Author: Frank, PANews
In recent times, the hottest topic in the tech and startup circles isn’t a major company releasing a new model, but the nationwide “lobster farming” craze.
On one hand, the “lobster farming” boom has driven growth in related industries, with large model companies and cloud server providers making huge profits. On the other hand, how much real benefit Openclaw can bring to users remains a mystery. Although social media is filled with myth-like stories, a closer look reveals most are virtual stories designed to attract traffic.
Is lobster farming really profitable? If so, who is actually making the money?
PANews has compiled data from TrustMRR, public cases on social media, project official websites, and cross-verified reports from multiple sources. To distinguish “verified real income” from online myths, we excluded many rumors based solely on unverified claims or hearsay.
According to TrustMRR’s classification page for OpenClaw, there are 153 recorded projects in this ecosystem, with total income of approximately $358,600 USD over the past 30 days. Analyzing the top 30 samples, their combined income accounts for 97.3% of the total.
If we break down these projects and their underlying monetization logic by “industry value chain,” a stark truth emerges: The first to make money aren’t those using lobsters as products, but those who help others farm lobsters, teach others how to do it, or rely on hype to promote MEME tokens.
However, this isn’t the most genuine answer we seek. How exactly are those truly using Openclaw making money? To answer this, PANews has summarized five monetization strategies for OpenClaw.
First: Selling “Shovels” and services — quick cash from exploiting “cognitive gaps”
The most discussed and revenue-bright products in OpenClaw are often not specific applications but encapsulation tools and one-click hosting services.
OpenClaw functions more like a foundational infrastructure rather than a ready-to-use consumer product. It presents a high barrier for non-technical users. Once complexity exists, services will emerge.
Among the approximately $35,860 USD in the TrustMRR sample income over 30 days, “hosting deployment” and “one-click cloud hosting” alone contributed about $12,010 USD, accounting for 34.5%.
A typical example is QuickClaw, which packages underlying capabilities into a mobile app priced at $3.99/week or $49.99/year, generating about $8,782 USD in the past 30 days.
In Chinese communities, this logic manifests more simply: “lobster proxy” services on Xianyu (Idle Fish).
According to media reports, recently, “OpenClaw deployment services” on Xianyu and Xiaohongshu have exploded. Remote installation costs range from 100-300 RMB, with on-site services from 400-1000 RMB. During certain periods, daily transaction volume for related services increased by 150% compared to the previous quarter.
The core of this logic is “earning from information and perception gaps.” Users are willing to pay to save 30 minutes of hassle, but this is a “window period” business. As official one-click deployment tools mature, the profit from proxy services will quickly diminish.
Second: Packaging AI expert personas — when “storytelling” becomes the most expensive product
Moving up the chain, another more valuable layer in the OpenClaw ecosystem appears: not just deploying for you, but training your Agent well.
In the top 30 TrustMRR samples, projects related to templates, skill packs, and configurations contribute 26.4% of revenue.
One of the most credible and complete business cases at this level is FelixCraft.
In early 2026, creator Nat Eliason launched an experiment. He named his OpenClaw robot “Felix,” invested $1,000 as startup capital, and let it build its own business. Within a week, Felix generated about $3,500 USD via Stripe.
Additionally, the crypto community issued related MEME tokens for this Agent, forwarding 60% of daily transaction fees, allowing Felix to earn tokens worth up to $100,000 USD in a week.
Felix’s case is particularly noteworthy: Nat Eliason gave the AI high permissions, allowing it to autonomously post on Twitter and interact in communities. Before launch, Eliason spent significant effort building the framework, including memory modules, security settings, and workflows.
He admits in a podcast that the profit was an unexpected outcome. Fundamentally, Felix’s revenue mainly comes from packaging his training process and results as a product. The MEME tokens’ gains are driven by the story and hype it created.
Interestingly, the top-earning project in TrustMRR’s OpenClaw category, Claw Mart (a marketplace for Agent skills), was created by Felix. Its total revenue has reached $71,300 USD. The story of Felix autonomously creating projects and automating work is a powerful endorsement of this product.
Felix’s success reveals a high-level path for OpenClaw commercialization: endowing Agents with continuous identity. When OpenClaw is branded as a specific name (Felix), a sellable guide, a set of reusable skill packs, and a compelling “AI entrepreneurship” narrative, it transforms into a highly viral personal brand.
However, the core obstacle isn’t AI itself but the strong agent training skills and branding marketing behind Nat Eliason.
Third: Selling efficiency myths — using AI to work, monetizing through storytelling
Among all monetization paths, the most recognized is: replacing manual work with OpenClaw, saving costs, and earning profits.
This has become a reality in content operations. Developer Oliver Henry named his Agent “Larry,” responsible for his TikTok account. Larry automatically generates images, writes captions, and uploads drafts. Henry only spends 60 seconds daily choosing background music and clicking publish.
Henry states that within five days, Larry’s videos surpassed 500,000 views, bringing in about $588 USD in revenue (from paid app recommendations in his videos). Larry also generated $4,000 USD through MEME tokens.
Interestingly, Henry’s tweet about this story has reached 7.1 million views, similar to Felix’s case, where the story itself seems more commercially valuable than the Agent.
Founder Fu Sheng of Cheetah Mobile built a team called “30,000” with 8 Agents, achieving daily content updates from a few articles to over a million reads, setting a record for the Bosheng account. The story of how the Agent operates remains a key narrative.
This suggests that in content creation, whether Agent content quality can become a hit remains unproven; most viral stories are about Agent monetization or efficiency.
The biggest current topic in content creation is the “lobster” story.
Fourth: Deep industry customization — moving beyond tool competition to earn “service premiums”
If proxy services earn “entry barrier” profits, then packaging “lobsters” into personalized products is another level.
RoofClaw exemplifies this. TrustMRR shows it earned about $49,800 USD in the past 30 days, with total revenue reaching $1.8 million USD. It offers “personalized customization and delivery of a MacBook Air equipped with OpenClaw.”
This isn’t just pre-installing a “lobster,” but encapsulating the lobster inside a MacBook, with customized services to train the lobster Agent to meet specific needs.
Such services likely address the future real commercial demand for “lobsters.” Users don’t just want a ready-to-use lobster but a fully trained, tailored one. Behind this demand is a deep service for Agents.
Simply put, we foresee many companies relying on Agents in the future, but how to train or “coach” these Agents will become an unavoidable necessity.
Fifth: On-chain transaction legends — the most tempting poisoned apple and traffic bait
On social media, the most sensational stories about OpenClaw are always about getting rich quickly.
Currently, one verifiable on-chain account is 0x8dxd on Polymarket, a high-frequency trading bot in prediction markets. Many social media posts speculate that this bot relies on OpenClaw for high-frequency trading, but PANews’s analysis shows the actual controller behind this address has never made such claims.
Stories claiming “OpenClaw designed an automated trading system that earns $10,000/month” are just soft ads, mostly promoting their automated trading programs.
This case is listed as a warning: as previous PANews research indicates, Agents and high-frequency trading bots are not the same. People are often misled by their mystery and fantasize about them.
Final reflection: Those who teach you how to make money are the real winners
After analyzing the entire ecosystem, we notice a phenomenon more worth pondering than any single case: sharing “I made X amount with OpenClaw” on social media is itself a very stable business.
When a post like “I earn $50,000/month with OpenClaw” goes viral, traffic becomes bait. The author naturally directs viewers to paid communities, consulting, or product links.
“Showing off income” is the top of the customer acquisition funnel, and “making money stories” are the strongest marketing material.
This creates a perfect self-reinforcing cycle: selling success stories — attracting traffic — monetizing traffic — sharing “secrets” as a mentor — leveraging bigger gains.
Essentially, it has spawned a new business chain: bottom layer is proxy services and infrastructure; middle layer is skill packs and workflow replacements; top layer is industry solutions and consulting.
If you understand sales, marketing, and have traffic, OpenClaw can drastically reduce costs and amplify productivity.
Many are sharing how OpenClaw optimized workflows and enabled convenience, but it’s far from a secret to wealth. The “herd effect” it triggers is the core of this traffic story: when you desperately push through the crowd to the front, you find nothing there — and you are the one being waited for.
(PS: This article was not created using “lobster” stories.)
