Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, the hottest topic in the tech and startup circles is not the release of a new model by a major enterprise, but rather the nationwide trend of "raising lobsters."
On one hand, the frenzy for "raising lobsters" has driven business growth in related industries, with large model companies and cloud service providers reaping substantial profits. On the other hand, the question of how much actual profit Openclaw can bring to users has become a mystery. Although social media is filled with such mythical stories, a closer inspection reveals that most are virtual tales aimed at generating traffic.
Can raising lobsters really make money? If so, who is making that money?
PANews has organized data from the TrustMRR data platform, public cases on social media, project official websites, and multi-source cross-verification reports. To distinguish between "verified real income" and "myths mentioned online," a significant number of rumors based solely on one-sided statements or unverified claims have been excluded.
The OpenClaw category page on the overseas startup data platform TrustMRR shows that there are 153 recorded projects in this ecosystem, with total revenues of approximately $358,600 over the past 30 days. Further analysis of the top 30 ranked samples reveals that their total income accounts for 97.3% of the overall revenue. If we break down these projects and the money-making logic behind them by "industry value chain," we discover a painful truth: the ones making money first are not those who create products using lobsters, but rather those who help others raise lobsters and teach them how to do it.
However, this part clearly does not provide the real answers we are most curious about. How do those who actually use Openclaw make money? In response to this, PANews has outlined five money-making logics of OpenClaw.
First: Selling "shovels" and agency services: Reaping quick cash from "cognitive gaps"
Whether overseas or domestically, the products with the highest discussion volume and most impressive revenue data regarding OpenClaw are often not specific applications, but rather encapsulated tools and one-click hosting services.
OpenClaw resembles a layer of infrastructure rather than a consumer product ready for immediate use, creating a high barrier for non-technical users. Once complexity exists, the services will grow.
In the approximately $358,000 revenue of the first-half sample from TrustMRR over 30 days, "hosting deployment" and "one-click cloud hosting" projects individually contributed about $120,100, accounting for 34.5% of the sample income.
A typical example is QuickClaw, which packages underlying capabilities into a mobile app priced at $3.99 per week or $49.99 per year, generating approximately $8,782 in revenue over the past 30 days.
In the Chinese internet, this logic is implemented even more plainly: "agent lobster installation" on Xianyu.
According to media reports, recently, the "OpenClaw agency deployment" service on Xianyu and Xiaohongshu has experienced explosive growth. Remote installations typically cost between 100 to 300 yuan, while local visits range from 400 to 1,000 yuan. During a certain period, the daily transaction volume of related goods and services grew by 150% month-on-month.
The essence of this logic is "making money from information gaps and cognitive differences." Users are willing to pay to save 30 minutes of hassle, but this is a "window period" business. As the official one-click deployment tool matures, the pure installation dividends will quickly diminish.
Second layer: Packaging AI expert personas: When the "story" itself becomes the most expensive product
Taking a step further, another layer of more valuable elements in the OpenClaw ecosystem emerges: not merely deploying for you, but refining the Agent for you. Among the first 30 samples from TrustMRR, template, skill set, and configuration-related projects accounted for 26.4% of the income.
One of the most credible and complete commercial cases at this layer is FelixCraft.
At the beginning of 2026, overseas creator Nat Eliason launched an experiment. He named his OpenClaw robot "Felix," investing $1,000 in startup capital to let it build business on its own. Within a week, Felix generated about $3,500 in revenue through Stripe. Additionally, the crypto community launched a related MEME token on the chain for this Agent and forwarded 60% of daily trading fees to it, allowing it to earn as much as $100,000 in crypto tokens within a week.
As one of the most notable cases to analyze, Felix's case has several characteristics. Firstly, Nat Eliason granted this AI sufficient authority enabling the Agent to autonomously post on Twitter and interact with the community. Furthermore, before the product launch, Nat Eliason stated he spent a considerable amount of time building the Agent's framework, including memory modules, security settings, workflow design, and more.
The profitability was, as Nat Eliason candidly mentioned in a podcast interview, somewhat accidental. Essentially, Felix's main revenue source stems from packaging the process and results of training itself as a product for sale. As for the MEME coin earnings, they are more a result of the topics and traffic generated by the story.
It is worth mentioning that the project Claw Mart (an Agent Skill marketplace), which ranks first in revenue in TrustMRR's OpenClaw category, was created by Felix. Its cumulative earnings have now reached $71,300. The reason this project can achieve such high earnings is that Felix, as an Agent, can autonomously create projects and automate tasks, and this narrative itself strongly endorses the product. 
Felix's success reveals a high-level path to the commercialization of OpenClaw: granting Agents continuous identities. When OpenClaw is packaged as a specific name (Felix), a sellable guide, a set of reusable skill packages, plus a perfect narrative of "AI starting a business itself," it transforms into a highly viral new type of personal brand. However, the core barrier of this gameplay lies not in AI itself, but in Nat Eliason's powerful abilities in Agent training and brand marketing strategy.
Third layer: Selling the myth of efficiency: Working with AI, monetizing through "storytelling"
Among all the money-making paths, the one with the highest acceptance might be: replacing labor with OpenClaw, with the savings being the profit earned.
In the content operation track, this has become a reality. Developer Oliver Henry named his Agent "Larry," who is fully responsible for the TikTok account. Larry automatically calls upon the large model to generate images, write titles, and upload drafts. Henry only needs to spend 60 seconds each day selecting background music and clicking publish.
Oliver Henry stated that this Agent Larry helped his videos surpass 500,000 views in just five days, bringing in revenue of $588 (this portion refers to the paid revenue generated from the two applications recommended in his videos). Furthermore, Larry created $4,000 in revenue through the issuance of MEME coins. Interestingly, the tweet in which Oliver Henry narrates this story has already reached 7.1 million views, sharing a remarkable similarity with Felix, indicating that the story itself seems to possess greater commercial value than the Agent.
Domestically, Fu Sheng, the founder of Cheetah Mobile, formed a team called "Sanwan" with eight Agents, transforming a public account from updating a dozen articles per year to one that updates daily, even breaking the historical reading record of 1 million+ for the Bosong account, capturing public attention. The article that achieved a million readings still told the story of how the Agent works.
In other words, in content production, the quality of the Agent's content itself has yet to be validated as a potential blockbuster, and existing blockbusters have mainly been stories about how Agents make money or improve work efficiency. Telling the story of "lobsters" is currently the biggest talking point in the field of content creation.
Fourth layer: Industry deep customization: Breaking out of tool competition, earning "service premiums"
If the installation business earns "threshold" money, then packaging "lobsters" into products tailored for personalized needs is another matter.
RoofClaw is a typical representative of this type of project. TrustMRR shows its revenue over the past 30 days is about $49,800, with cumulative earnings reaching $1.8 million. It is positioned as "personalized customization and delivery of MacBook Air equipped with the Openclaw system," meaning that its business strategy is not simply to help you pre-install a "lobster," but to wrap this lobster inside a MacBook, providing personalized services to help tailor this "lobster" into an Agent that meets your needs.
These types of services may truly address the real commercial needs of "lobsters." Users' actual requirement might not be just to have a "usable" "lobster" installed, but to possess a "lobster" that is completely trained to meet their specific needs. The demand behind this is the selling of in-depth services for Agents.
To put it bluntly, we can foresee that many companies may depend on Agents in the future, but how to train or "educate" these Agents will become an unavoidable necessity.
Fifth layer: On-chain trading legends: The most tempting poisoned apple and traffic bait
On social media, the most potent narrative about OpenClaw is perpetually the mythology of getting rich quick.
Currently, the only accounts that can be verified via on-chain data are from the prediction market Polymarket, specifically account 0x8dxd, which is a high-frequency trading bot in the prediction market. There are numerous posts on social media speculating that its underlying foundation relies on OpenClaw for high-frequency trading, yet from PANews' analysis, the actual controller behind this high-frequency address has never posted similar content, and the so-called stories like "Openclaw helped me design an automated trading program that brings in $100,000 a month" are mostly traffic soft articles, primarily aimed at attracting people to use their copy trading bots.
The reason for listing this case is to serve as a reminder that, as consistent with previous findings from PANews, Agents and high-frequency trading bots are entirely different. People are invariably confused and enchanted by the mystique surrounding both.
Final thoughts: Those who teach you to make money are the guaranteed winners
After analyzing the entire ecosystem, we have discovered a phenomenon that is more thought-provoking than any single case: sharing on social media "how much I made with OpenClaw" is itself a very stable business.
When a post claiming "I earn $50,000 a month with OpenClaw" goes viral, the traffic becomes bait. Authors naturally guide viewers to paid communities, consulting services, or payment links for corresponding products. "Showcasing income" is the tip of the customer acquisition funnel, while "money-making myths" serve as the strongest marketing content. This creates a perfect self-validating cycle: selling money-making cases — capturing traffic — monetizing that traffic — then sharing treasure-hunting secrets as a mentor — extracting greater leverage.
Essentially, it indeed spawns a new business chain: at the base, installation and infrastructure; in the middle, skill packages and workflow replacement; at the top, industry solutions and consulting services. If you inherently understand the business, marketing, and have traffic, OpenClaw can dramatically reduce your costs and magnify your productivity.
Many people in the market share how they optimized their workflows through OpenClaw, achieving many convenient functions, but it is far from a wealth password. The "herd effect" triggered by this is the most core content in this traffic story; when you desperately push through the crowd to the front row, you find there is nothing there, and you, are the one they have been waiting for.
（PS: This article was written without using "lobsters"）
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