I should also say that part of my motivation is to be able to cancel my ChatGPT Plus subscription and just use the API. But another notable, perhaps not-surprising thing: one full day of me chatting with OpenClaw using gpt-5.2 costed about $20 USD. Might cost half that after I dialed back thinking and unnecessary tool calls, but it still was more expensive on a daily basis than the Plus subscription. For some of those calls I probably didn’t need to use OpenClaw, and asking ChatGPT would have been fine and would have saved money.

For comparison, the API cost of gpt-5.2 is $14 per million tokens out; 5-mini is $2; Nano is $0.40. I switched to mini this morning and it seems totally capable for the kinds of conversation I’m having at this stage, i.e., I’m not calling for deep thought and leading-edge domain analysis. I’m just having it reference its own context, self-configure, and teach me how to use it. So I would not recommend connecting OpenClaw to an expensive model initially. Wait until you’re ready to give it the kind of work that warrants a premium cost.