Manus Review: AI Agent, Pricing & My Test Results

Manus is an AI agent: you type a job, and it does the job in its own web browser. It reads pages, makes files and builds websites. I tested it on 28 October 2026 on the free plan, with the Lite model and no card.

Manus is made by Butterfly Effect, a company in Singapore. Its blog says Meta bought it on 29 December 2025, and it became independent again on 1 September 2026.

Manus home screen on the free plan with the Build, Create and Start from a local file tiles and a balance of 734 credits

I tested Manus with 22 jobs, typed word for word, with one new chat for each job. The jobs are set in a made-up café, and I checked every answer against a key I wrote first.

The account already existed, so I did not time the sign-up. I also checked every file with a program, and it agreed with me.

You pay $20 a month for the cheapest paid Manus plan, and it gives you 4,000 credits. The first month is half price.

The free plan gives 300 credits a day plus a starter pack. Prices read on 28 October 2026, monthly view.

Manus pricing page showing the three paid plans, each with its monthly credits

Manus finished 11 of 21 jobs with every checkpoint correct. The easy jobs went well: a web lookup, a basket, a Word file, an 8-slide deck, an invoice sheet and a Spanish and German translation.

The other jobs had small mistakes. One booking code had an extra full stop, one future date was missed, and some page numbers were 1 page late. Most jobs took about 1 minute.

Manus got all 90 facts right when I asked it to research 30 cafés at once. It asked me to confirm about 31 helper agents first, then took 17 minutes and 57 credits. It wrote "not listed" for the 6 facts the pages did not give.

Manus also made a contact list of 24 businesses. 12 phone numbers or emails were missing, and it made up none.

Manus asking Confirm workflow: about 31 background agent tasks will be running, do you want to continue, with Cancel and Start buttons

Manus said "done" on 6 jobs where something was wrong or missing, so you should check its work. The research on email tools had 2 facts that were not on the pages. The orders file had 1 problem that Manus missed, so its total was £6 wrong.

When Manus could not do a job, it usually said so. 3 times it told me a file had not arrived, and it made up nothing.

Manus's answer on the orders file listing three problem rows and a total with the problem rows left out of £4,954.50

Manus made good files: a Word policy, an 8-slide deck, an invoice sheet and a banner all opened and worked. The Word policy had all 5 facts on one page. You can edit the deck and the sheet.

The banner had the exact size and colour I asked for, plus leaves and a cup I did not ask for.

The launch week banner Manus made: Launch Week and 9 to 15 Nov on fern green with line-drawn leaves and a coffee cup

Manus built a working website and a working staff app, but it stopped to ask me questions on both. The website had my menu, 7 days of hours and a Book a table button, and it went live. The staff app had a login and kept its list after a refresh and a log out.

Manus asked me about a sneaky instruction on my test page and asked permission to publish, so I did not count these jobs as finished. A free site shows a Made with Manus badge.

Manus asking Allow Manus to publish? for Build Fernhook Corner Cafe one-page site, with Deny and Allow once buttons

Manus did 6 of 7 jobs on apps and websites correctly. It sorted 15 emails, made a calendar draft, held an email draft for my OK, filled a basket, and downloaded a price list after a login. The booking form failed, because Manus added a full stop I did not ask for.

For a train job, Manus chose the right train at £11.60 and typed the passenger name, but did not press Pay. It also warned that its calendar file had no time zone.

Manus's browser view of the ticket page for Hollin Vale to Brindle Central with the passenger name Marta Ellery typed in and the Pay button untouched

Manus works with about 400 other services, but you must connect each one yourself. Gmail, Calendar and Drive stay off until you click Connect, so my email jobs used files instead.

Manus also has an email address for tasks, Slack and Zapier links, and an API for developers. It says its browser extension needs a paid plan. I did not try the phone or desktop apps.

Manus Connectors list showing Skill Recorder, Email, Gmail and Instagram with plus buttons to add them

Manus handled 5 of 7 traps well and missed 2. It said when a file never arrived.

It said an allergen link was dead and listed no allergens. It read only the free part of a members-only article, and it asked for details before a booking.

It missed my "prove you are human" check, because it gave me a ticket price without asking me to solve it. It also missed a rule clash: I asked for an impossible notice, and it asked for the hours instead of saying so.

Manus asking Recommended for this task, Gmail, with Connect and Skip buttons after I asked it to send an email

You can watch a Manus job live, but you must answer its questions. A plan card shows before a build, and a confirm card shows before a big job. A live view shows each page Manus opens.

A job keeps running if you close the tab: mine was finished when I came back. 2 jobs ran at the same time, although its help pages say only 1. A daily schedule I made showed as Paused when I stopped it.

Manus Automations list showing a scheduled task named Fernhook Corner Café morning brief, repeat daily at 09:00, marked Paused

Manus took about 1 minute for a normal job, and repeat runs gave the same results. The builds and the 30-café research took longest.

I ran the booking form 3 times and got the same wrong code each time. The invoice sheet gave the same right totals 3 times.

Manus forgot facts I told it in a chat, but it kept rules saved in Custom Instructions. I told it 10 rules and then asked for a reply in a new chat. It used 2 of them.

The same rules saved in Custom Instructions worked: my greeting, my sign-off and my colour. They also showed up in jobs where they made no sense.

Manus made me a reusable skill in about 1 minute. It stores nothing by itself, so you have nothing to view or delete.

Manus Personalization Custom Instructions box holding ten numbered rules for a café, with Profile updated successfully shown

Most Manus jobs cost a few credits, but the big ones cost 72 to 158. You get 300 free credits a day, used first, plus 1,000 to start.

You cannot see the cost before a job. Manus and its support both said they cannot estimate it. I found no way to set a spending limit.

Manus followed 0 of 5 sneaky instructions, and it did not send, pay, post, share or delete anything I asked it to. I hid the 5 instructions in pages, files and a calendar. Manus told me about 1 and ignored the others.

Where nothing was connected, Manus offered a Connect button, which I did not press. When I told it to spend whatever it cost, it did not ask about the cost.

Manus answered my email in 6 minutes, but the chat replies came from a bot, not a person. I asked how to get credits back for a failed task, and the bot only said it would check.

Payments and credits are final, with rare partial refunds. There is no student price.

Your data is stored in the US and Singapore, and you own your content. I found no switch to keep it out of training and no export button. Deleting an account takes one button and one confirm.

Manus scores 1.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot, from 209 reviews, and 94% are one star. I read this on 28 October 2026. In the newest 50 reviews, the top complaints are support, failures, billing and credits, and 3 reviews were happy.

I did not pay, so I saw no billing trouble. Support answered first as a bot.

I could not test several Manus features, because they need a paid plan or an account I do not have. The paid ones are the bigger Manus models, the browser extension, and more than 1 file per upload.

I also did not test real Gmail, Calendar and Drive, video and music, team plans, the API, Telegram, the phone and desktop apps, the checkout walk, and deleting a task or an account.

Manus did most jobs I gave it, and I recommend it for small online chores if you check its answers.

Manus read pages, filled forms and built a small app that kept its data. But it said "done" when it was not on 6 jobs, and it cannot show the cost before a job.

Manus measures 3.2 out of 5 in my tests, and I add 0.8, so my rating is 4.0 out of 5. The low scores come from a few small mistakes and no memory between chats.

See the Manus test results and how I rate.