- name
- cost-guardian
- description
- Monitor and control OpenClaw API costs. Tracks token usage across all sessions, estimates spend by model, alerts on budget overruns, and recommends cheaper model routing for routine tasks. Use when: asking about costs, checking spend, setting budgets, or optimizing API usage.
- metadata
- { "openclaw": { "emoji": "🛡️", "requires": { "bins": ["python3"] } } }
Cost Guardian — OpenClaw Cost Monitor & Optimizer
Know what your agent costs. Before it becomes a problem.
When to Use
✅ USE this skill when:
- "How much am I spending?"
- "What's my API cost?"
- "Which sessions cost the most?"
- "Am I over budget?"
- "How can I reduce costs?"
- Setting up daily/weekly cost reports
- Optimizing model usage for crons and automated tasks
❌ DON'T use this skill for:
- Billing issues with Anthropic/OpenAI (contact providers directly)
- Managing API keys (use OpenClaw's secrets system)
Quick Start
Get a Cost Report (All Time)
python3 scripts/cost-report.py --allLast 24 Hours
python3 scripts/cost-report.py --hours 24With Budget Alert ($5/day)
python3 scripts/cost-report.py --budget 5.00JSON Output (for dashboards)
python3 scripts/cost-report.py --all --jsonWhat It Reports
- Estimated cost by model and session
- Token breakdown — input, output, context (cached)
- Top spending sessions — find what's burning tokens
- Model efficiency — how much you'd save switching routine tasks to cheaper models
- Budget alerts — 🟡 at 80% and 🔴 when over budget
- Cron cost tracking — automated jobs often account for 30-50% of spend
Setting Up Automated Reports
Daily Cost Report via Cron
Tell your agent:
"Set up a daily cost report that runs at 8 AM and alerts me if I'm over $5/day"
The agent should create a cron job that:
- Runs
python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/cost-report.py --hours 24 --budget 5.00 - Delivers the report via your preferred channel
Model Optimization
The report flags when expensive models (Opus) are being used for routine tasks that Sonnet handles fine:
- Email checking crons → Sonnet
- Heartbeat checks → Sonnet
- Site health monitoring → Sonnet or Haiku
- Complex reasoning, strategy, writing → Keep on Opus
Supported Models & Pricing
| Model | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Cache $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4 | $15.00 | $75.00 | $1.875 |
| Claude Sonnet 4 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $0.30 |
| Claude Haiku 3.5 | $0.80 | $4.00 | $0.08 |
| GPT-4o | $2.50 | $10.00 | $1.25 |
| GPT-4.1 | $2.00 | $8.00 | $0.50 |
| GPT-4.1-mini | $0.40 | $1.60 | $0.10 |
| GPT-4.1-nano | $0.10 | $0.40 | $0.025 |
| OpenRouter/auto | ~$3.00 | ~$15.00 | ~$0.30 |
Pricing is estimated and may vary. Update scripts/cost-report.py MODEL_PRICING dict for current rates.
Roadmap
- [ ] Auto model-switching recommendations per session type
- [ ] Historical trend tracking (daily/weekly/monthly)
- [ ] Cost anomaly detection (sudden spikes)
- [ ] Per-project cost allocation
- [ ] Web dashboard with charts