Manus vs ChatGPT vs Claude vs Perplexity

Pick up to 4 tools and see their free plans, entry prices, platforms and limits in one table. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pages, checked 16 October 2026.

Written head to head: ChatGPT vs Claude · ChatGPT vs Perplexity, with when to choose each side.

Compared on	Manus Free plan · from $17/mo Visit Remove	ChatGPT Free plan · from $8/mo Visit Remove	Claude Free plan · from $17/mo Visit Remove	Perplexity Free plan · from $17/mo Visit Remove
What it is	General AI agent that carries out research, slides, websites and other tasks	OpenAI's AI chat assistant for writing, research, images, voice and coding	Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis, research and coding	AI answer engine that replies with cited sources from the web
Free plan	Daily refresh credits (300 a day per a March 2026 help article), capped at 1,500 daily-refresh credits a month; usable only with Manus 1.6 Lite; 1 concurrent task and 2 scheduled tasks	Unlimited text chats with GPT-5.6 Luna (subject to abuse guardrails); limited uploads, image generation, voice chats, deep research, memory and Codex access	Chat on web, desktop and mobile with web search, file creation, code execution, memory, app connections and artifacts; less usage than Pro; no Claude Code or projects	Limited daily usage, basic AI models and citations in every answer; limited web answers, file uploads and asset generation; no video generation, app connectors or Computer credits
Cheapest paid plan	$17/mo billed annually (Standard monthly usage (4,000 credits))Manus pricing	$8/mo (Go)ChatGPT pricing	$17/mo billed annually (Pro)Claude pricing	$17/mo billed annually (Pro)Perplexity pricing
What it covers	4,000 credits/month plus 300 refresh credits a day; 20 concurrent and 20 scheduled tasks.	Go may include ads. Plus is $20/month. OpenAI's FAQ says Go and Plus are sold as monthly plans; annual plans are for Business and Enterprise.	Annual billing is $200 paid up front. Includes Claude Code.	$200 a year on annual billing; the developer API is billed separately, per token and per request.
Free trial	None stated	None stated	None stated	None stated
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android, API	Web, iOS, Android, macOS	Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Chrome extension, API	Web, API
Integrations (vendor's figure)	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated	400+ app connectors
Open source	No	No	No	No
Good for	Compiling a research report on a market or a list of companies Drafting a slide deck from a short brief Building a simple website or landing page	Drafting and editing emails, reports and posts Researching a topic with web search and deep research Analysing a spreadsheet or document you upload	Drafting and editing long documents and emails Summarising and analysing uploaded files Researching a topic with web search	Getting a sourced answer to a factual question Researching a market or competitor with cited sources Comparing products or prices across the web
Watch out for	Paid plans allow 20 concurrent and 20 scheduled tasks Free daily credits work only with Manus 1.6 Lite and are capped at 1,500 a month SSO and shared team credits require the Team plan	Free and Go have limited uploads, image generation, voice, deep research and Codex access The Go plan may include ads Business plans start at 2 users; Enterprise and Edu pricing requires contacting sales	Claude Code, projects and task scheduling are not in the Free plan Usage limits apply on Free and Pro; Max raises them 5x or 20x Enterprise adds usage billed at API rates on top of the seat price	The Free plan has limited daily usage and basic models Among individual plans, monthly Computer credits (10,000) are included only in Max Individual plans are for personal use only
Made by	Manus AI	OpenAI	Anthropic	Perplexity AI

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

Every tool in AI agent builders and AI assistants and chatbots is on their category pages, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.