Mobile manipulators
A mobile manipulator is the workhorse in between a humanoid and a warehouse cart: one or two arms mounted on a wheeled base, built to pick things up and move them around a lab, store, or factory floor. As of July 2026, 2 of the 7 mobile manipulators Valumech tracks carry a manufacturer-published price, from $7,999 for the Zeroth Robotics W1 to $29,950 for the Hello Robot Stretch 4, with a median of ≈$19,000. Of the 7, 3 are shipping, but only 1 of those carries a public price; the other 5 sell by quote to labs and enterprises, so Valumech lists them without a price rather than guessing.
Every mobile manipulator we track
All 7 in one place, ordered by a fixed rule rather than taste: the ones with a published price first (cheapest first), then shipping platforms sold by quote, then models still only announced. ≈ marks a figure converted to US dollars.
Pre-orderWheeled
ShippingWheeled
ShippingWheeled
ShippingWheeled
AnnouncedWheeled
AnnouncedWheeledThe spec triangle: payload, reach, and the software stack
Three things separate one mobile manipulator from another, and price is only loosely tied to any of them. The first is payload and reach — how heavy an object the arm can lift and how far it can stretch, which is what decides whether a machine can actually do the job you have in mind. The second is the physical platform: these range from light desk-height units up to the 131 kg Rainbow Robotics RB-Y1, which governs stability and where a machine can be used. The third, and the one that increasingly decides the purchase, is the software stack — the perception and learning system that lets the arm find and grasp real objects reliably. As a rough dexterity proxy, articulation across the tracked models runs from 9 degrees of freedom on the Hello Robot Stretch 4 to 47 on the Galbot G1 — but more joints is not automatically better if the software cannot use them.
Research bench vs. enterprise deployment
The clearest way to sort this category is by who it is sold to. A small set are research benches — documented, orderable platforms a university or AI team can buy to build on; that is the niche the priced, shipping models fill. Most of the rest are enterprise deployments: machines like the shipping platforms sold by quote, priced per rollout and aimed at a specific customer — retail shelves, warehouse lines — rather than at a lab with a purchase order. A third, thin slice is consumer-tier pre-orders trying to bring the form down to a hobbyist price. If you are choosing one, the tier tells you more than the sticker: a research bench you can order today and a per-deployment enterprise platform are different products even when they look alike in a photo.
An adjacent form worth knowing: the Promobot V.4 is a wheeled service robot — reception and guidance rather than pick-and-place — so it sits just outside this category, but buyers weighing a customer-facing wheeled robot often look at it alongside these.
Sparse pricing is normal here
Only 2 of the 7mobile manipulators Valumech tracks list a price, and that is not an oversight. This is mostly a research-and-enterprise category, and those machines are sold by quote — priced per deployment, negotiated with a sales team, bundled with support. That is the opposite of the consumer home-robot end of the market, where a public sticker price is the whole point. Rather than repeat a vendor’s “starting around” hallway figure as fact, Valumech shows not publicly priced until the maker publishes a real one.
Frequently asked
What is a mobile manipulator?
An arm — usually one or two — mounted on a wheeled base, so it can both move around a space and pick things up and place them. It sits between a fixed industrial arm (which cannot move) and a humanoid (which walks on legs). Valumech tracks 7, aimed mostly at labs, stores, and warehouses.
How much does a mobile manipulator cost?
Published prices run from $7,999 for the Zeroth Robotics W1 to $29,950 for the Hello Robot Stretch 4, a median of ≈$19,000. Only 2 of the 7 tracked models list a price — the rest are quote-only.
Which mobile manipulator is easiest for a lab to buy?
The Hello Robot Stretch 4 is the one you can order off a public list price without a sales call — $29,950, shipping now and documented for research use. It is not the cheapest here — the Zeroth Robotics W1 lists lower at $7,999 — but that one is a consumer-tier pre-order, not a documented research platform.
Is a mobile manipulator a humanoid robot?
No. A humanoid walks on legs and is roughly human-shaped; a mobile manipulator is an arm on a rolling base, with no legs and often no head. They overlap in tasks — both can move a box across a room — which is why buyers cross-shop them.
Why do most mobile manipulators have no price?
5 of the 7 tracked models are research or enterprise platforms sold by quote, priced per deployment rather than off a shelf. That is normal for this tier — Valumech shows a figure only where the maker has published one, as of July 2026, and shows the rest as not publicly priced.
Keep digging
Mobile manipulators are classified by what a model is for, not its wheels — and every price is verified against the maker’s own page or shown blank. How we value → · Full directory →