OpenClaw & Claude Code Cost Calculator
Most devs running Claude Code or OpenClaw have no idea what it costs until the bill lands. Enter your usage below. See where the money goes and how much the five standard optimizations would save you.
How This Calculator Works
The calculator models six real cost drivers and compares two scenarios: your current setup versus the same setup with the five standard optimizations from the 5 Cost Mistakes guide applied. Numbers are based on token rates from April 2026 and averages from audits of real Claude Code sessions.
- Tool schema tax: Without
ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCHeach turn injects ~45K tokens of tool definitions. With it enabled, ~20K. The calculator models this as a per-turn input-token fixed cost. - Session length multiplier: Each message resends full history. A 30-turn session costs roughly 10-15x more than the same work split across fresh sessions.
- Heartbeat cost: The background check-in process sends your full context window on every interval. Optimized = switch to GPT-4o-mini or disable entirely.
- Model routing: Using Opus for everything versus routing cheap tasks to Sonnet or a local model.
- Subscription vs API: Optimized scenario assumes you route through your ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription where available.
- Working hours: If you only code 8 hours/day, a 24/7 cloud server burns 16 hours of idle cost.
Still too expensive?
The cheapest OpenClaw setup costs $0/month. Run a local model like Qwen 3.5 27B or GLM-5.1 on existing hardware and the marginal cost becomes electricity. Even a $600 used RTX 3090 pays for itself in 2-3 months for most teams.
FAQ
How much does Claude Code cost per developer per month?
Unoptimized, most devs land in the $250-400/month range. The heartbeat alone is $50-150/mo, long sessions add 10-15x multipliers via context resends, and missing ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH adds another $60-100. Apply the five fixes and it typically drops to $30-80/mo.
What's the biggest hidden cost?
The heartbeat process. It runs every 30 minutes by default, sends your full context to the model each time, and costs you even when you're asleep. For an 8-hour-a-day developer that's $50-150/mo just for background polling.
Is self-hosting actually cheaper?
For teams of 3+, yes, dramatically. A $600 used RTX 3090 running Qwen 3.5 27B handles most agent coding tasks. Pays for itself in 2-3 months versus $30-100/mo per seat on Claude or GPT API. See the best local models guide.
What does this calculator not model?
Developer time debugging setup, cost of downtime when a provider throttles you, and indirect costs of vendor lock-in. For teams those often exceed the direct API bill. See the supply-risk post for a longer take.