Understanding Manus Billing: Credits vs Top-ups
Learn the difference between Manus credits and top-ups, when each is consumed, and how to avoid service interruptions.
⚠️ Common Mistake: "I have credits, why is my app offline?"
Many new Manus users are confused when their apps go offline despite having plenty of credits. The reason: Credits and Top-ups are separate payment systems. You need both to keep your projects running.
Two Separate Payment Systems
AI Brain Power
Used for AI operations:
- LLM API calls (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.)
- Image generation (DALL-E, Midjourney)
- Voice transcription (Whisper API)
- AI-powered features in your apps
- Chatbot conversations
Billing Model: Pay-per-use consumption
Infrastructure Costs
Used for hosting & infrastructure:
- Development server runtime
- Published website hosting
- Database operations (MySQL/TiDB)
- File storage (S3 uploads)
- Bandwidth and CDN delivery
Billing Model: Monthly recurring costs
💡 Simple Analogy
🧠 Credits = Electricity for AI Brain
Like paying for electricity to power a smart device. You only pay when the AI is actively thinking, generating, or processing.
🏠 Top-ups = Rent for Your Building
Like paying rent for office space. Even if you're not actively working, you still need to pay to keep the building (servers) running.
Why You Need Both
Scenario 1: You have 10,000 credits but $0 top-up balance
Result: Your app will go offline because there's no money to pay for servers, even though you have credits for AI.
This is the most common mistake! The warning message you saw was about this.
Scenario 2: You have $50 top-up balance but 0 credits
Result: Your app stays online, but AI features won't work (chatbot, image generation, etc.).
The infrastructure runs fine, but the "brain" has no power.
Scenario 3: You have both credits AND top-up balance
Result: ✅ Everything works perfectly! Your app stays online and all AI features function normally.
Estimated Monthly Costs
Typical Small Project (Personal Tool/Portfolio)
Top-ups (Infrastructure):
- • Hosting: ~$5-10/month
- • Database: ~$2-5/month
- • Storage: ~$1-3/month
- Total: ~$8-18/month
Credits (AI Usage):
- • Light usage: $5-20/month
- • Moderate usage: $20-50/month
- • Heavy usage: $50-200/month
- Depends on AI feature usage
Medium Project (SaaS/E-commerce with Traffic)
Top-ups (Infrastructure):
- • Hosting: ~$20-50/month
- • Database: ~$10-30/month
- • Storage: ~$5-15/month
- Total: ~$35-95/month
Credits (AI Usage):
- • Varies widely by features
- • Budget $100-500/month
- • Monitor usage closely
- Scale with user activity
How to Monitor Your Balances
Check Your Dashboard Regularly
Manus provides a dashboard where you can see both your credit balance and top-up balance in real-time.
- Navigate to your Manus account settings
- Look for "Billing" or "Usage" section
- Check both Credits and Top-up Balance
Set Up Auto-Recharge (Recommended)
Avoid service interruptions by enabling automatic top-ups when your balance runs low.
Recommended Settings:
- • Auto-recharge when balance drops below $10
- • Add $50 each time (adjust based on your usage)
- • Enable low-balance email alerts
Best Practices
Enable auto-recharge for both credits and top-ups
Monitor usage weekly during development
Set budget alerts to avoid surprises
Keep at least $20 top-up buffer for emergencies
Review monthly costs and optimize if needed
Assuming credits cover hosting costs
Letting top-up balance hit $0 (causes downtime)
Ignoring low-balance warnings
Running AI features without monitoring credit usage
Deploying to production without cost estimates
Credits (AI Operations)
- • Consumed: Per AI request
- • Used for: LLM, images, voice
- • Billing: Pay-per-use
- • Impact if $0: AI features stop
- • Typical cost: $5-200/month
Top-ups (Infrastructure)
- • Consumed: Continuously
- • Used for: Hosting, DB, storage
- • Billing: Monthly recurring
- • Impact if $0: App goes offline
- • Typical cost: $8-95/month
Need Help Managing Costs?
Use our Credit Estimator tool to predict your monthly costs based on your project's AI usage patterns.
Calculate Your Costs