How much did the OpenClaw creator spend on OpenAI API tokens?

Peter Steinberger disclosed $1,305,088.81 in OpenAI API spending over 30 days, covering 603 billion tokens across 7.6 million requests from ~100 Codex instances.

Who is paying for OpenClaw's $1.3M monthly API bill?

OpenAI covers the cost. Steinberger joined OpenAI in February 2026 and the spending is treated as a research investment.

What would OpenClaw's API cost be without Fast Mode?

Steinberger clarified that disabling Codex Fast Mode would reduce the raw API cost to approximately $300,000 per month.

What model does OpenClaw use most for its API consumption?

GPT-5.5 was the primary model on Steinberger's API dashboard, dated April 23, 2026.

How many AI agents does OpenClaw run simultaneously?

Approximately 100 Codex instances operated by a team of three people working on the open-source OpenClaw project.

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OpenClaw Creator Steinberger Discloses $1.3M Monthly OpenAI API Bill — 603B Tokens, 100 Codex Agents

Peter Steinberger posted screenshot showing $1,305,088.81 in OpenAI API spending over 30 days — 603 billion tokens across 7.6 million requests from ~100 Codex instances. OpenAI covers the cost. Fast Mode pricing inflates the number; standard would be ~$300K. GPT-5.5 was the primary model.

Product Idea from this Signal

A CLI tool that audits multi-agent fleet token spend across providers, flags cost anomalies per agent, and enforces per-workflow budget caps before bills spiral

2.5k ▲

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger revealed a $1.3M monthly OpenAI bill running 100 coding agents. Most teams running 5-50 agents have no visibility into which agent is burning tokens, which workflows are cost-efficient, and where spend is leaking. Existing tools (Helicone, Portkey) focus on single-agent observability. No tool gives fleet-level cost attribution with per-agent anomaly detection and hard budget enforcement across multiple LLM providers simultaneously.

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