Manus AI Review (2026): Credits Burn Fast

Meta announced it was buying Manus on December 29, 2025. However, four months later, China forced Meta to unwind the deal. On September 28, 2026, the Manus team, back as an independent company, launched Manus 2.0! If you are on this page after clicking on a headline saying Meta bought Manus, that news is out of date.

My short version of this review: Manus AI is a great tool to save time on research and to quickly build something, but the credits run out faster than the plan price suggests. And it can’t tell you if there is a market for what you want to build.

Disclosure: I’m the founder of Preuve AI, which sells startup-idea validation, so I have a reason to tell you to check your idea first. I’ve done my best to give an honest review of Manus AI. The information comes from Manus’s own pages, news reports and the user reviews I link in this article, all read on October 4, 2026.

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Is Manus owned by Meta now?

Manus is now an independent company again. Manus AI is an AI agent. It’s a general AI that can be used to research, write and build stuff. All you have to do is set the goal. And the agent does the work using a computer in the cloud. Manus AI is run by Butterfly Effect, which announced on December 29, 2025 that it was joining Meta, as stated on the Manus blog. According to TechCrunch, the price tag for this deal was $2 billion. Xiao Hong, the Manus CEO, said then that joining Meta would not change "how Manus works or how decisions are made."

However, the foreign investment security review office of China’s NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) prohibited the deal and ordered the parties to unwind it. That happened on April 27, 2026, as reported by the International Bar Association.

Manus AI was founded by a Chinese team and moved its staff to Singapore in mid-2025. However, this was not enough to avoid the review by the Chinese government. The ministry of commerce of China already started the investigation in January, a few days after the deal was closed by Meta, according to Reuters. By June 13, Meta had stopped sharing data with Manus and cut off the AI agent from its internal systems, as reported by TechCrunch.

During the unwinding of the deal, Manus deleted data that "certain users" created after the deal with Meta was announced, to comply with requirements "in specific jurisdictions," as explained in its note to users. Affected users had to back up their work and were locked out of their accounts for two days. In that same note, Manus announced its return as an independent company, which Reuters covered that same week.

Source: Manus blog, December 29, 2025; August 11, 2026; September 28, 2026; International Bar Association, June 14, 2026; TechCrunch, June 13, 2026; TechCrunch, September 18, 2026; Reuters as reported by Investing.com. All links last read on October 4, 2026. The deal size and how much Manus raised are merely reported by other sources, not confirmed by Meta or Manus.

According to TechCrunch (September 18, 2026), early investors helped Manus buy its shares back at a valuation of about $2 billion. The article also states that the subscription income of Manus at the time of the deal was over $100 million per year.

How much does Manus AI cost in 2026?

The Manus AI Pro plan is the cheapest paid plan, from $20/month. For the other plans, check the table below, based on the pricing article of the Manus Help Center (accessed October 4, 2026). If you choose annual billing, you get a discount of 17%, but the article, marked "Updated this week", does not give the annual price of the plans in dollars.

Source: Manus Help Center article about pricing; Manus Help Center article about credits. Last read on October 4, 2026. Prices are in USD per month, before taxes, billed monthly. "from" is the lowest pricing tier according to the Help Center article, but the live pricing page is to be preferred.

Other websites, like the review by Lindy, mention a plan for $200, but the Help Center article doesn’t mention this plan, so I also don’t include it in the table.

The credits page of the Help Center states that the monthly credits reset every billing cycle, even if you’re on an annual plan. The credits are not rolled over to the next cycle. If you buy additional credits, these will be rolled over to the next cycle as long as you remain on a paid plan. The number of credits needed for a task depends on its "complexity and duration," so you don’t know the cost before you run it.

From the cancellation article: if you cancel your free trial before the charge, you won’t pay anything. If you cancel after being charged for a plan, you’re only cancelling the renewal at the end of your current billing cycle. It won’t refund your most recent charge.

How fast do Manus credits run out?

On the $40 tier, you get 8,000 credits for $40, or 0.5 cents per credit. The $20 tier gives the same rate.

Here's one review from the App Store for someone on the 8,000 credit plan:

"One prompt to build a website used over 6000 credits." (App Store review, April 2026)

That’s 75% of a month on the 8,000 credit plan for one prompt to build a website. Or about $30 at today’s $40 list price.

Lindy’s hands-on review (updated June 9, 2026) puts a complex task at 500-900 credits, which means that if you’re just using it for serious research tasks, you’ll only be able to do a handful of them on the $20 plan. (Lindy sells a competing agent so take this with a grain of salt.)

In an r/AI_Agents thread from the end of last year, someone mentioned that Manus "chews away" credits "like no tomorrow", enough to empty their 8,200 credit monthly plan in the first month, but still gave it a 6 out of 10. Another user said they got "a 5% refund on 130k credits" after fixes that kept failing.

The credits page does say you will get a "full refund of consumed credits" if your task fails "due to technical issues on our end," but if it runs and it builds something wrong, or builds a website you don’t need, that’s not a failure on their end.

What changed with Manus 2.0?

Manus 2.0 launched on the 28th of September 2026, and according to their launch post, this was not a version update but a new architecture. The most interesting thing to me is Cascade, which is their new in-house task running system. According to them, it uses 23.2% less model processing and costs 32% less to run than their previous system in one particular configuration (all these numbers are straight from the vendor).

Other things that are new with Manus include:

• Cloud Computer: A paid always-on computer that you can use to run automations, host game servers, etc.
• Automations: You can now trigger automations to run on events, not just at certain times (new email, slack message, calendar, notion, etc.)
• Manus Studio: The desktop app is now Manus Studio, for building various things: docs, spreadsheets, slides, websites, code, games, video (their new Video Editor), etc. There’s also a Game Dev mode.
• Computer use: You can use Manus on your own computer, where it can access the files and applications you approve. You can even watch it on your phone.
• Cue: A new app for creating personal agents that you can give an email address, phone number, and budget. It’s free during early access but requires an invite code.

Most of these are ways to use your credits faster, but Cascade might save you some.

Manus still does the things reviewers liked, and from what I can see in reviews, the quality of their research was really good. One of the pros for reviewers was in the wide research feature, where they showed how Manus can break down tasks and run them in parallel to create a really thorough research result. Lindy describes how Manus can take a list of 200 startups and create a table with all the information they needed about each one, with sources. NxCode’s January 2026 review also rated the research with sources highest, but found too many bugs in production apps.

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What do Manus users complain about?

Most of the complaints seem to be around billing and support. While they have an impressive rating of 4.7/5 on the App Store (with 39K ratings), they have a 1.2 TrustScore on Trustpilot, and 94% of their reviews there are 1-star reviews (of 209 total).

Source: Apple’s App Store (US); Trustpilot. Both links last read on October 4, 2026. Note that the TrustScore is not the average of the star split but calculated according to Trustpilot’s time-weighted algorithm. Manus has not claimed its Trustpilot profile and has never invited reviews.

Manus does not request reviews there, so Trustpilot warns that the reviews may not be representative of all customers, but if people are searching for how to leave a review, they likely have a complaint to make. The main complaints on Trustpilot are about them only having bots for support, being charged unexpectedly, and struggling to cancel trials or get refunds.

In a recent review from September 2026, they mention how Manus showed a promotional offer on the site, but when they tried to purchase, it was gone. Another user mentioned that they’ve been using Manus Pro for building web-based tools, but Manus makes mistakes while building them, yet they still charge for that.

The best-known billing story is one user’s account on r/ManusOfficial from about May 2026, not a verified finding. The person says they intentionally selected the monthly plan, but within a few minutes, they were charged for an annual plan. They then chatted with 9 AI agents to try to fix the issue, with each new one telling them the last one didn’t submit the refund request.

"I have not received a single reply from a human being." (r/ManusOfficial)

Their next step was a chargeback, but a founder of a competing product commented that the issue was likely not their fault, but a poor design of the checkout flow by Manus. Another person warned it could take up to 90 days to get the refund that way. No response from Manus staff and no refund outcome were visible on the thread.

But there are also good reviews, and someone on the r/AI_Agents thread says that they’ve been using Manus every day since its beta and it continues to impress them as it improves. And the person who started that thread says Manus gave them a refund and an extension for an earlier issue.

Is Manus AI safe to use?

Probably, but be careful what accounts you give it access to and I wouldn’t use it for something customer facing. Just after Manus 2.0 launched, on October 2nd 2026, TechRadar reported that researchers at Salt Labs managed to sneak commands into a Gmail message, and Manus ran the code it found before warning the user. This has been fixed, but I would still only connect what you need to connect.

Manus says that it stores data in the USA and Singapore. You can opt out of having your data used for training if you’re on one of the Team plans. (I can only see this in the Help Center for the Team plans). Another danger I’ve read about was someone using Manus as part of their customer facing system for their business and facing being cut off for 2 days in August (they shared this on the Manus Official Reddit), but other people there said that was on them, since they’re using something they can’t control for something that their customers need.

Manus vs ChatGPT Dots vs Genspark: which one fits?

If you want the cheapest full fledged agent, then Manus is the cheapest of the three at $20/month. If you already have a ChatGPT Pro account, then ChatGPT Dots might be the best option. And if you want to create slides and want access to lots of models, Genspark could be a good option.

OpenAI shut down their older agent, as you can see on this Help page saying that the ChatGPT agent is no longer available. They now have ChatGPT Dots, which they launched at the end of September 2026. Tom’s Guide says that “each dot gets its own computer and browser in the cloud”. I go into more detail on the costs and limitations (if you’re in Europe) in my guide to ChatGPT Dots, but in short, if you’re not in Europe you get access to 1 dot if you have ChatGPT Pro, which starts at $100/month according to the Pro tiers page on OpenAI’s website.

The one that’s closest to Manus in terms of its pricing system is Genspark, as it also uses credits. The lowest paid plan is 10,000 credits per month on its Plus plan. The Plus plan costs $24.99 and there’s also a Business plan for $30 per seat, according to its pricing page.

Source: Manus Help Center; OpenAI Help Center; Genspark Help Center and pricing pages; Tom’s Guide, September 30, 2026. All links last read on October 4, 2026. Prices are in USD per month, billed monthly, before taxes and promotions. The credits of the different vendors do not buy the same amount of work.

However, Genspark’s credits aren’t the same as Manus’s credits, so you can’t say that 10,000 credits is x more than 4,000 credits. You’d need to try both out (both have a free tier) and see how they work for what you want to do.

• If you want the cheapest way to access a full agent and want to do deep research on lots of items, as well as publish websites, then Manus could be a good option.
• If you already have a ChatGPT Pro account, then you can use ChatGPT Dots and not have to worry about running out of credits, you just need to pay for the plan you’re on (outside Europe, and with usage limits).
• If you mostly want to create slides and want access to lots of models, then Genspark might be a good option.

If you’re building an app and still testing out ideas, then I wouldn’t pay for any of them yet, you can use Manus’s free tier, which gives you 300 credits a day to use its Lite model.

Is Manus AI worth it, and for whom?

It is worth it if you are ok to pay $20-$40/month and keep track of the cost of their research. It is not worth it if you want to build an app for something that you want to put into production.

Why validate the idea before you pay for Manus?

Whatever your idea is, good or not, you will spend a lot of Manus’ credits. One App Store reviewer asked Manus to build a website, and it took more than 6000 credits. They will refund your credits if the task is not done because of an issue on their side, but if the task is done and you don’t like the charges, it’s too late, you can only cancel to not be charged the next time.

In their launch post, they say “You decide what’s worth building.” but they don’t tell you how to do that, and there is nothing on their side to help you be sure that people want what you build. You can read my article about why startups don’t find a market fit to learn more.

So, before using Manus, make sure that there is a demand for what you want to build and get an idea of the competition. You can use Preuve, which scans 60+ sources of live data, and its Reality Check is free and takes less than a minute. You should also talk to a few people, and I explain how to validate an idea without building it in this article. Then you can pay for Manus (or for Lovable, and you can read my review on Lovable here), and you will make the most out of your credits.