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OpenClaw Model Comparison Grid — February 2026
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ModelTierInput $/1MOutput $/1MEst. $/Month*Context WindowTool CallingInjection
Resistance		Best For (OpenClaw)Community Notes
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Claude Opus 4.6Premium$15.00$75.00$150-750200K★★★★★★★★★★Power users, sensitive workflows, finance, complex multi-step chainsCreator's #1 pick. Best quality + safety. Expensive.
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Claude Sonnet 4.5Mid$3.00$15.00$15-50200K★★★★★★★★★☆Daily assistant, email, calendar, browser, standard automations80-90% of Opus at 1/5 cost. Community sweet spot.
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Claude Haiku 4.5Budget$0.80$4.00$5-15200K★★★★☆★★★☆☆Heartbeats, simple lookups, quick Q&A, low-stakes tasksGreat secondary/fallback. Handles 80% of simple tasks.
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GPT-4oMid$2.50$10.00$15-40128K★★★★☆★★★☆☆General assistant if you have OpenAI creditsSonnet outperforms on OpenClaw agent tasks per community.
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GPT-4.1 miniBudget$0.15$0.60$3-10128K★★★☆☆★★★☆☆Budget assistant, high volume, basic tasksRemarkably cheap. Good for cost-constrained setups.
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Gemini 2.5 FlashBudget$0.15$0.60$3-121M★★★★☆★★☆☆☆Large context, high volume, cost-sensitive agent workGood value. Weaker on injection defense & complex reasoning.
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Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteUltra-Low$0.10$0.40$1-51M★★★☆☆★★☆☆☆Heartbeats, background tasks, classificationCheapest cloud option. Heartbeat/routing only.
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Gemini 2.5 ProMid-High$1.25$10.00$20-601M★★★★☆★★★☆☆Complex reasoning, coding, long-context analysisBetter reasoning than Flash, cheaper than Opus.
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DeepSeek V3Ultra-Low$0.27$1.10$2-8128K★★★☆☆★★☆☆☆Budget tasks, simple commands, routine automationCheapest quality option. Struggles with complex multi-step.
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DeepSeek R1Budget$0.55$2.19$5-15128K★★★★☆★★☆☆☆Sub-agents, parallel work, reasoning on a budgetGood reasoning at 10x less than Opus. Popular for sub-agents.
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OpenRouter AutoVariableAutoAuto$5-30Varies★★★☆☆★★★☆☆Auto-routing based on task complexityPicks cheapest model per prompt. Convenience vs. control.
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Local (Ollama 7B)Free$0$0$0 (HW)8-32K★★☆☆☆★☆☆☆☆Privacy-first, experimentation, simple tasksZero API cost but limited. Needs 16GB+ RAM.
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RECOMMENDATION — Multi-Model Routing Strategy
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RoleModelCostWhy
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Primary (active chat)Claude Sonnet 4.5$3 / $15 per 1M tokensBest tool-calling + injection defense. Handles Skye trading, browser, complex tasks.
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Heartbeats & BackgroundGemini 2.5 Flash (keep!)$0.15 / $0.60 per 1M tokensYour current model is perfect HERE. Cheap, fast, 1M context. Just move from primary to background.
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Sub-AgentsDeepSeek R1$0.55 / $2.19 per 1M tokensGood reasoning at budget price. 10x cheaper than Opus for spawned worker tasks.
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FallbackGPT-4o or Gemini 2.5 Pro$1.25-2.50 / $10 per 1MDifferent provider = resilience if Anthropic rate-limits.
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Estimated Monthly Cost Comparison
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Setup
Est. Cost
Notes
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Current (Gemini 2.5 Flash for everything)$3-12/moCheap but weaker tool use & injection defense — risky for Skye trading agent
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RECOMMENDED Multi-Model Setup$20-40/moSonnet primary + Flash heartbeats + DeepSeek sub-agents. Best cost/performance.
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All Opus (creator recommended)$150-750/moMaximum quality & safety. Only if running high-stakes 24/7 autonomous agents.
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* Est. $/Month based on community-reported ~30-50 msgs/day. Skye trading agent activity will increase usage.
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Sources: OpenClaw GitHub, Discord community, haimaker.ai, VelvetShark, pricepertoken.com, official provider pricing (Feb 2026)
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