Manus AI launches monthly subscription plans, mobile app for iOS users

China’s autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agent, Manus, is transitioning to a subscription-based model, starting from $39 per month. It has also launched a mobile application that allows users to interact with the AI agent on the go.

The developments come after Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek released a major upgrade to its V3 large language model (LLM), intensifying competition with US tech leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.



The Beijing-based Manus AI has introduced a $39-per-month plan called ‘Manus Starter’ and a $199 premium option named ‘Manus Pro’, the latter matching OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro. This pricing is quite competitive for a membership service that is still in beta testing.

Also Read: Manus AI: China's second DeepSeek moment

Manus AI subscription plans

The Manus Starter plan has 3,900 credits per month and is capable of running up to two tasks simultaneously, offering enhanced stability with dedicated resources and extended context length.

Credits refer to a form of virtual currency used to access and use various features and services within the Manus platform. For every task performed by AI, a certain number of credits are consumed.

Manus Pro offers 19,900 credits per month along with similar features as the above.

It has additional capability to run up to five tasks concurrently with priority access during peak hours.

Limited access

Users of Manus AI will still have limited access to the free version of the tool. “While we're working hard around the clock to scale our infrastructure and accommodate everyone, we've had to temporarily limit access to Manus during our development phase. We are also working on optimising our current usage rates to provide better value for our users,” the company said.

Manus relies on AI models developed by Anthropic to provide more accurate responses, Google Cloud, which provides the infrastructure that powers its backend systems and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud for additional cloud resources to help distribute the load.

Manus is a leap into AI autonomy, capable of executing multi-step workflows and accessing authoritative data sources through application programming interfaces (API).

Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, is in talks with prospective investors to raise funds at a valuation of at least $500 million, The Information reported last week.

Also Read: Manus AI invite codes selling for a fortune on social media