For $1.3 million a month, OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger runs 100 AI agents that code, review PRs, and find bugs
$1.3M/month. That's what it costs to run 100 AI coding agents at scale—and why one founder thinks it's worth every penny.
Why it matters
OpenClaw is a real-world deployment of AI agents operating at production scale with unconstrained budgets, revealing what's possible when cost isn't the constraint. This matters because it shows the ceiling for agentic software development workflows and provides a rare glimpse into token economics at meaningful volume.
The key facts
6 to know100 Codex instances running continuously
$1.3M/month OpenAI API spend
Three-person team operating the deployment
Agents handling code generation, PR review, and bug detection
Research framing: understanding dev workflows without token cost constraints
Open-source project (OpenClaw) as test bed
Go to the source
The Decoderthe-decoder.com
Publisher excerpt: A three-person team led by Peter Steinberger keeps about 100 Codex instances running for the open-source project OpenClaw, driving OpenAI API spend to $1.3 million a month. Steinberger frames the bill as a research investment: he wants to see what software development looks like when token costs…