# Manus AI Review: What the Agent Does, Costs and Risks

> Manus AI review: what the agent builds in its cloud machine, how credits set the bill, where it keeps data, and how safe it is for teams.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/manus-ai-review — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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Manus AI is a general-purpose AI agent. You describe a job, and it plans and finishes the work inside its own cloud computer, then hands back a research report, a slide deck, a live website, a video or a running automation. It is made by Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd., a company in Singapore. Paid use starts with Pro at $20 a month (4,000 credits),[1] and the Free plan runs only the lightest mode. Our verdict is simple. Manus is strong when you want finished deliverables rather than answers. It is hard to budget, because credits burn at a rate Manus itself cannot predict before a task starts.


**4.0 / 5** — Our Toolkit Score for Manus AI: a capable agent held back by unpredictable credit costs.



- **20 at once** — Concurrent tasks on every paid plan
- **Lite only** — Where the 300 daily refresh credits work, on any plan
- **416** — Connectors in the catalog, November 2026


## What happens when you hand Manus AI a job

Every task gets its own isolated cloud virtual machine with internet access, a file system and a browser. The agent plans the work, opens sites, writes and runs code and assembles files, and the machine goes to sleep when nothing is happening. What comes out is concrete: research reports, decks exported as editable PPTX or PDF, websites and full-stack web apps with a database and login hosted on Manus, videos, browser games, mobile app test builds and scheduled automations. The current generation, **Manus 2.0**, launched in September 2026 on an in-house agent harness called Cascade, which adds specialized capabilities only when a job needs them.

The mode menu has four entries. Manus 2.0 Max is meant for complex tasks, Manus 2.0 for most work, and Manus 2.0 Lite for everyday tasks and small edits. Manus Flex, still in beta, lets you plug in your own model key from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Google AI Studio, though images, video and hosting still draw on credits. Free accounts get Lite in Agent mode plus Chat mode; Pro unlocks all three 2.0 modes. Chat reads images and PDFs and searches the web. It is not free, though. Both modes use credits, and you can switch a conversation from Chat to Agent but never back.

### The pieces that go beyond a chat window

Wide Research is the feature most buyers ask about. It splits a list job across parallel sub-agents, each a full Manus instance with its own machine, then merges the results into a table or report. It is paid only, starts automatically when the agent decides a task can be split, runs 20 sub-tasks at a time and caps each one at 50 credits. Manus says it is not meant for single deep dives, sequential work or lists under 10 items. Automations run on a schedule as often as every five minutes, or fire on triggers from Gmail, Slack, Shopify, GitHub, RSS or a webhook.

Manus Studio (the desktop app, formerly Manus Desktop) brings the agent onto macOS on Apple Silicon and Windows 10 and 11. Intel Macs and Linux are not supported. Its My Computer feature runs command-line tools against folders you authorize, and Remote Control lets you drive the desktop by voice from the iOS or Android app, as long as the computer is on, awake and running Manus Studio. The connector catalog listed 416 entries as of November 2026, from Gmail and GitHub to HubSpot and Notion. Our [Manus AI playbook](/articles/manus-ai-ai-playbook) covers modes, prompts and Wide Research in depth.


> 💡 **Confirm a plan before big jobs:** Plan Mode, open to all users, writes an editable plan and builds nothing until you confirm it. Use it on long tasks to cut wasted credits.


## Where Manus AI keeps your data and how you sign in

Manus says it stores data in the US and Singapore. Sign-in uses Google, Apple, Microsoft, email or passkeys.

## Credits decide what Manus AI really costs



> **About these prices:** Prices shown are what Manus AI lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT. Check your current price — Manus AI: https://api.colosus.site/go/manus-ai?to=pricing


| Plan | Price | Credits | Tasks at once / scheduled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 a month | 300 refresh credits a day (Lite only, capped at 1,500 a month) + 1,000 once at sign-up | fewer than paid / 2 |
| Pro at $20 a month | $20 a month, or $200 a year billed yearly | 4,000 a month + 300 a day | 20 / 20 |
| Pro at $40 a month | $40 a month, or $400 a year billed yearly | 8,000 a month + 300 a day | 20 / 20 |
| Pro at $200 a month | $200 a month, or $2,000 a year billed yearly | 40,000 a month + 300 a day | 20 / 20 |
| Team | from $20 per seat a month, or $200 per seat a year | 4,000 per seat a month, pooled | 20 / 20 |

The annual cards show $17, $34 and $167 a month billed yearly, but the charge is $200, $400 and $2,000 a year. By our arithmetic, that saves $40, $80 and $400 a year against monthly billing, and plan credits cost $5 per 1,000 on every tier from $20 to $200 a month. The same $40 card offers 12,000, 16,000 or 20,000 credits a month for $60, $80 or $100 a month in total.

Add-on packs work out to $10 per 1,000 credits, twice the plan rate, and only higher plans can buy them: fixed packs are sold only on the highest personal plan, pay-as-you-go top-ups need a personal plan of $200 a month or more (the $167-a-month annual plan qualifies), and on Team, Owners and Super Admins buy them in Team settings. On the Pro plans from $20 to $100 a month there are no add-on credits, so running out means waiting for the monthly refresh or moving up the selector.

The rules around those credits matter more than the price list. Tokens, virtual machine time and third-party APIs all draw on the balance, and **Manus cannot estimate a task's credit cost in advance**; it tells users to treat any figure the agent offers as a hallucination. Monthly plan credits do not roll over, on annual plans either, and the 300 daily refresh credits work only in Manus 2.0 Lite, on every plan.[3] Add-on credits, on the plans allowed to buy them, stay usable only while a paid plan is active.


> ⚠ **Unused plan credits vanish monthly:** Monthly plan credits do not roll over, on annual plans too, and they drop to zero if you cancel.


Refunds are narrow. The Terms treat payments as final except where law requires, so consumers in the EU, the UK and Turkey keep a 14-day withdrawal right, and partial refunds happen only at Manus's discretion. Credits come back for verified platform faults after an AI review of the shared task link; Manus's help pages disagree on whether a poor result qualifies, so confirm with Manus in writing. Apple purchases are refunded by Apple. Website hosting and Cloud Computer are billed separately from the plan. Our [Manus AI pricing guide](/articles/manus-ai-pricing) walks through every tier, who can buy add-on credits and each separate bill.

## Is Manus AI safe for company work?

The paperwork is solid. Manus's Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type II, SOC 2 Type I, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701, with the reports available to download,[4] and its listed subprocessors (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, AWS and Cloudflare) all sit in the US. Tasks on individual accounts are private by default. Team accounts differ. There, the Owner and Super Admins can access every member's tasks, and the Owner can export that session data, so staff should know their work is visible.

Training needs careful reading. The Privacy Policy says Manus may build aggregated or de-identified data and use it to develop and improve its models, and users in some jurisdictions may opt out by email. Team plans include a data-training opt-out. You own your inputs and outputs and may use them commercially, though output may not be unique or protectable. Nobody under 18 may use the service.

The bigger exposure is what the agent can touch. In Manus Studio the default permission mode reviews safe actions automatically, yet even the approval modes can still read any file your user account can open, and Full access skips approval entirely. Through Browser Operator it acts inside your logged-in sessions, and the Privacy Policy says page content from the sites you authorize, clicks and form input go to Manus servers; only your passwords are not seen or stored. The Terms say agent actions may be attributed to you, and revoking access does not undo what is done. Manus also warns that output can sound confident and still be wrong, including invented citations. Our [buyer's checklist for Manus AI](/articles/manus-ai-buyers-checklist) turns these points into questions to settle before rollout.


> 💡 **Keep copies of what matters:** Manus's pages disagree on what survives a sandbox reset, so download any file you need to keep.


## How we score Manus AI

We weight capability and output range heavily for an agent like this, because the reason to pay is the finished work it returns. We treat cost predictability and support as real risks rather than footnotes, since both shape what a small team actually spends and how fast it recovers from a failed task. Sentiment counts, but as one axis among several. The full breakdown sits below.


**Our scorecard — 4.0/5**
- Capability & depth: 4.4/5 — One agent covers an unusually wide set of finished deliverables: research reports and datasets (Wide Research runs one full sub-agent per item, 20 at a time), slides with editable PPTX export and a native PowerPoint mode in beta, websites and full-stack web apps with hosting, a MySQL database, login, Stripe or Shopify payments, custom domains, SEO and code export or two-way GitHub sync, test builds of iOS and Android apps, a multi-track Video Editor and Game Dev in Manus Studio, and Automations that start on a schedule or on events from Gmail, Slack, Notion, Shopify, Meta Ads and others. Each task runs in its own cloud virtual machine with a browser and file system; Manus Studio (the desktop app, formerly Manus Desktop) works on local files and apps on macOS Apple Silicon and Windows, and a Cloud Computer gives always-on Linux, Windows or Mac machines. Held back by: no direct App Store or Google Play publishing (test builds only), no private publish option for sites, Video Editor exports MP4 only, Wide Research cannot be started manually and is not for sequential or single-topic work, Studio has no Linux or Intel Mac build, and the Cloud Computer has no graphical desktop.
- AI: 4.3/5 — Manus 2.0 runs on Cascade, Manus's own agent harness that loads specialised capabilities only when a project needs them (Manus says one tested configuration used 23.2% fewer tokens and cost 32% less, not an overall average). Users choose Manus 2.0 Max, Manus 2.0 or Manus 2.0 Lite, or Manus Flex with their own model key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Meta, OpenRouter, Fireworks or Modal; Chat mode handles quick questions and Agent mode plans and executes. Built-in media models include Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1, Gemini Omni Flash, GPT Image 2.5, Nano Banana Pro, Lyria 3.5 and Tripo for 3D, with no provider account needed. Plan Mode shows an editable plan before work starts; Projects, Skills (Agent Skills standard), Branch and parallel tasks structure longer work. Held back by: the text models behind the modes are not named; Manus cannot estimate a task's credit cost in advance and tells users to treat the agent's own estimates as hallucinations; the vendor's own help center warns of confident but inaccurate output and invented citations, and the 300 daily refresh credits work only in the Lite mode.
- Integrations: 4.4/5 — The connector catalog listed 416 connectors in November 2026 (13 built-in app connectors such as Google Workspace, Gmail, Outlook, GitHub, Shopify, Instagram and My Browser; 369 MCP connectors including Slack, HubSpot, Notion, Stripe and Zoom; 34 API-key connectors), plus custom MCP servers and custom API keys. Manus works inside Slack (agent DM, @manus in threads, a channel connector), Telegram and LINE, by email through Mail Manus, and through Zapier's 8,000+ apps. API v2 (v1 deprecated) offers tasks, projects, files, webhooks with RSA signatures, structured JSON output, website publishing and an OpenAPI spec, with per-user rate limits that do not vary by plan. Held back by: connectors may not show for every account, plan or region; the Meta Ads Manager connector is read-only; GitHub, Stripe, Shopify setup and mode choice are not available over the API; there is no public endpoint to unpublish a site; OAuth Open Apps require a Team account; and the docs we read name no plan requirement for API keys, so access rules must be confirmed.
- Value for money: 3.2/5 — Free gives 300 refresh credits a day (capped at 1,500 a month, usable only in Manus 2.0 Lite) and 1,000 credits once at sign-up. Pro is sold by credit allowance: $20 a month for 4,000 credits, $40 for 8,000, $200 for 40,000, with a selector between and much larger tiers in the plan data file; annual billing charges ten months ($200, $400 or $2,000 a year). By our arithmetic plan credits cost $5 per 1,000 on every tier from $20 to $200, falling only on far larger tiers, while add-on packs cost $10 per 1,000. Team starts at $20 per seat a month with pooled credits and free guests. Held back by: monthly credits do not roll over, even on annual plans; a task's cost cannot be estimated before it runs; Chat mode now uses credits; website hosting, database, in-site AI and Cloud Computer are billed on top of the subscription; the Terms make payments final except where law requires, with credit refunds only for verified platform faults; and Trustpilot complaints centre on credits running out fast and unexpected charges.
- Ease of use: 4.0/5 — Work starts from a plain-language request on the web, in Manus Studio, in the iOS and Android apps, by email or from Slack and Telegram; Plan Mode lets a user edit the plan before anything is built, the Video Editor hands over a timeline instead of forcing re-prompts, and websites can be changed by clicking elements in the preview. Browser Operator reuses the user's own logged-in browser sessions, and Take Over handles CAPTCHAs and two-factor prompts. Held back by: credit consumption is hard to predict and spread across several balances (daily, monthly, add-on, event, hosting usage); Manus Studio's three permission modes need care because commands in approval modes can still read any file the account can open; some pages still use old names (Manus Desktop, 1.6 models), and Browser Operator struggles with drag-and-drop, multi-step forms and aggressive anti-bot sites.
- Support & reliability: 2.6/5 — Manus holds SOC 2 Type II, SOC 2 Type I, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 (documents in its trust center), lists US subprocessors (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, AWS, Cloudflare), and its status page showed all systems operational for the 90 days before our November 2026 read; the contracting entity is Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. Held back by: help is routed through an AI chatbot and refund requests are reviewed by an AI agent, and Trustpilot complaints centre on bot-only support and billing; payments are final under the Terms; the help center and docs contradict each other on cost estimates and add-on credit expiry; and Manus may change or end any part of the service without notice.
- User sentiment: 4.6/5 — Weighted mean of each platform's displayed rating with at least 30 reviews, weighted by review count: Google Play (Manus AI: Video, Slides & Apps, 529K reviews), the Apple App Store (Manus - AI Agent & Automation, 40,378 ratings) and Trustpilot (manus.im, 212 reviews, unclaimed profile) give 4.61, dominated by the app stores. G2 (10 reviews) and Product Hunt (9) sit below the 30-review floor. Trustpilot is read only as a map of complaints (bot-based support, disputed or unexpected charges, credits disappearing quickly), not as a trend.
- Docs & learning resources: 4.3/5 — Three structured sources with machine-readable indexes: product documentation (manus.im/docs, more than 50 pages with Markdown versions, covering modes, Studio, website builder billing, hosting modes, connectors and built-in models), the API v2 documentation (open.manus.ai, guides plus endpoint pages and an OpenAPI spec) and a 128-article English help center that answers billing, credits, Team and privacy in detail; Manus Academy courses are free. Held back by: the docs and help center disagree on whether cost estimates exist and whether add-on credits expire; several pages still describe Manus Desktop, Manus 1.6 models or old plan names; and the pricing page shows no Free plan and no plan names, so the credit rules must be assembled from help articles.


That lands Manus AI at 4.0/5. Capability, AI and the range of connectors pull the number up; value for money and support pull it down. The public review platforms tell a split story that is worth reading by source rather than as one average.


**What users rate it, by platform**

| Platform | Rating | Reviews | As of |
|---|---|---|---|


_Rendered from our current record; these are other platforms' user scores, separate from our own Toolkit Score._


We read Trustpilot as a complaint map, not a trend. The Manus profile there is unclaimed, and Manus has not invited reviews, so the page collects people who arrived angry. Their themes are consistent: support that relies on automated bots and makes a human hard to reach, disputed transactions, unexpected charges and credits that vanish fast. One reviewer reported losing a large unused balance after a mid-cycle upgrade. That is a single account, but it matches the official rule that unused monthly plan credits expire each cycle.

## Where Manus AI pays off, and where it misfires

Manus pays off for owner-operators and small teams who want a finished artifact from one instruction. Think a market scan across dozens of companies, a deck built from a spreadsheet, a hosted landing page with a form, or a weekly report that assembles itself on schedule. The 20 tasks at once on every paid plan let one person run several jobs in parallel. Teams get pooled credits, free guest seats and an admin dashboard from $20 per seat a month.

It misfires when the budget is fixed to the dollar. A long task can drain a monthly allowance, and you learn the cost only afterwards in Settings. Free is a taste, not a workplace: by our arithmetic its 1,500-credit monthly cap equals five days of 300 refresh credits, all in Lite, with no Wide Research, video generation or custom domain. Skip it, too, if your desktop runs Linux or an Intel Mac. Start with a monthly Pro plan, watch Usage for one cycle, and only then consider yearly billing.


## FAQ

**Can I use Manus AI on my phone?**

Yes. Manus has iOS and Android apps that run tasks in the cloud and notify you when they finish, and the apps can drive Manus Studio on your computer through Remote Control, as long as the computer is on, awake and running Manus Studio.

**How do I cancel a Manus AI subscription?**

Web subscribers go to Account, then Upgrade or Manage, then Downgrade to Free; Apple and Google subscribers cancel in their store. The Terms also allow canceling by emailing support. Canceling does not refund the current period: access lasts until it ends, and uninstalling the app does not cancel.

**Does Manus AI offer a free trial?**

Manus says some subscriptions come with a seven-day free trial, and canceling before the first charge means you are not charged. The pricing page itself shows no trial.

**Can Manus AI publish a mobile app to the App Store?**

No. It builds iOS and Android apps and prepares test builds, but you submit them through your own Apple and Google Play developer accounts.


## The bottom line

Manus AI is a genuine agent, not a chatbot with extra buttons: it gets a whole machine per task and returns work you can ship, from decks to hosted web apps. Our score reflects that range against two persistent weaknesses: costs you cannot see in advance and support that Trustpilot complaints describe as leaning on bots. Buy it month to month first, measure what your real tasks consume, and commit to a yearly plan only once the numbers hold.



## Sources

[1] Manus: pricing — https://manus.im/pricing (2026-11)
[2] Manus blog: a note to our users — https://manus.im/blog/a-note-to-our-users (2026-11)
[3] Manus Help Center: What are the rules for credits consumption? And how can I obtain them? — https://help.manus.im/en/articles/11711097-what-are-the-rules-for-credits-consumption-and-how-can-i-obtain-them (2026-11)
[4] trust.manus.im — https://trust.manus.im/ (2026-11)
[5] Manus Help Center — https://help.manus.im/en/
[6] Manus documentation — https://manus.im/docs/introduction/welcome
[7] Manus Terms of Use — https://manus.im/terms