ROBOTIS is the Korean company behind two things most robotics labs already own without thinking about the brand: the DYNAMIXEL smart servo and the TurtleBot3. It is also one of a small number of robot makers that puts a live add-to-cart price on research-grade hardware, from a $27.49 servo horn-sized actuator up to a $17,248.85 mobile manipulator. Every figure below was read off the ROBOTIS US store on 30 July 2026.
That matters because most of the robot market we cover is quote-only. When a manufacturer publishes its own parts list, you can do something you almost never get to do: price the robot, then price the robot's own components, and see what the frame, controller and assembly are actually worth.
DYNAMIXEL actuator prices
DYNAMIXEL is a daisy-chained smart servo with position, velocity, current and PWM control on board. The line spans roughly two orders of magnitude in price.
| Class | Example model | Price (USD) | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| XL (entry) | XL330-M288-T | $27.49 | Small educational arms, grippers |
| XL (entry) | XL430-W250-T | $27.50 | TurtleBot3 Burger drive wheels |
| AX (legacy) | AX-12A | $57.39 | Hobby and teaching platforms |
| XC (compact) | XC330-M288-T | $103.39 | Lightweight joints |
| XC (compact) | XC430-W150-T | $137.89 | Mid-size educational joints |
| XM (workhorse) | XM430-W350-T | $310.39 | OpenMANIPULATOR-X, OP3 joints |
| XM (workhorse) | XM540-W270-T | $482.89 | Larger arm joints |
| XH (high torque) | XH430-W350-T | $413.89 | Higher-load joints |
| XH (high torque) | XH540-W270-R | $632.39 | Legged and heavy arm joints |
| XD / XW | XW540-T260-R | $1,241.89 | Sealed, outdoor-rated joints |
| Y series | YM070-210-M001-RH | $1,632.89 | Industrial-grade rotary |
| Y series | YM080-230-A099-RH | $3,300.39 | Top of the Y line |
| P series | PM42-010-S260-R | $1,092.39 | Entry professional |
| P series | PH54-200-S500-R | $3,541.89 | Highest-torque catalogue part |
Six-piece bulk packs exist on the legacy MX line and are cheaper per unit — MX-28T is $298.89 single, $1,517.89 for six, or $252.98 each.
Platform prices
| Platform | Price (USD) | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| TurtleBot 3 Burger (RPi4 4GB) | $783.50 | Two-wheel ROS teaching robot |
| TurtleBot 3 Waffle Pi (RPi4 4GB) | $1,933.61 | Larger ROS platform with camera |
| OpenMANIPULATOR-X (RM-X52-TNM) | $1,629.09 | 4-DOF arm + gripper |
| OpenMANIPULATOR-P (RM-P60-RNH) | $16,176.02 | Professional-grade arm |
| OMY-L100 | $2,873.85 | Entry OMY manipulator |
| OMY-3M / F3M / AI3M | $11,498.85 / $14,373.85 / $17,248.85 | OMY manipulator tiers |
| ROBOTIS Hand RH-P12-RN | $3,663.90 | Two-finger robotic hand |
| ROBOTIS Hand HX5-D20 (L or R) | $7,703.85 | Five-finger hand |
| ROBOTIS OP3 | $13,764.35 | 20-DOF small humanoid |
Education kits run far below this: OLLO Initiate is $80.39, DREAM II levels are $137.89 each, the ENGINEER Kit 1 (US) is $1,138.50, and classroom bundles top out at $4,834.51 for the DREAM II School Set Bundle.
The unusual part: pricing a robot against its own servos
Because both the platforms and the actuators inside them are listed, the arithmetic is available to anyone.
- OpenMANIPULATOR-X uses five XM430-W350-T actuators. Five of them list for $1,551.95. The complete arm is $1,629.09 — so the frame, the gripper linkage, the wiring and the assembly come to $77.14, about 4.7% of the price. You are buying servos with a bracket set attached.
- ROBOTIS OP3 uses 20 XM430-W350 actuators, roughly $6,207.80 at the -T price. Against a $13,764.35 robot, that is about 45% — the rest is the Intel NUC i3 computer, sensors, frame and cover.
- TurtleBot 3 Burger is the opposite case. Its two XL430-W250-T motors are $55.00 against a $783.50 robot — 7%. Here you are paying for the LDS-02 lidar, the Raspberry Pi 4, the OpenCR board and the plate stack, not the drive.
The practical read: on a ROBOTIS arm, actuator choice *is* the budget, and cutting DOF is the only real lever. On a ROBOTIS mobile base, the sensors and compute dominate, so a cheaper motor changes almost nothing.
Which one to buy
Teaching ROS 2 to a class: TurtleBot 3 Burger at $783.50. It is the reference platform nearly every ROS tutorial is written against, and the 2GB variant at $758.20 saves $25.30 for no practical benefit.
Perception and navigation research: Waffle Pi at $1,933.61 for the camera and 30 kg payload, versus the Burger's 15 kg.
Manipulation coursework: OpenMANIPULATOR-X at $1,629.09, but budget spare XM430s — at $310.39 each, a burned joint is a meaningful line item on a teaching budget.
Humanoid research: OP3 at $13,764.35 is one of the few sub-$15k humanoids you can simply add to a cart. For a broader view of what else sits in that band, see our humanoid robot category.
A caution on quoted prices: search results circulating today still show the TurtleBot3 Burger at $681.30 and the Waffle Pi at $1,681.40. Both are below what the store charges as of 30 July 2026 ($783.50 and $1,933.61). Aggregator snapshots on this brand run stale; open the store page before you build a purchase order.
Where this fits in the wider market: our educational robot and industrial robot arm category pages cover the alternatives at each tier, and our Elephant Robotics price guide covers the closest Chinese equivalent in the desktop-arm segment.
*Prices read from the ROBOTIS US store on 30 July 2026, all USD, all with live add-to-cart. Stock status and sale pricing change; confirm before purchase.*
