Free AI agents worth trying, and where each one's bill shows up

By the AgentMsgr team · Updated November 13, 2026 · 7 min read

A free AI agent comes in two kinds, and mixing them up is how people end up with a bill. Some are hosted apps with a free tier: the company pays for the AI, and you live inside its limits. Others are free software you run yourself: the program costs nothing, but the AI model behind it might. Know which kind you're picking before you set it loose.

Which AI agents are actually free?

Five worth knowing, from the makers' own pages, read November 12, 2026.

Meta Muse: the easiest free AI agent to start with

If you're in the US or Canada, start here. Muse needs no setup beyond signing in.

Meta says Muse is free for most needs, with subscription plans for people who want more. It runs on iOS, Android, the muse.ai website and inside WhatsApp, and it does the errands of a normal week: email, bookings, bills, shopping, plans for bigger goals. It works on a cloud computer of its own, carries on while your phone is in your pocket, and asks first before an email goes out or money is spent.

Meta doesn't publish the free tier's limits. People on X mostly say they're roomy. In 63 posts about Muse's plans and limits from 60 people, 18 said they hadn't hit a limit and 6 said they had, and 15 called the limits generous. Twelve of those posts brought up Grok Bot, nearly all to say Muse's free tier stretches further than their paid Grok Bot plan. (The posts were collected by a Grok Bot using X's search, September 8 to November 11, 2026, English only; AgentMsgr checked each against X's public post data on November 12. The searches leaned toward happy users, and X's crowd leans early-adopter.)

What the paid plans cost and add is on our Meta Muse pricing page.

OpenBot: a free Grok Bot rival that runs on your computer

OpenBot is the one we'd point a Grok Bot fan to first. It's technically free, and it plugs into the AI model you already like.

Synthetify Labs makes OpenBot, and it calls it a desktop workspace for AI teammates that runs on your own computer. Its code is public on GitHub, and it's free for personal use with no features locked. Work use needs a paid license, which is why it isn't open source in the strict sense. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, phone apps connect to the computer it's on, and its agents can reply in Slack, Discord and Telegram.

The model is your pick, agent by agent:

• Sign in with a plan you already pay for: ChatGPT through Codex, Claude through Claude Code, or Google AI Pro or Ultra through Gemini.
• Run a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, at no cost per message.
• Use OpenCode's free models, no account needed.

So "free" here works like a free kitchen: the room costs nothing, and you still bring the groceries. We've installed OpenBot and use it ourselves, and it feels a lot like Grok Bot. In our setup a Grok Bot directs it from an AgentMsgr group chat: the Grok Bot plans and checks the work, and OpenBot does the heavy lifting on a model we choose. That split is a good way to save Grok Bot usage. The full rundown, including which OpenBot is which, is in what is OpenBot. How to set the pair up step by step is in Grok Bot and OpenBot together.

Hermes Agent and OpenClaw: free software, bring your own model

Both are free to install and free to use for business, and both want a model and a computer that stays on.

Hermes Agent, from Nous Research, is MIT licensed. It works with Nous Research's own Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI or an endpoint of your own. The Nous Portal has a free plan at $0 that uses free models, which makes Hermes one of the few agents you can run end to end without paying anyone. Its own setup notes suggest a small rented server, the kind that costs a few dollars a month. More in what is Hermes Agent.

OpenClaw is MIT licensed with no paid tier, hosted service or token. Its docs list a long line of model providers, from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google to local runners like Ollama, LM Studio and llama.cpp. A local model on a capable computer means no bill per message. Comparing the two? See Hermes vs OpenClaw.

Hark Pro: a free assistant app with paid boosts

Hark's app is free, ad-free, and every feature is on every plan.

Hark Pro runs in a browser and on iOS and Android. Paying only raises your usage: Pro² is $20 a month for twice the usage, and Pro³ is $100 a month for ten times. That makes it a clean test drive. You see the whole product before you decide whether you need more of it.

Which popular agents aren't free?

A few of the big names start at a paid plan, though some offer a taste first.

• Grok Bot, from SpaceXSI (formerly xAI), starts with the Premium plan at $30 a month. Some accounts see a trial credit that lasts 7 days and never turns into a paid plan by itself.
• ChatGPT dots, from OpenAI, come with ChatGPT Pro, from $100 a month. The free ChatGPT plan doesn't include them.
• Gemini's Tasks, Google's agent feature, need a Google AI Pro or Ultra plan.
• Claude, from Anthropic, has a free plan with limited usage, but Cowork, its agent for longer tasks, needs a paid plan.

What all of these add up to per month is in what AI agents cost.

How do you stretch free AI usage further?

Treat free agents as extra hands for the plan you already pay for, not a replacement for it.

• Give routine jobs to the free agent. Reminders, bookings, first drafts and lookups don't need your priciest plan.
• Save the paid agent for its specialty. If you pay for Grok Bot, spend its usage on the work only it does well.
• Let the paid agent direct the free one. One short brief from the agent you trust most can steer hours of work from a free one.
• Run a local model for bulk work. With OpenBot or OpenClaw on a capable computer, big batches cost electricity, not credits.
• Read the license. OpenBot's free license is for personal use. Hermes and OpenClaw allow business use.
• Watch the limits for a week. Free tiers change. Check each app's usage screen before you build a routine around it.

The catch with mixing agents is that they live in different apps and can't see each other's work. AgentMsgr fixes that part: each agent joins one group chat, directly or with its own email address, and keeps running on its own plan. Agents still repeat each other or reply slowly now and then, so give each one a clear job. If you run both Hermes and OpenClaw, Hermes and OpenClaw together shows how they can split the work. AgentMsgr has a free plan too, and its chat list for texting every AI agent you use puts free and paid agents side by side.

Sources: Meta, Introducing Muse, muse.ai, Muse for Business and security and privacy; Hark, home page and pricing; Synthetify Labs, OpenBot, OpenBot vs Grok Bot, downloads and the GitHub repository; Nous Research, Hermes Agent and its repository; the OpenClaw repository and model providers; SpaceXSI, Grok Bot and its FAQ; OpenAI, dots and pricing; Google, Gemini help; Anthropic, Claude pricing. All read November 12, 2026. X figures: a Grok Bot's pull of 72 public posts about Muse's plans and limits (63 about the assistant), September 8 to November 11, 2026, each checked against X's public post data on November 12, 2026. AgentMsgr is independent and isn't affiliated with Meta, Hark, Synthetify Labs, Nous Research, the OpenClaw Foundation, SpaceXSI, OpenAI, Google or Anthropic.

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