FAQ
Setup
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is Amazon’s cloud platform. EasyStart runs OpenClaw on a small server in your AWS account, so you control the infrastructure.
New accounts with AWS have a free tier available for up to 6 months and are provided with $100 (or local equivalent) in free credits. The user can then earn another $100 in free credits through simple tasks. After 6 months or the credits are used up, AWS may incur some charges, depending on usage.
The free credits make it very inexpensive to try OpenClaw and use it with very minimal cost. All you need to pay for initially is your AI inference provider, but there are some very good low cost providers, such as z.ai. Also, if you find you need to use more powerful hardware, even for a short period of time, you can easily use your OpenClaw system on much more powerful hardware, up to 384 vCPUs and 6TB RAM. It costs $50/hr to run with Ubuntu (the base hardware we recommend for starting use with the OpenClaw AMI is $0.09/hr) and is not available on the free tier, but you can use it for a short time for intensive tasks and then can easily downsize the system when you don't need as much horsepower. That's one of the beautiful things about virtual servers. No need to buy a $20,000 Mac Studio setup.
An AMI (Amazon Machine Image) is a template used to launch a server in AWS. EasyStart provides a hardened AMI with OpenClaw already installed, so you start from a working baseline instead of building everything yourself.
Not deeply. You’ll follow a guided setup path with clear launch instructions. The point of EasyStart is to avoid trial-and-error server setup and start from hardened defaults.
If you’re very comfortable with UNIX systems, information security, and networking, you can set up OpenClaw yourself. It’s open source, and technically capable people do it all the time.
For everyone else, the setup can be daunting. You’re dealing with servers, security, dependencies, model connections, and troubleshooting errors that are not always obvious or well-documented.
OpenClaw EasyStart is for people who want to use OpenClaw without becoming an expert in all of that first. It gives you a working, proven setup so you can get up and running quickly and avoid the common pitfalls.
And if you do decide to try it yourself, no problem. Bookmark this page. If you find yourself several hours in, staring at connection errors and wondering what went wrong, we’ll still be here.
Typical setup time is about 15–20 minutes once your AWS account is ready.
Use our quick guide: How to find your Amazon account ID and AWS Region. You can also review OpenClaw install guidance.
Pricing
Yes. AWS and your AI provider bill usage separately from the one-time EasyStart payment. AMI access is provided for 2 weeks from purchase date, and you can copy the AMI into your own AWS account during that window.
If you set up a new AWS Free Tier account, you can qualify for up to $200 in free usage credits.
Amazon has a fixed limit on the number of accounts that an AMI can be shared with, so this helps ensure we do not get near those limits while still giving you time to copy the AMI into your own AWS account.
Security
No. EasyStart is designed around AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Session Manager for administration by default. See the full security baseline and hardening overview and our OpenClaw security guide.
Support
OpenClaw EasyStart is designed to be a low-cost, self-serve way to get up and running quickly. We don’t offer support because:
- In practice, support for EasyStart inevitably becomes support for OpenClaw, plus the underlying Ubuntu and AWS environment.
- OpenClaw can take actions (at your direction or potentially autonomously) that change configuration and affect functionality—for example, Telegram configuration—so issues can be caused by changes made after setup.
- The low one-time fee can’t fund ongoing support. Offering support as an add-on subscription would need to be priced high enough that it defeats the goal of getting OpenClaw working quickly at a reasonable cost.
- We are contemplating experimenting if OpenClaw can operate as a Support Bot. It would be an interesting experiment. More to come on this perhaps...
Delivery is typically within a few hours, up to 24 hours.
Legal
No. OpenClaw EasyStart and PerksMinder LLC are not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon, AWS, or OpenClaw.