Best Cheapest Way To Run an Agent Long Term

I’m trying to figure out the cheapest but still effective way to run all of this long term, and I’m looking for advice from people who have already gone down this rabbit hole. What I’m currently running: \- OpenClaw \- Mostly using Claude + Gemini APIs \- Discord now started with WhatsApp (terrible idea) \- Finance/stock analysis focused setup APIs / Models I’ve tested: Claude (Anthropic) \- claude-sonnet-4-6 → currently my main/default model \- claude-opus-4-7 - good but expensive \- Burned through $20 in API credits super fast while setting everything up. Gemini \- gemini-2.5-flash \- Used Gemini Flash heavily because of the free tier \- Had Gemini set as primary with Claude Sonnet fallback once I get close to usage limits Skills/plugins I’ve installed: \- earnings-calendar \- finviz-screener \- market-environment-analysis \- market-news-analyst \- technical-analyst \- position-sizer \- us-stock-analysis Basically trying to turn this thing into my own AI market assistant that watches trends/news and helps me research trades. With updates through the day. What I’m trying to figure out: \- What’s the cheapest good setup? \- Are there solid free API routes? \- Are there better providers/models I should look into? \- How are you guys balancing cost vs performance? I don’t mind doing research myself, just looking for firsthand experience from people already deep into this stuff. It’s becoming a fun hobby and I don’t want cost to have to hold me back. Thank