The short version: Most AI tools answer you. Manus goes and does the job — opens a browser, visits sites, builds the spreadsheet, writes the slides, deploys the page — and hands you a finished file. Manus 2.0 arrived in September 2026 and is faster and cheaper to run than before.
The reason to care: there is a free plan with 300 credits refreshed every day. You can test it properly without paying anything.
What it actually does
- Research that ends in a document. “Find every tour operator in Mombasa advertising on Google, list their packages and prices, put it in a spreadsheet.” You get the spreadsheet, not instructions.
- Builds slide decks from a brief or a messy set of notes.
- Builds and deploys simple websites and landing pages.
- Runs scheduled jobs. Set it to check something weekly — competitor prices, your own rankings — and report back.
- Works on several things at once. Free plan: 1 task at a time. Pro: up to 20.
- Manus 2.0 cut its own running cost by about a third, which means your credits go further than they did.
What it costs
- Free: $0. 300 credits refreshed daily, chat mode, the lighter agent, 1 task at a time, 2 scheduled automations.
- Pro: from $20/month (about KSh 2,600) for 4,000 credits, or $40/month for 8,000. All agent versions, 20 concurrent tasks, 7-day free trial on the $40 tier.
- Team: from $20 per person per month.
- About 17% off for annual billing.
- Prices are USD on an international card. Converted at KSh 129.80 to the dollar on 6 October 2026 — check today’s rate and your bank’s card fees before you commit.
Who should try it, and who should not
- Try it if you repeatedly do the same multi-step research or document job — competitor checks, client reports, lead lists, proposal drafts.
- Try it if you charge clients for work that is really just gathering and formatting. One agent task can replace an afternoon.
- Skip it if you mainly need writing help or quick answers. ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini do that better and cheaper.
- Credits are the catch. A big task can eat a day’s free allowance in one run. Test on small, well-defined jobs first.
- Check its work. An agent that browses the web will confidently collect wrong prices. Never send its output to a client unread.
Do this today
- Open the free plan. Do not pay yet.
- Give it one real job you did by hand last week, written as a clear instruction with the output format you want.
- Time how long it takes and check the result line by line against something you know.
- If it saved you more than an hour and got the facts right, that is your business case for the $20. If not, you have spent nothing.
Tool link: manus.im