Manus
Manus is a general AI agent that works autonomously inside a cloud sandbox, turning a single plain-language brief into finished deliverables: deployed full-stack apps, slide decks, research reports, data analysis, images and scheduled recurring workflows.
What is Manus?
Manus is a general AI agent: software you give an objective to, rather than a question. Launched in March 2025 and operated from Singapore, it became part of Meta at the end of December 2025 and continues to sell and run its subscription service under its own name. The company's framing is deliberately physical — others built the brain for AI to think, Manus is building the hands for AI to do.
What separates it from a chat assistant is where it works. Each task runs inside a full cloud sandbox with a file system, a terminal and command execution, so the agent can write its own scripts, build its own tools, install what it needs and verify its own output. It sets the objective, works out the path, and combines tools autonomously instead of waiting to be walked through each step. Wide Research pushes this further: subagents each run in their own sandbox and process hundreds of sources or datasets in parallel, returning dozens of outputs at once. Context is unusually wide too — Manus handles 100 or more files at a time where comparable tools stop at five.
The output is meant to be finished work, not raw material. That covers deployed full-stack web apps complete with login, database and backend, slide decks, images, music, charts, and research reports. A browser operator drives a cloud browser on your behalf, tasks can be scheduled to run unattended, and connectors let a single instruction ripple through Slack, Notion, GitHub, Google Calendar, Gmail and Stripe. It reaches users through a web app, macOS and Windows desktop apps, iOS and Android apps, a Chrome extension and a documented public API.
Billing is consumption-based, in credits that cover LLM tokens, virtual machines and third-party API calls: roughly 200 credits for a 15-minute analysis, 900 for an 80-minute app build. The scale claimed in the acquisition post is substantial — over 147 trillion tokens processed and more than 80 million virtual computers created within months.
What it does
- Run a complete multi-step task from a single plain-language instruction
- Build and deploy a full-stack web app with login, database and backend
- Research 100 or more sources in parallel and return a structured synthesis
- Analyse data and produce charts, visualisations and finished reports
- Generate structured, formatted slide decks from a brief
- Drive a cloud browser to carry out actions on the web on your behalf
- Schedule recurring tasks that run unattended and act across connected apps
When to use Manus / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Manus is the right fit.
When to use Manus
- Teams that want to hand over long, multi-step projects end to end rather than supervise an assistant prompt by prompt
- Analysts and researchers who need dozens or hundreds of sources processed in parallel and returned as a structured report
- Founders and small teams building internal tools or customer-facing web apps without engineering headcount
- Consultants and operators who ship slide decks, dashboards and written deliverables under deadline pressure
- Anyone juggling large document sets, since Manus keeps 100 or more files in context instead of a handful
When not to use Manus
- Anyone under 18, since the platform explicitly excludes minors
- Users who only want quick conversational answers or brainstorming, a need the site itself redirects towards ChatGPT
- People working to a zero budget on heavy tasks: the free tier's 300 daily credits rarely cover one standard job
- Organisations that must contractually pin down where their data is stored, because no hosting country or region is published
- Buyers who need a signed DPA, a named GDPR representative or a published subprocessor list before they can adopt a tool
How to use Manus
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account on manus.im and open the app from the "Get started" button
- Collect the 1,000 credits granted on signup, then 300 more refreshed each day on the free plan
- Describe the task in plain language in the "What can I do for you?" field, or start from a shortcut such as Create slides or Build website
- Pick Chat Mode for conversation or Agent Mode for autonomous execution; your plan decides which model you reach, from 1.6 Lite up to 1.6 Max
- Authorise the connectors you need so the agent can act inside Slack, Notion, GitHub, Google Calendar or Gmail
- Let the agent work in its virtual computer and follow the steps as they run; finished tasks can be replayed
- Collect the deliverable, whether that is a deployed site, a deck, a report or a dataset, and export the code if you want it
- Schedule recurring tasks and run several in parallel, up to 20 concurrent and 20 scheduled on Pro
- Install the macOS, Windows, iOS or Android app, or the Chrome extension for the browser operator
- Move to programmatic use through the API when you need it, working through authentication, task lifecycle, connectors and webhooks
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Genuine autonomy: it executes long chains of work without continuous supervision
- Delivers finished artefacts rather than suggestions you still have to assemble
- Parallelism at both levels, with subagents inside a task and up to 20 concurrent tasks on Pro
- Wide context handling, keeping 100 or more files available instead of a handful
- Broad surface coverage: web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome extension and API
- Clear ownership terms, with commercial use permitted and full code export and no platform lock-in
- Consumed credits are refunded when a task fails for technical reasons on the vendor's side
Cons
- Costs are hard to forecast, since a single task can consume anywhere from 200 to 900 credits
- The free plan's 300 daily credits fall short of one standard task
- The terms of use and privacy policy cannot be read without a browser, so contractual commitments are unverifiable by collection
- No GDPR mention, no published DPA and no accessible subprocessor list
- No hosting country or region is disclosed anywhere on the accessible pages
- The training opt-out is a Team plan feature rather than a universal setting
- Publisher identity is in transition, with the main footer reading Meta and the comparison pages still reading Manus AI, Singapore
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available at USD 0 per month, granting 1,000 credits on signup and 300 credits refreshed daily. The lowest paid entry point is the Pro plan at USD 20 per month, with a second Pro tier at USD 40 per month that includes a seven-day free trial. Team access starts at USD 20 per seat per month. Annual billing reduces Pro and Team by 17 per cent. All prices are set in United States dollars worldwide.
- Chat Mode and Manus 1.6 Lite in Agent Mode
- 300 credits refreshed daily
- 1 concurrent task
- 2 scheduled tasks
- Chat Mode plus Manus 1.6 Max
- 1.6 and 1.6 Lite in Agent Mode
- from 4
- 000 credits monthly
- advanced research
- professional website deployment
- slide generation
- Wide Research
- same capabilities
- from 8
- 000 credits monthly
- everything in Pro plus SSO
- data training opt-out
- team usage analytics
- internal access control
- shared slide templates
- credits pooled across members
- admin dashboard and audit logs
- Enterprise — no published price
- reached through the Contact sales route on the Team page
- Annual billing applies a 17 per cent discount to Pro and Team
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Manus handles your data.
GDPR overview
There is no mention of the GDPR anywhere on the pages that could be collected. A systematic search across every archived page returned zero occurrences of "GDPR" or "General Data Protection Regulation", and no Article 27 EU representative is named. This is a genuine gap in what can be verified rather than a finding of non-compliance: the privacy policy and terms of use exist at their published URLs but render only after JavaScript executes, so their text could not be read. What is documented elsewhere points to some of the usual machinery: a dedicated privacy@manus.im address, account deletion that removes stored content, retention limited to legal and anti-fraud purposes, and a Vanta trust centre. None of it is a substitute for reading the policy itself.
Who owns the data?
You keep ownership of everything you put in and everything Manus produces. The help centre states plainly that you own all content created with the tool, including websites, images, videos and slides, and that Manus claims ownership of neither your Input nor your Output. You may use what you generate for personal or commercial purposes, subject to applicable law and third-party rights. Manus reserves the right to use your content operationally, to generate results and host the sites it deploys for you, and in aggregated or de-identified form to improve product performance. The vendor is explicit that this operational use does not affect your ownership.
Reuse rights
Yes: you can reuse your Output freely, without asking permission, for personal or commercial purposes, subject to applicable law and to any third-party rights the material may touch. Manus does not license your work back to you; it simply does not claim it. The one caveat the vendor raises is practical rather than contractual: AI output may not be unique and may not be protectable under intellectual property law, so anything you intend to publish or sell deserves your own copyright and compliance review. On the vendor's side, use is limited to operating the service and to aggregated, de-identified product improvement.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting jurisdiction is disclosed. A systematic search of every collected page turned up no country and no region where user data is stored, and the Vanta trust centre that would normally answer this question loads its content through JavaScript and could not be read. What is available is technical rather than declarative: the domain resolves to an Amazon CloudFront edge node seen from Zurich, and the name servers belong to AWS Route 53. That describes content delivery, not where data comes to rest, and it should not be read as a residency statement. The company itself says it operates from Singapore, while the site now carries a Meta copyright notice, so the corporate jurisdiction is in transition. Anyone with a data residency requirement should treat this as unresolved and ask the vendor directly before committing.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Manus.
- Credit consumption is unpredictable, running from 200 to 900 credits for tasks of 15 to 80 minutes, so spending can escalate before you notice
- The terms of use and privacy policy do not render without JavaScript, which means the contractual commitments behind the service cannot be checked by ordinary inspection
- No GDPR reference, no published data processing agreement and no accessible subprocessor list on any reachable page
- No hosting country or region is disclosed, so data residency cannot be established
- The data training opt-out is limited to the Team plan, leaving individual users without an equivalent control
- On a Team plan the Owner can access and export every member's session data, including task steps and content, which deserves a conversation before a team adopts it
- An agent that executes code and drives a browser on your behalf can act on a misunderstanding at speed; the vendor publishes a Verify before you act article for good reason, and habitual delegation can quietly erode the reviewing habit that catches such errors
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low to begin with. You create an account and describe what you want in plain language; there is nothing to install, configure or connect first, and the vendor positions the product for whole teams rather than only their technical members. Difficulty rises with ambition. Connecting Slack, Notion, GitHub or Gmail means authorising connectors. Deploying applications, calling the API or wiring up webhooks assumes real technical familiarity. Team deployments add SSO and internal access controls, which need an administrator.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Manus
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Manus.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is Manus?
Is there a free version?
How much does the first paid plan cost?
How do credits work?
Who owns what Manus produces?
Is my data used to train models?
Is there a minimum age?
Which platforms is Manus available on?
Who can see my tasks?
Does Manus still belong to the same company?
Should you pick Manus?
Manus belongs to a small group of tools that genuinely try to finish work rather than advise on it, and on that promise it is more convincing than most. The cloud sandbox is the substance behind the marketing: a file system, a terminal and real code execution let the agent verify its own output instead of confidently guessing, and the parallel subagents behind Wide Research make breadth cheap in a way a single chat thread never can. Handling 100 or more files at once matters more in practice than the headline autonomy.
The reservations are real and worth weighing. Credit consumption is the first: 200 to 900 credits for one task makes budgeting genuinely difficult, and the free plan's 300 daily credits will not carry a standard job to completion. The second is documentary opacity. The terms of use and the privacy policy render only in a browser, no GDPR reference appears anywhere on the site, no data processing agreement or subprocessor list is published, and no hosting country is disclosed. None of that proves anything is wrong, but a buyer with compliance obligations cannot verify what they are signing up to without opening a browser and reading for themselves.
Ownership is the clearest bright spot: you own your inputs and your outputs, commercial use is permitted, and code exports without lock-in. That is a better deal than several competitors offer. Set against it, the training opt-out is reserved for Team, and on Team plans an Owner can read and export every member's sessions.
The acquisition by Meta is the open question. The company says operations continue from Singapore and the service continues as before. For now that appears to hold, but anyone committing a workflow to Manus should watch how terms and pricing evolve under new ownership.
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