Best AI Models for OpenClaw and Hermes Agent in 2026

OpenClaw and Hermes Agent are open-source AI agents: programs that read your messages, use tools and act for you. Each one connects to an AI model, and that model is where most of your monthly bill comes from.

There are three ways to connect one. You paste an API key (a password that bills you per use), you sign in with a plan you already pay for, or you run an open model on your own computer with Ollama. OneClickClaw read the official documentation of both agents and the price pages of each model maker on the 9th of October 2026.

The twelve entries below follow those three routes, cheapest first inside each group. The guidance is the same for both agents. Where their documentation differs, the entry says so.

How the monthly figure is worked out

Model makers bill by the token. A token is a small piece of text, about four characters or three quarters of an English word, according to Anthropic's pricing page.

An agent sends its instructions, its tools and the recent conversation along with every message you write. Anthropic's price page notes that tool descriptions alone add input tokens to every request, so the assumption below counts thousands of tokens per message.

Every monthly figure in the first chart below assumes 20 messages a day for 30 days, with 10,000 tokens going in and 500 tokens coming back on each message. That adds up to 6 million tokens in and 300,000 tokens out a month, before any discount for repeated text.

Dollar prices carry the euro in brackets, at the European Central Bank reference rate of 1.1186 dollars to the euro, published on the 8th of October 2026.

Models you reach with an API key

Both agents accept a key from every company in this group. In OpenClaw you pick the model during setup and can switch later with the model command inside a chat, according to the OpenClaw documentation. Hermes Agent does the same job through its model menu, according to the Hermes Agent provider guide.

Prices are per million tokens, read on the 9th of October 2026.

1. GPT-6 Luna

OpenAI makes GPT-6 Luna, and you connect it with an OpenAI API key. It costs $0.10 (€0.09) per million tokens in and $0.50 (€0.45) out, according to OpenAI's price list.

2. Claude Haiku 5.5

Anthropic makes Claude Haiku 5.5, and you connect it with an Anthropic API key. It costs $0.10 (€0.09) in and $0.50 (€0.45) out for requests up to 100,000 tokens, according to Anthropic's price page.

3. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

DeepSeek makes this model, and both agents list DeepSeek as a provider you connect with a DeepSeek API key (OpenClaw's DeepSeek page). It costs $0.30 (€0.27) in and $1.20 (€1.07) out at its busy weekday hours, and DeepSeek halves both prices at all other times, according to its price page.

4. Gemini 3.8 Flash

Google makes Gemini 3.8 Flash, and you connect it with a key from Google AI Studio. It costs $0.75 (€0.67) in and $3.75 (€3.35) out until the 31st of December 2026, and Google lists double those prices from the 1st of January 2027 on its price page.

5. Grok 4.7

xAI makes Grok 4.7, and you connect it with an xAI API key. It costs $2.00 (€1.79) in and $6.00 (€5.36) out, according to xAI's model page.

6. GPT-6.1 Sol

OpenAI makes GPT-6.1 Sol, and you connect it with the same OpenAI API key. It costs $2.00 (€1.79) in and $10.00 (€8.94) out on OpenAI's price list.

7. Claude Opus 5.5

Anthropic makes Claude Opus 5.5, and you connect it with the same Anthropic API key. It costs $4.00 (€3.58) in and $20.00 (€17.88) out on Anthropic's price page.

Models you reach with a subscription sign-in

Many people already pay a monthly plan for a chat app. Both agents can use some of these plans through a sign-in window, and the agent then draws on that plan's allowance. What each plan covers depends on the company, so each entry explains its own case. Plan prices were read on the 9th of October 2026.

8. ChatGPT Plus

OpenAI sells ChatGPT Plus for $20.00 (€17.88) a month, and its plan page says Codex, OpenAI's coding assistant, shares the plan's usage allowance. OpenClaw signs in through the Codex login, and its OpenAI page states that OpenAI supports this use in outside tools. Hermes Agent signs in with a short code you type on OpenAI's website.

9. Claude Pro and Max plans

Anthropic sells Claude Pro for $20.00 (€17.88) a month and Max from $100.00 (€89.40) a month, according to its plan page. OpenClaw can reuse a Claude Code login on the same machine, and the Anthropic help pages linked from its Anthropic page cover both plans. Hermes Agent signs in on the Max plan and bills its use to extra usage credits bought on top, while Pro holders connect with an API key, according to the Hermes Agent provider guide.

10. Nous Portal Plus

Nous Research, the company behind Hermes Agent, sells Nous Portal Plus for $20.00 (€17.88) a month with $22.00 (€19.67) of monthly credits, according to the Nous Portal page. One sign-in reaches more than 200 models from many companies. The Hermes Agent documentation calls this the recommended way to run Hermes Agent, and this route is documented for Hermes Agent.

Models that run on your own machine with Ollama

Ollama is free software that downloads an open model and runs it on your own computer or server. Your cost is the machine and its electricity.

Both agents connect to it, according to their documentation read on the 9th of October 2026. A model's context window is the amount of text it can hold at once. OpenClaw finds Ollama models with a window of at least 16,000 tokens on its own, according to its Ollama setup guide. Hermes Agent asks for at least 64,000 tokens and shows how to raise Ollama's setting to that level in its provider guide.

11. Gemma 4

Google makes the Gemma 4 family of open models (Google's Gemma page). The default download on Ollama's library weighs 6.6 to 9.5 GB and holds 128,000 tokens at once. The OpenClaw setup guide uses it as its example and fetches it with this command:

ollama pull gemma4

12. Qwen 3.5

Alibaba Cloud makes the Qwen models (the Qwen website). The default download on Ollama's library weighs 6.6 to 7.6 GB and holds 256,000 tokens at once. The same page lists OpenClaw and Hermes Agent among the apps Ollama can start directly.

What a month costs, in short

Seven of the twelve entries bill by the token. At the same 20 messages a day, the highest-priced of those seven costs 40 times the lowest.

Three entries are monthly plans, each with its own allowance or credits. The last two cost the electricity of the machine they run on.

Both agents let you switch models inside a chat, so you can change entry whenever your budget changes. For cost per task across 14 models, see the Hermes Index, and for a full monthly budget, the AI agent cost guide.

Keep the agent running around the clock

An agent answers only while its machine is switched on. A laptop that goes to sleep takes the agent with it, along with every reminder and scheduled job.

An always-on server keeps OpenClaw or Hermes Agent reachable at any hour. OneClickClaw runs both on a dedicated server at identical prices, starting with a 7-day free trial and no card up front. After the trial, the Starter plan costs €14.99 a month, as listed on the plans page on the 9th of October 2026. You bring your own API key from one of the companies in this list.