Pick ChatGPT if
everyone who wants a hosted general assistant — writing, Q&A, light research, images.
Read the ChatGPT pageChatGPT vs Manus
Our take
Pick ChatGPT if everyone who wants a hosted general assistant — writing, Q&A, light research, images. Pick Manus if individuals and small teams who want a hosted agent that ships a file, site, or report. Skip ChatGPT if teams that cannot send prompts to OpenAI, or developers who need a repo-aware IDE (Cursor) or a local runtime (Ollama). Skip Manus if developers who need a Playwright session grid (Steel) or a local
Manus
hosted general agent workbench
Best for
ChatGPT A general-purpose conversation
Manus Hand a multi-step research or build to a cloud computer
Free plan
ChatGPT $0 · unlimited everyday text chats (abuse guardrails). Limited uploads, images, voice, deep research, memory, Codex, and desktop Work. Confirmed as the free plan on chatgpt.com/pricing copy and Help
Manus $0 · /month. Chat + Manus 2.0 Lite. 300 daily refresh credits. 1 concurrent task. 2 scheduled automations. Source: What is the current membership pricing for Manus?
Lowest paid
ChatGPT Plus $20/mo, monthly only
Manus Pro $20/mo
Next step up
ChatGPT Pro $100 / $200 / $500 per month
Manus
Coding agent
ChatGPT Codex, rate-limited on Free
Manus Agent modes
Runs where
ChatGPT Local or hosted
Manus Hosted
Watch out
ChatGPT chatgpt.com/pricing HTML still hides $
Manus manus.im/pricing still hides $
Last checked
ChatGPT 2026-10-19 · help.openai.com
Manus 2026-10-22 · help.manus.im
Which one, then?
Pick Manus if
individuals and small teams who want a hosted agent that ships a file, site, or report.
Read the Manus page