Can I Buy A Butler Yet?

💰 ~$25,000 (target) 📅 Factory use 2026, consumer TBD

Gen 3 prototype early 2026, building 1M-unit production line. As of March 2026, still not available to consumers — initial units going to Tesla factories and enterprise partners only. Consumer sale target pushed to late 2027 per Musk at Davos. B2B commercial launch expected late 2026 at $100K+/unit — consumer pricing may eventually land $25K-$40K but not this year. Won't win this bet but the biggest long-term threat.

💰 ~$4,900 📅 Ships April 2026

Incredibly cheap at under $5K, but it's a dev/research platform — not household-ready. The R1 does not have dishwashing or trash-taking abilities, so it doesn't meet the bet criteria for a "yes" conclusion. Unitree planning a cheaper household humanoid with a target of 2030.

💰 $20,000 (or $499/mo rental) 📅 US deliveries 2026 (commercial 2027)

The only humanoid you can actually preorder right now ($200 deposit, or $499/mo subscription). Purpose-built for home chores — automates tasks from a list on a schedule. Soft, quiet, tendon-driven at just 30kg. At $20K it's well under the $40K threshold. 1X confirmed 2026 home deliveries are happening — some sources report initial deliveries have begun. Caveat: early units rely on human teleoperators when the AI gets stuck (1X CEO confirmed to WSJ). The question is whether it can handle dishes + trash reliably and autonomously.

💰 €19,999 (~$21,600) 📅 Ships April 2026

German-engineered humanoid for both industrial and domestic use. At ~$21.6K, it's under the $40K bet threshold. Neura now raising ~€1B at €4B valuation (backed by Tether) — the largest single DACH startup round this cycle. Ships April 2026 — could be a dark horse contender if it handles household chores. Unclear on autonomous dish/trash capability. Recent focus appears industrial (LogiMAT 2026 demo was intralogistics).

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Industrial pilots only

🔥 LATEST (Oct 4, 2026): Major milestone — Sep 17, 2026: Helix 2.5 achieves zero-shot whole-body autonomy across 30 real Bay Area homes with no prior data collection in any of them. Demonstrated three long-horizon behaviors: tidying living rooms, folding towels, and making beds — all from a single Index-pretrained base model. This is reportedly the first demonstration of zero-shot whole-body generalization at this scope on a humanoid. F.02 decommissioned Sep 30. Still no consumer pricing or US purchase option announced — only industrial pilots and fleet deployments. The AI capability gap between Figure and competitors keeps widening, but availability remains the bottleneck.

💰 ~$20,000 📅 1,000+ produced

Guinness record holder — walked 66 miles continuously on hot-swappable batteries. Real manufacturing volume but industrial focus for now.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Industrial focus

360° joint rotation and superhuman movement — but targeting dangerous industrial jobs, not your kitchen.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Customer service roles first

Viral "catwalk" gait so realistic people thought it was a human in a suit. Targeting hospitality/retail before homes.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 R&D phase

The OG humanoid robot company — retired ASIMO but continues R&D with their Avatar robot program. No consumer product announced.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Deployed in homes (Suzhou, China)

Possibly the first humanoid actually operating in real homes — demoed in Suzhou doing wake-ups, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and tidying. Adjustable height (800-1600mm), 34 DoF, LiDAR navigation, voice control, 6-12hr battery. No US availability or pricing yet. Impressive demo but unverified real-world reliability.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Prototype demo (Mar 2026)

Wheeled base with robotic arm, powered by OpenClaw. Demoed tidying shoes and toys at Shanghai expo. Not humanoid (no legs), but targeting household chores directly. No price or release date yet.

💰 Not disclosed 📅 Beta by Thanksgiving 2026

Raised $165M at $1.15B valuation (Mar 12, 2026). Building "Memo" — household robot explicitly targeting dishes, laundry, and table clearing. 1,000+ waitlist. Beta rollout targeting Thanksgiving 2026. No pricing announced yet. One to watch very closely for the bet — its stated capabilities align perfectly with the bet conditions.

💰 $50,000 📅 Early 2026

Amazon-acquired startup. Bipedal but small (42" tall, 50 lbs). At $50K it's over the bet threshold. Interesting as an Amazon play into home robotics.

💰 $7,999 📅 Shipping (SF Bay Area)

Stationary laundry-folding robot at $8K — ships to SF Bay Area now. Not a humanoid and can't do dishes or trash, but it's a real home robot doing real chores today. Powered by Physical Intelligence π0.6.

💰 Price not disclosed (B2B enterprise) 📅 Early access H1 2027, GA end of 2027

🔥 LATEST (Sep 15, 2026): Agility unveiled Digit 5 — their latest humanoid built for cooperative work alongside humans without safety cages. Features: cooperative safety system (detects people, stops/moves aside or squats when too close), lifts 50 lbs, stands 5'11" (reaches 7.2 ft), swappable end-effectors, 90-min battery with 9-min recharge, uses Nvidia Thor IGX + Halos for Robotics safety stack. Previous Digit models already deployed at GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (65,000+ hours). No consumer product, no pricing (enterprise lease/sales only), no household chore capability — purely industrial/warehouse focus. Already won't win the bet but Agility is a heavyweight player to watch.

💰 $1,688 (YC-backed) 📅 Ships Fall 2026, "Order now"

🆕 NEW ENTRY (Oct 4, 2026): YC W24 startup Nori Robotics launched the A3 — an affordable bimanual (two-arm) robot that ships from San Francisco starting Fall 2026. At just $1,688, it's the cheapest home-capable robot on the market by far. Claims everyday tasks: kitchen help, tidying, fetching from fridge, loading dishes, folding clothes, pouring ingredients. Has Skills Marketplace for training/sharing abilities. 7+1 DOF arms, lidar, 4 cameras, 6-8hr battery. Not a walking humanoid (bimanual arm-based design), but clearly targets household chores. Low price and US-based make it worth tracking, though its capabilities are unproven in real homes.