Manus: Autonomous AI Agent — GAIA #1 | hokai.io
Manus scores 86.5% on GAIA benchmarks — the highest of any public AI agent. Free tier available; paid plans from $20/mo. Acquired by Meta for ~$2B in Dec 2025.
Manus is an autonomous AI agent by Butterfly Effect (acquired by Meta in December 2025 for ~$2-3B) that executes full workflows end-to-end without step-by-step prompting. It scores 86.5% on GAIA Level-1 benchmarks, outperforming OpenAI's best agent by 12 points. Free tier includes 300 daily credits; paid plans start at $20/month. It runs on Claude 3.7 Sonnet inside a Linux sandbox with 29 tools.
Pricing
Free: 300 daily credits + 1,000 starter credits, 1 concurrent task. Pro Standard $20/mo (4,000 credits). Pro Customizable $40/mo (8,000 credits). Pro Extended $200/mo (40,000 credits). Team $40/seat/mo (min 2 seats). 17% discount with annual billing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Manus AI and what does it do?
Manus is a general-purpose autonomous AI agent built by Singapore-based Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd. and launched on March 6, 2025. Unlike chatbots that answer questions, Manus executes entire workflows end-to-end — give it a goal and it plans, researches, writes, codes, and delivers a finished file without step-by-step prompting. It powered over 80 million virtual computers and processed 147 trillion tokens in its first eight months, reaching $100M+ in annualized revenue. In December 2025, Meta acquired the company for approximately $2-3 billion.
How much does Manus AI cost?
Manus offers a free tier with 300 daily credits plus 1,000 starter credits, limited to 1 concurrent task. Paid plans include Pro Standard at $20/month (4,000 credits), Pro Customizable at $40/month (8,000 credits), and Pro Extended at $200/month (40,000 credits). A Team plan costs $40 per seat per month with a minimum of 2 seats. All paid plans include a 17% discount when billed annually. The key catch: complex agent tasks can consume 500-900 credits each, with no cost estimate shown before a task begins, and unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle.
How does Manus AI perform on benchmarks?
Manus leads the GAIA benchmark — the industry standard for evaluating real-world AI agent capability — with scores of 86.5% at Level 1, 70.1% at Level 2, and 57.7% at Level 3. These scores outperform OpenAI's best agent at every difficulty tier (OpenAI scores 74.3%, 69.1%, and 47.6% respectively). GAIA measures tasks requiring web use, multi-step reasoning, and tool use across varying degrees of difficulty. Manus's architecture is powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet with 29 integrated tools running in an isolated Linux sandbox.
Is Manus AI free to use?
Yes, Manus has a genuine free tier that includes 300 daily refresh credits plus 1,000 one-time starter credits — no credit card required. The free plan supports Chat mode, 1 concurrent task, and 1 scheduled task. For most users, the free tier supports one moderately complex agent task per day (simple tasks use 50-150 credits; research-heavy tasks use 500-900 credits). Since May 2025, the waitlist was removed and anyone can sign up directly at manus.im using an email, Google, Apple, or Microsoft account.
What are the best alternatives to Manus AI?
The closest alternatives are OpenAI Operator ($200/month), which handles browser-based task automation but lacks IDE and terminal integration; Devin by Cognition ($500/month), which targets professional software engineers but has a reported 13.86% task success rate; and Claude Computer Use by Anthropic, which controls your actual desktop but requires continuous user engagement. For pure research tasks, Perplexity Pro ($20/month) and ChatGPT's Deep Research ($20/month with Plus) are cheaper options, though neither executes multi-step workflows autonomously. Manus is the only option with GAIA benchmark leadership and asynchronous cloud execution across all four competitors.
Who should use Manus AI and who should avoid it?
Manus is best for freelance researchers producing client reports, solo founders building web app prototypes without developers, content strategists running competitive intelligence workflows, and small agencies creating data-heavy deliverables. In independent testing, Manus produced an 8-page market analysis with source citations in approximately 15 minutes. Avoid Manus if your workflows require SOC 2 or GDPR compliance (Manus has neither as of late 2025), if you need production-ready code with predictable architecture, or if your team requires cost-certain high-volume automation — the credit system's unpredictability makes budgeting difficult at scale.
Does Manus AI have an API?
Yes, Manus provides a REST API documented at open.manus.im/docs, allowing developers to create tasks, upload files via presigned URLs, and receive async results through RSA-SHA256 verified webhooks. The API supports a taskMode parameter (chat, adaptive, or agent) and an agentProfile parameter (speed or quality). A community PHP 8.2+ SDK with full Laravel support is available on GitHub. Native integrations include Gmail via Mail Manus, Google Calendar, and Notion. The API does not yet offer Slack, Jira, Salesforce, or Zapier connectivity natively.