mobilebox

Cloud Android phones for AI agents, over MCP and REST. $0.01 a minute.

Mobilebox gives your AI agent a phone it can use. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or your own agent loop creates a cloud Android 14 phone, reads the screen as numbered elements, taps, types, installs your APK, then parks or deletes the phone. One phone per task or pull request costs a few cents: $0.01 per phone-minute, billed per second.

• Measured, 2026-11-08 (method, scripts and CSV): a Mobilebox phone was ready for its first screenshot in 19.4 s (median of 10) and a 10-minute session cost $0.10. On a GitHub Actions runner, the same start took 20.3 s, against 50 s for the Android emulator with KVM and 813 s without it (one run).
• Fair comparison: in the same benchmark Limrun started in 0.98 s ($0.04 a minute on its $20 plan), and Clousd lists a lower price ($0.004 a minute, as published on 2026-11-10). All cloud phones for AI agents, compared.

Website · Docs · Quickstart · MCP registry

_{Phone screens are unedited API screenshots from one recorded run; steps and times are its MCP calls, from the home screen on. Playback shortened.}

_{Ready time: create to ready, three runs on 2026-11-04 (RUNS.md).}

Works with    Claude Code    Codex    Cursor    any MCP client

• Listed in the official MCP registry as dev.mobilebox/mobilebox, tool definitions rated A on Glama.
• Checked on every deploy: an end-to-end run on production that uses only the public docs (create, install, tap, type, park, resume, delete over REST and MCP).

Quickstart

1. Get a key. Sign up with GitHub ($2 of credit, 200 phone-minutes) and create an agent key in the dashboard.

export MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY=...   # keep it in your shell or secret manager, never in a prompt

2. Add Mobilebox to your agent.

claude mcp add --transport http mobilebox https://mobilebox.dev/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY"

[mcp_servers.mobilebox]
url = "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY"

{ "mcpServers": { "mobilebox": { "url": "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY}" } } } }

{ "mcpServers": { "mobilebox": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY}" } } } }

3. Give it a task.

Use Mobilebox. Create a phone, open Settings and tell me which Android version it runs. Delete the phone at the end, even if a step fails.

Next: let your agent test the APK you just built, or run the same check in CI. No MCP client? curl/walkthrough.sh does the whole loop over REST (OpenAPI, reference).

Watch your agent

_{A real agent on a Mobilebox phone, recorded in the live view at real speed. One step fails, and the log says why.}

Open a live view of any running phone and see every step as it happens: a cursor that moves to each target, a ripple for every tap, a trail for every swipe, the text as it is typed (dots in password fields), and a caption with its time for each step. Nothing depends on sound, and screen readers announce each caption.

npx mobilebox watch <phone_id>   # with MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY set: opens the view in its own window

Over MCP, ask your agent to show you the phone: watch_phone returns the link (REST: POST /v1/phones/{id}/view). The dashboard has a Watch button on every running phone. The view is read-only and watching is free. Try it with watch/watch.sh; details in the API reference.

Tools

Phones, apps and the screen over MCP; REST adds binary APK upload, account balance and billed sessions. Sign in once with OAuth from any MCP client that supports it (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code): add https://mobilebox.dev/mcp and approve. Or send your key as Authorization: Bearer.

Examples

Each creates a phone, checks one outcome and deletes the phone, also when the check fails. All ran against production: on 2026-11-04, and the live view example on 2026-11-05 (RUNS.md).

Pricing

Billed per second while a phone is ready, with a one-minute minimum per session. Boot time and parked phones are free. New accounts start with $2 of credit; add more from the dashboard. Over 100 devices: contact sales. Pricing.

Security

Each phone is an isolated Android sandbox on Mobilebox servers in Germany, reachable only through the API. Keys are per workspace, stored hashed and never logged. Mobilebox runs no model: screen content goes only to your agent.

For agents

AGENTS.md is the operating guide: the loop, targets, error recovery and cleanup. Live versions: skill.md, llms.txt.

Questions: hello@mobilebox.dev, or open an issue. MIT for this repository; the hosted service is covered by its terms.