Our team needed basic data cleaning and CSV merges. The sales pitch for Claw sold us on "AI automation" replacing manual work.
We got a junior intern for $20/hour. Claw's starter plan is $1200/month. We compared a month of tasks.
The intern took 3 hours to standardize a vendor list. Claw took 1 hour of prompt engineering and 2 hours of reviewing its odd formatting choices. The intern asked clarifying questions. Claw produced confident, wrong outputs that needed full rechecks.
For monthly reports, the intern learned the template and delivered consistent results after week two. Claw required weekly adjustments to its "automated" workflow, eating senior analyst time.
Vendor said we'd cut data task time by 80%. Actual reduction was maybe 30%, but with added oversight stress.
Renewal is coming up. We're keeping the intern and dropping Claw. The math only works if your team's hourly cost is extremely high, or if you have no one to manage the tool. For simple tasks, a person who learns is more reliable.