FAQ
Quick answers to common questions — each links to a full doc for details.
What this is
A short answer to each common question, with a link to the full doc when you want more. If your question isn't here, try Getting support.
General
What is Beach? Beach is a managed hosting platform for OpenClaw — your own personal AI agent, running on a dedicated server we operate for you. Full overview: What is Beach?
How is Beach different from OpenClaw? OpenClaw is the agent software (your assistant, its memory, its skills). Beach is the hosting layer (the server, your account, billing, backups). You'll spend most of your time in OpenClaw's Control UI; you come back to Beach to manage your account or instance. See What is Beach?.
Do I need to know how to code? No. Setup is paste-a-key, paste-a-token, follow the steps. See Quick Start.
Pricing & billing
How much does it cost? $44/month after a 7-day free trial. You bring your own LLM API key, so AI usage is billed by the provider — not by Beach. See Pricing & Free Trial.
What happens if I cancel? Your instance keeps running until the end of the current billing period, then stops. Your data is retained for 14 days (the reactivation window) and then permanently deleted. See Cancelling.
Can I export my data? Not today. Backups are restorable onto a Beach instance, but there's no off-platform download. If you cancel and want your data back, re-subscribe within the 14-day reactivation window. See What happens to my data when I cancel?.
Setup & usage
Which messaging channels work today? Telegram is live. Discord, WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, and iMessage are coming soon. See Channels overview.
Which AI providers are supported? Anthropic (recommended), OpenAI, Google Gemini, and OpenRouter. See Choosing a provider.
Can I run this on my phone? Initial setup needs a desktop browser. After your agent is connected to a channel like Telegram, you chat with it from your phone like any other contact. See Desktop-only (for now).
Security
How are my API keys stored? Encrypted in a per-user vault, scoped so only your instance can read them. See How your API keys are stored.
Where does my data live? On your own dedicated server in AWS us-east-1, with encrypted storage. See Where your data lives.
Is my server shared with other users? No — one virtual machine per customer, no shared tenancy. See Per-user isolation.
Status & support
Is Beach down? We don't have a public status page yet. If you suspect an outage, please contact support and we'll confirm.
How do I get help? Email support — see Getting support for what to include and what to expect.