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The Stack / Automation
Manus
04 AutomationYes as a first general agent — Manus executing whole tasks (research reports, data work, working prototypes) from one brief is the closest thing to delegation in the consumer AI market. Credit burn varies wildly by task complexity, so treat the $20 Standard tier as an experiment budget, not a fixed cost.
The job in the stack
The autonomous-task seat: multi-step research, analysis, and build tasks executed end-to-end by an agent with its own computer.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 300 daily refresh credits (reset every 24h), capped at 1,500 credits/month — paid plans carry no daily-credit cap |
| Standard | $20/mo | 4,000 credits; annual saves 17% |
| Customizable | $40/mo | 8,000 credits |
| Extended | $200/mo | 40,000 credits for heavy delegation |
Pricing verified 2026-08-20. Plans change — the source of truth is Manus's own pricing page.
Models & versions
- Manus agentAutonomous execution in a cloud computer: browsing, files, code, deliverables; now on the 1.6 model family (1.6 Lite / 1.6 / 1.6 Max); 10–200 credits per task by complexity
The honest read
What works
- +Delivers finished artifacts — reports, spreadsheets, working pages — not chat answers
- +Watching its execution log teaches you what agents can actually do
- +Free tier's daily credits allow genuine evaluation before paying
What breaks
- −Credit consumption is unpredictable — a hard task costs 20x a simple one
- −Output quality still needs review; autonomous ≠ finished
- −Give the agent a leash: it browses and acts, so scope tasks deliberately
Use it for
- →Research reports and competitive analyses you'd otherwise assign out
- →Data collection and structuring tasks with clear success criteria
- →Operators learning what agent delegation feels like before building their own
Skip it if
- ×Your tasks are conversational — an assistant seat covers that cheaper
- ×You need deterministic, repeatable automation — that's n8n's job, not an agent's
Questions operators ask
?Manus or just using Claude?
Claude reasons with you; Manus goes away and does the task — browsing, collecting, building — then hands back the deliverable. If your bottleneck is thinking, Claude. If it's hours of execution, Manus. Many stacks now carry both.
What changed
- Freshness sweep: paid tiers unchanged ($20/4,000, $40/8,000, $200/40,000; annual −17%). Sharpened the free tier — Manus's help centre caps free daily-refresh credits at 1,500/month, so the 300/day figure is a ceiling, not a run rate. The public pricing page now foregrounds the paid tiers and lists "300 refresh credits everyday" as a paid feature, while the help centre still documents a Free Plan; treating the free tier as live.
- Freshness sweep: pricing re-confirmed unchanged (Free 300 daily credits, Standard $20/4,000, Customizable $40/8,000, Extended $200/40,000; annual −17%). Updated the model note — Manus now runs the 1.6 family (1.6 Lite / 1.6 / 1.6 Max).
- Released from staging. Re-confirmed — no changes: Free 300 daily credits, Standard $20/4,000, Customizable $40/8,000, Extended $200/40,000; annual −17%.
- Added to the stack (autonomous-task seat).
Give Manus a job
The autonomous-task seat: multi-step research, analysis, and build tasks executed end-to-end by an agent with its own computer.
Try Manus →Alternatives with different jobs
n8n
04 AutomationThe heavy-automation seat: complex, high-volume workflows and AI agent pipelines, self-hosted or cloud.
Claude
02 DecisionsThe thinking seat: long documents, hard reasoning, code, and anything where the words have to be right the first time.
Perplexity
01 IntelligenceThe research seat: current-events questions, competitive research, and any claim you need sourced before it ships.