Unitree R1
R1 is Unitree's low-cost humanoid, launched in July 2025 at CNY 39,900. At roughly a third of the G1 price it pushed the entry price for a walking humanoid below USD 6,000.
The verdict
The cheapest legged humanoid from a maker that ships in volume. At $4,900 it undercuts every serious competitor by thousands, and it exists because Unitree stripped out the things that make the G1 expensive. Treat it as a locomotion platform you can afford to break.
- Buy it if
- A first walking robot, on a budget, where dropping it is not a catastrophe.
- Skip it if
- You need hands that manipulate anything heavier than a cup.
In its favour
- Under $5,000 from a maker with real production
- Same software family as the G1
- Three configurations to pick from
Against it
- Limited manipulation
- Support is thin outside China
- Prices drift between AliExpress and the official store
How the score is built
Capability is what the machine physically does. Value compares it with others at a similar price, not with the whole market. Buyability asks whether you can really order one. Ecosystem is the software and community around it. Proof is what it has done in the field, which is where most humanoids score badly and should.
Similar money, different machine.
- Status
- Commercial
- Category
- research
- First revealed
- 25 July 2025
- Form
- bipedal
- Height
- 121 cm
- Weight
- 25 kg
- Payload
- n/a
- Degrees of freedom
- 26
- Battery
- n/a
- Runtime
- n/a
- Walking speed
- n/a
- Actuation
- electric
- Units deployed (est.)
- not disclosed
- Teleoperation
- partial
Where it stands
Announced July 2025 as an entry-level humanoid; shipping in Air, Basic and EDU variants.
What stands out
- Launch price CNY 39,900
- Weighs about 25 kg
Autonomy, observed
Walking, cartwheels, handstands and boxing in Unitree launch video; third-party demos from universities.
Hands, sensors, brain
- Hands: optional on EDU versions
- Sensors: binocular camera, 4-microphone array
- Compute: 8-core CPU with integrated GPU; Jetson option on EDU
- AI stack: reinforcement-learning locomotion, voice and vision multimodal model on device
Price and volume
From CNY 39,900 (about USD 5,900) for the base version at launch.
Index position
In the Humanoid Index, which ranks on shipped reality rather than value for money, Unitree R1 sits at #13 of 107 with 52 points: deployment 14/50, autonomy 18/30, availability 20/20. See that method.
Milestones.
Unitree announces R1 for 5,900 dollars
The 121 cm, 25 kg R1 is priced at 39,900 yuan, the cheapest full body humanoid on the market, and aimed at developers and education. It reinforces Unitree's position as the volume leader.
Deposits, lead times and warranties: reading a humanoid order sheet
Of 42 buy records, 2 publish a deposit, 1 a warranty, 1 a shipping cost and none a lead time in weeks. The order sheet for a humanoid is mostly blank, and the blanks are where the money goes.
How a humanoid robot works: actuators, compute, sensors and the model
Of 182 humanoids on record, 178 say what moves the joints and 43 say what computer is inside. The further a layer sits from the metal, the less the maker tells you about it.
A short history of the humanoid, from Elektro to the order button
Our record holds 111 dated milestones since 1939. Sixty-eight of them are from this decade, and what changed was not the walking. It was the price tag.
China builds, America demos: what 108 makers tell you
Chinese makers account for 65 of the 182 humanoids in our record and 31 of the 44 you can order. American makers hold the money, the research and most of the autonomy claims, and sell you almost nothing.
How much does a humanoid robot cost in 2026?
Thirty-five humanoids in our record carry a price, from $299 to $250,000 with a median of $15,000. What the money buys changes completely at each band, and so does how much you should trust the number.
Unitree G1 at $13,500: why the cheap one cannot run your code
The most sold humanoid in the world has a price that gets quoted everywhere and a configuration ladder that almost nobody reads. The version in the headline and the version in the lab are $30,400 apart.
Other robots by Unitree Robotics.
Unitree G1
G1 is Unitree's compact humanoid, announced in May 2024 at USD 16,000 and now listed at USD 13,500. Its low price and open SDK made it the default research and education humanoid worldwide. Read the configuration carefully: the standard machine does not support your own code, and the EDU version that does starts at USD 43,900.
Unitree H1
H1 is Unitree's first full-size humanoid, revealed in August 2023. It set a walking speed of 3.3 m/s and performed the first standing backflip by a full-size electric humanoid in March 2024. Sixteen H1 units danced on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in January 2025.
Unitree H1-2
H1-2 is the second iteration of the full-size H1 line with 27 degrees of freedom (six per leg, seven per arm, one waist joint) and support for dexterous hands. It is mainly a research platform.
Unitree H2
H2 is Unitree's third full-size humanoid, revealed in October 2025 with 31 degrees of freedom, 180 cm height and 70 kg weight. It is positioned as a general-purpose and entertainment platform.
Sources
- 01Unitree R1 product pageUnitree
Price sources
- 01Humanoid robots for sale: 2026 guideThere's A Robot For That · 2026-08-15
- 02Humanoid robot prices, 2026 guideRobotSourced · 2026-07-31
- 035 best affordable humanoid robotsKeyi Robot · 2026-07-01
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