Hands are sold separately: end-effectors are a five-figure add-on

Applies to: Anyone buying Unitree G1/R1/H1/H2, Booster T1, or any research humanoid; less relevant for consumer robots like 1X NEO which include hands

The short version

Most humanoids ship with no functional hands. Dexterous hands are separate products costing $4,500 to $25,000 PER HAND, often locked to specific robot tiers, and swappable end-effectors via standard wrist flanges are the industry norm.

The facts

01
The base Unitree G1 ($13,500 on Unitree's official shop as of mid-2026) does not include dexterous hands at all; its arms end in non-functional stubs, and hands are listed as optional only on the EDU version (per unitree.com/g1, the three-fingered force-controlled hand adds '7 (Optional)' DOF per hand).
02
The Unitree R1 ($5,900) also ships without working hands: the standard version cannot grip anything, and movable fingers are only available on the more expensive R1 EDU tier, per CNX Software and Notebookcheck coverage of the July 2025 launch.
03
Unitree Dex3-1 (3-finger, 7 DOF per hand, 500 g object payload) costs $6,500 per single hand at RoboStore, Unitree's official US partner, so a pair adds $13,000; RoboStore states Dex3 hands are only compatible with G1 EDU-tier robots and higher, not the base G1.
04
Unitree Dex5-1 (5-finger, 20 DOF: 16 active plus 4 passive, about 1 kg per hand, roughly 10 N fingertip force) is listed at $25,000 for an individual hand at RoboStore; Unitree's own direct price is not published, so treat $25k/hand as the US reseller price.
05
Inspire Robots RH56 series hands (the 5-finger hands used on many Chinese humanoids, 6 DOF/12 joints) cost $4,500 per hand without integrated wrist or $6,500 with wrist at KnoxLabs; the heavy-load RH56E2 variant delivers 30 N thumb force with tactile arrays.
06
Hand choice is what actually drives humanoid pricing tiers: Unitree's G1 EDU price list runs from $43,900 (U1, 'dummy hands') through $54,900 (U9, Dex3-1 hands) to $73,900 (U6, Inspire 5-finger hands plus 17 tactile sensors), per botinfo.ai's config table, meaning the jump from no hands to sensorized five-finger hands adds roughly $30,000.
07
Booster T1 shows the same pattern: the ~$33,949 Standard has 23 DOF and no hands, a gripper version has 31 DOF, and a dexterous-hand version has 41 DOF, per humanoid.guide and reseller listings.
08
Swappable end-effectors are the norm because hands are the most fragile, fastest-evolving part: Inspire explicitly markets its hands as compatible with 'standard humanoid wrist flanges' over RS485 or CAN, and Unitree's H2 can be factory-specced with either Dex5-1 five-finger or Dex3-1 three-finger hands, so buyers pick grippers vs dexterous hands per task rather than getting hands 'for free'.
09
Practical takeaway with numbers: a 'complete' G1 that can actually grasp objects is not a $13,500 purchase; it is a $43,900+ EDU chassis plus $13,000-$50,000 of hands, i.e. hands can cost more than the robot that carries them.

Sources

See how this plays out per machine in the catalog.

Browse robots

More guides

Hands are sold separately: end-effectors are a five-figure add-on

Applies to: Anyone buying Unitree G1/R1/H1/H2, Booster T1, or any research humanoid; less relevant for consumer robots like 1X NEO which include hands

The short version

The facts

01
The base Unitree G1 ($13,500 on Unitree's official shop as of mid-2026) does not include dexterous hands at all; its arms end in non-functional stubs, and hands are listed as optional only on the EDU version (per unitree.com/g1, the three-fingered force-controlled hand adds '7 (Optional)' DOF per hand).
02
The Unitree R1 ($5,900) also ships without working hands: the standard version cannot grip anything, and movable fingers are only available on the more expensive R1 EDU tier, per CNX Software and Notebookcheck coverage of the July 2025 launch.
03
Unitree Dex3-1 (3-finger, 7 DOF per hand, 500 g object payload) costs $6,500 per single hand at RoboStore, Unitree's official US partner, so a pair adds $13,000; RoboStore states Dex3 hands are only compatible with G1 EDU-tier robots and higher, not the base G1.
04
Unitree Dex5-1 (5-finger, 20 DOF: 16 active plus 4 passive, about 1 kg per hand, roughly 10 N fingertip force) is listed at $25,000 for an individual hand at RoboStore; Unitree's own direct price is not published, so treat $25k/hand as the US reseller price.
05
Inspire Robots RH56 series hands (the 5-finger hands used on many Chinese humanoids, 6 DOF/12 joints) cost $4,500 per hand without integrated wrist or $6,500 with wrist at KnoxLabs; the heavy-load RH56E2 variant delivers 30 N thumb force with tactile arrays.
06
Hand choice is what actually drives humanoid pricing tiers: Unitree's G1 EDU price list runs from $43,900 (U1, 'dummy hands') through $54,900 (U9, Dex3-1 hands) to $73,900 (U6, Inspire 5-finger hands plus 17 tactile sensors), per botinfo.ai's config table, meaning the jump from no hands to sensorized five-finger hands adds roughly $30,000.
07
Booster T1 shows the same pattern: the ~$33,949 Standard has 23 DOF and no hands, a gripper version has 31 DOF, and a dexterous-hand version has 41 DOF, per humanoid.guide and reseller listings.
08
Swappable end-effectors are the norm because hands are the most fragile, fastest-evolving part: Inspire explicitly markets its hands as compatible with 'standard humanoid wrist flanges' over RS485 or CAN, and Unitree's H2 can be factory-specced with either Dex5-1 five-finger or Dex3-1 three-finger hands, so buyers pick grippers vs dexterous hands per task rather than getting hands 'for free'.
09
Practical takeaway with numbers: a 'complete' G1 that can actually grasp objects is not a $13,500 purchase; it is a $43,900+ EDU chassis plus $13,000-$50,000 of hands, i.e. hands can cost more than the robot that carries them.

See how this plays out per machine in the catalog.

Browse robots