Yesterday I shared my cheap use case with OpenClaw and Deepseek API use, I thought why not share a backup method I'm planning on use and let OpenClaw generate me a short and direct backup document for me to keep on my files.
I'll post the picture of the generated document in first comment bellow.
​
I’m using a cheap VPS from Hetzner, which costs me about $5/month. To power OpenClaw, I’m currently trying out DeepSeek with just a $5 credit.
So far, I’m really enjoying the experience. I’ve had OpenClaw set up some fun cron job reminders that I receive via my linked Telegram bot. I also updated OpenClaw to the latest version it seems much faster now when starting and stopping the gateway.
For a more advanced setup, I asked OpenClaw to install a Grafana dashboard and configure it to track my DeepSeek API usage and other LLM costs.
**I previously used OpenRouter, but I made the mistake of leaving it on auto mode, which burned through my API credits quickly because it kept selecting high-end models, and yes this is completely my fault for not researching open router first.** That’s why I switched to using DeepSeek directly through their own API/payment setup.
For security, I had OpenClaw harden the VPS and generate a full security inventory (in PDF format) of everything installed, including what might be risky.
Last but not least, I also installed Netdata to monitor the VPS with clean, real time graphs.
BONUS FUN: I even had OpenClaw install a “Jarvis” style voice (more like a fancy butler) that reads out short cron job updates or system info.
All of this is costing me about $1 so far for a few hours of heavy DeepSeek usage. I don’t think I can get it much cheaper than this right now and honestly, I think it’s a great balance.
Feel free to rate my setup, suggest improvements, or recommend even cheaper models than DeepSeek that still perform this well 👏