What AI teammates actually cost per month: Grok Bot, Squad, Hermes Cloud, and running your own
The sticker is never the total. Grok Bot rides a subscription from $30 a month plus prepaid extra usage; Squad is $99 plus the ChatGPT plan it recommends; a self-hosted squad is a small server plus the model bill; a managed pod is $29 with usage included.
The sticker is never the total, because every one of these products splits the bill into a service fee, a model bill and a computer, and each hides a different one. Grok Bot has no price of its own: it comes with xAI’s The X Subscription, from Premium at $30 a month, with weekly usage included and extra usage paid from a prepaid balance. Squad is $99 a month to Squad plus the AI plan you bring, and they recommend ChatGPT at $100 to 200, so their own all-in figure is $199 to 299. A self-hosted OpenClaw or Hermes squad is free software plus a $5 to 25 server plus whatever the model costs, plus your time. A managed pod is $29 a month with the first $10 of model usage included. Same idea, four bills.
The table, as of October 2026
| Route | Service fee | Model bill | The computer | A realistic month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Grok Bot | None of its own; comes with The X Subscription’s Premium ($30/mo), Super ($100) or Ultra ($200), each also a team seat | Weekly usage included with the plan; extra usage paid from a prepaid balance, up to a monthly cap you can set | Included: one shared computer per account | $30 to $200, plus any extra usage you prepay |
Squad | $99/mo per squad, unlimited teammates; $9/mo per person you invite | The plan you bring; ChatGPT at $100 to 200 recommended | Included: one dedicated computer per squad | “$199 to $299 a month all in” by Squad’s own figure, plus $10/mo per agent inbox |
Hermes Cloud | None beyond the instance; Nous Portal plans run from free to $200/mo | Billed on top from your Nous credit; “$2 minimum in credits, or an active subscription” to deploy | $0.51/day running (2 GB, 2 vCPUs) or $0.99/day (4 GB, 4 vCPUs); $0.03/day stopped | About $15 for the smaller instance running all month, plus model use (prices read October 11) |
Self-hosted OpenClaw or Hermes | $0 | API usage, typically $5 to 30/mo for one busy personal agent; or a subscription you already have | A VPS at $5 to 25/mo (Hetzner lists 2 vCPU / 4 GB at €5.49 before tax and IPv4, marked not available on October 23; €19.49 in the line you can order) | $10 to 60, plus the hours you spend as the administrator |
Managed pod (Everpod) | $29/mo, which includes the computer | Up to $10/mo included; bigger tiers at $59 and $99 include $40 and $80; your own key adds nothing on top | Included: one private machine per customer | $29, or the plan you bring plus $29 |
Grok Bot: a feature of a subscription you may already have
There is no standalone Grok Bot plan. As of October 22, 2026, new customers get it with The X Subscription, xAI’s one plan for Grok, Cursor and X: Premium at $30 a month, Super at $100 and Ultra at $200 include it, each also sold as a team seat at the same price, while the $8 Plus plan does not; the higher the plan, the more weekly usage. Cursor plans, and the SuperGrok and X Premium+ subscriptions linked to them, keep Grok Bot for those who already hold them, under their own usage rules. The usage model is the part to price. Each paid seat gets a weekly pool that Grok Bot shares with Grok and Cursor. Past it, further use is paid from a prepaid balance you top up, and xAI’s page on spending caps says it stops when that balance is empty or when a monthly cap on extra usage, if you set one, is reached; adding money does not raise the cap, and alerts alone “do not stop usage.” So the monthly number is the plan you would have anyway, plus whatever an always-on roster burns past its weekly pool, up to what you have prepaid. If you already pay for Premium or above, Grok Bot’s marginal price is close to zero until the pool runs out.
Squad: the fee is the small number
Squad’s $99 is deliberately flat: unlimited teammates, “no per-task AI charges from us,” a seven-day money-back guarantee. The larger line is the one they hand you: the work runs on a consumer AI plan you connect, and their recommendation is ChatGPT at $100 to 200 a month, with the option to “stack several accounts of the same plan, and set fallbacks” when one runs out. Their own resources pages quote “$199 to $299 a month all in” and compare it to a junior hire. Add-ons are modest: $10 a month per teammate for a real email inbox, $9 a month for each person you invite, research tools on credits (1,000 a month included, 5,000 for $5), and a second squad on its own $99 subscription. What is not on the pricing page, and worth asking about before the payroll login goes in, is whether an unattended squad on a consumer ChatGPT plan is within OpenAI’s terms; Squad’s public pages do not address it. What Squad is covers the product itself.
Hermes Cloud: priced by the day
Nous Research’s hosted Hermes now shows its prices. Nous’s cloud page, as of October 11, 2026, charges a dedicated instance by the day from your Nous credit: $0.51 a day while it runs for the Standard size (2 GB of memory, 2 vCPUs, 10 sessions at once), $0.99 for Pro (4 GB, 4 vCPUs), and $0.03 a day while it is stopped, with model and tool use billed on top. Deploying needs “$2 minimum in credits, or an active subscription”; the Nous Portal plans are Free, Plus at $20, Super at $100 and Ultra at $200 a month, each paid plan with that amount in credit plus a bonus. By our arithmetic the smaller instance running all month is about $15 before the model bill, which makes the computer cheap and the model the part to watch, as everywhere else on this list.
Doing it yourself: the cheapest bill and the largest invoice
OpenClaw and Hermes are free. The computer is a small VPS: Hetzner’s price list of June 15, 2026 has a 2 vCPU, 4 GB server at €5.49 a month before tax and an IPv4 address in a line its site marked not available on October 23, and at €19.49 in the regular line you can order. The model bill is whatever you use: metered API access runs $5 to 30 a month for one busy personal agent, or nothing extra if you connect a ChatGPT subscription you already pay for. A multi-agent squad multiplies the model line, not the server line; two agents on one 4 GB box is routine. The invoice that does not appear on any page is your time: installing, mounting the right folders, keeping the Gateway off the internet, patching, backing up, and building the board the products sell. For a developer that is an evening and then an hour a month. For anyone else it is the reason the products exist.
The managed pod: the computer, priced
Managed AI agent hosting is the fourth shape: the open software, a machine of your own, someone else’s operations. Everpod’s OpenClaw pod is $29 a month for one private, always-on machine, with up to $10 of model usage included so the agent works from the first minute without an API key errand; the $59 and $99 tiers are the identical pod with $40 and $80 of usage, and bringing your own key or a ChatGPT subscription adds nothing on top. For a squad that runs on your own plan, the pod is mostly the computer, and $29 is what the computer plus its care costs. What it is not is a board or a roster product: OpenClaw runs as the project ships it, multi-agent features included, and the mission-control layer is yours to choose.
How to read the four bills
- Whose plan pays for the model? Grok Bot: the plan’s allowance, then metered. Squad: yours, entirely. Self-hosted and pod: yours, or an included allowance you can exceed on your own key.
- Is the computer a line item or hidden in the fee? Hidden in Grok Bot and Squad, explicit for a VPS, the fee itself for a pod.
- What is per seat, per agent, per account? Grok Bot’s team plans are per seat; Squad charges per squad, per person invited and per agent inbox; everything else here is per computer.
- What does overage look like? Extra usage paid from a prepaid balance, up to a monthly cap you can set (Grok Bot); a second stacked plan (Squad); your API bill (self-hosted); a hard cap you raise on purpose (a pod’s included usage).
Prices above were read from the vendors’ own pages on September 5, 2026, except where the prose says otherwise; Grok Bot’s and Squad’s are as of October 22, 2026. In this category they have changed monthly; check the page before you decide.