafted, receipts logged, meeting notes written), not a new infrastructure project
• You work primarily from your phone and WhatsApp is already how you communicate with clients
• You want one predictable monthly bill with no API surprises
• You do not want to think about VPS providers or memory management scripts
• You heard about OpenClaw, got excited about the demos, then read the setup guide and realized you need a secretary, not a DevOps project
• You want 50 free actions/month to test whether this actually works for your business before paying

The Management Fee That Isn't Management

Here is another way to think about the BYO-VPS model.

OpenClawHosting.io's $29/month covers one specific problem: you do not have to SSH into your server and run git pull manually. That is real convenience.

But the work that makes an AI secretary useful (connecting your email, writing the prompts that make the agent behave, managing memory so it does not forget your client names mid-conversation) is not covered by any management fee. That work is always yours.

"The people posting 'my agent built a full app overnight' have spent weeks tuning. The gap between the demo and daily use is real." — r/openclaw, 510 upvotes

With Cora, that gap does not exist. The WhatsApp interface is not a UI choice. It is a statement about what "ready to use" means. You open WhatsApp, send a voice note after your next client meeting, and Cora drafts the follow-up email. No configuration. No memory scripts. No model selection.

Try Cora Free — 50 Actions, No Credit Card

Start with 50 free actions per month. Forward your first email or snap your first receipt.

No VPS to provision. No API keys to manage. No second or third bill.

Open WhatsApp and say what you need.

Try Cora Free — 50 Actions, No Credit Card

Last updated: February 24, 2026. OpenClawHosting.io pricing and positioning based on publicly available information as of this date; limited independent reviews and community data are available for this provider. VPS cost estimates based on mid-range providers (Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean). LLM API cost estimates derived from r/openclaw community guides with post scores noted. OpenClaw security data from Gartner, ZeroLeaks, Northeastern University research, and the CVE database. Cora is a product of Cora AI. This page is maintained for accuracy — if anything is out of date, contact us.