Published October 29, 2026. Agent prices below are from this site's catalog, checked on official pages October 29, 2026 (Muse: October 27, 2026) — verify before buying. The sticker price is the smallest honest number in this category. "Free" open-source software and a "$20 plan" are not comparable until every bucket below is counted.
| Cost | What it looks like | Who charges it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Software | A subscription, a credit balance — or nothing at all | Hosted agents charge it; open-source agents do not |
| 2. Model usage | The thinking itself: API tokens by the million, a bundled credit allowance, or credits burned per task | Everyone, somehow — bundled in a plan, sold as credits, or billed by the model provider you connect |
| 3. Machine & hosting | Somewhere for the agent to live: the vendor's cloud, a spare computer of yours, or a rented VPS | Included for hosted agents; yours to arrange for self-hosted ones |
| 4. Your setup & maintenance time | Installing, connecting accounts, updating, fixing what breaks, re-checking permissions | Mostly self-hosted; hosted agents shrink this bucket, they do not delete it |
| 5. Your review time | Reading drafts, approving actions, correcting mistakes — the bucket everyone forgets | Every agent, always — priced by your hourly value |
Bucket 5 is why this site built its AI Model Cost Estimator around review time: on real workflows, the human minutes routinely cost more than the model tokens.
| Agent | Sticker price | What else you pay |
|---|---|---|
| Hermes Agent (open source) | Software $0. Optional Nous Portal: Free $0 (free models only), Plus $20/mo ($22 of monthly model credits), Super $100/mo, Ultra $200/mo | Model usage beyond any Portal credits; a machine or VPS to run it on; your setup and security time — it is the most hands-on option here |
| OpenClaw (open source) | Software $0 — no paid tier, no hosted service | The model you connect, at that provider's API prices; the machine or VPS; your time — its default setup assumes a trusted, technical operator |
| Manus (hosted) | Standard $20/mo for 4,000 credits (about $17/mo billed annually); Customizable from $40/mo (8,000 credits); Extended $200/mo (40,000 credits) | Overage in the form of a bigger plan: a single deep-research task can burn roughly 900 credits — about a quarter of the entry plan — and monthly credits do not roll over |
| Muse (hosted) | Free with a generous weekly limit (100M tokens, as metered on a free account; Meta does not publish the figure); Power $20/mo; Maximum $100/mo | Nothing for hosting or setup — the extra cost is your review time, and the weekly limit can end a long task early on the free tier |
Say the job is a weekly research-and-inbox routine — a few hours of agent work a week, drafted for your approval. On Manus Standard ($20/mo), the question is credits: if one deep research run costs ~900 credits, four weekly runs nearly empty the 4,000-credit month before any inbox work happens — the realistic tier may be the $40 one. On Hermes with Portal Plus ($20/mo), the $22 of monthly model credits covers ordinary chat-model usage comfortably, but the real addition is your time: an evening to set it up safely, and a standing half-hour a week of updates and log-checking. At even a modest value on your hours, the self-hosted "free" agent and the hosted $20 agent land closer than the stickers suggest — and the hosted one can still win for a non-technical owner. These are illustrations from the catalog figures above, not quotes: your usage decides the real totals.
Compare monthly totals, never sticker prices: software + model usage + hosting + (your setup, maintenance, and review hours × what your time is worth). If a listing cannot tell you what a finished task costs — per-task credits with no estimate shown up front are the current example — treat that uncertainty itself as a cost. And before any of them touches real accounts, read Before You Give an AI Agent Access: the cheapest agent is the one that never sends the wrong email.
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