Who this is for
People who want an agent to keep going without them, comparing Kimi's chase-one-goal-for-hours approach with Manus's start-on-a-trigger approach.
Side by side
| Compared on | Kimi Work Goal Mode and Kimi Claw | Manus Cue and Automations |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Chases one goal on your computer for up to 24 hours until a success standard is met; Kimi Claw is a hosted OpenClaw agent. | Automations that start on a signal or schedule, plus Cue, a team of agents with their own email, phone and wallet. |
| Starting price (checked 2026-10-09) | $39/month (Pro, or $31/month billed annually); no free plan. | Free plan (300 daily credits, 2 Scheduled Automations); Pro from $20/month. |
| Where it runs | Your own Mac (Apple silicon) or Windows computer; Kimi Claw runs in the cloud. | Manus's cloud; an always-running automation needs a Cloud Computer, bought separately. |
| Control | Default asks before changing files or running code; Manual asks every time; Fully automatic never asks. | Each Cue agent can email, call and spend under its own identity; check what each one can send or spend first. |
| Where it breaks | Beta, with stability still improving; one credit pool for everything; an idle Kimi Claw host still uses about 0.6% of credits a day. | Cue needs an invite; Free allows 1 concurrent task and Pro 20; training opt-out listed as a Team feature. |
| Setup | No-code. | No-code; Cue needs an invitation code. |
| A custom build beats it when | The long job is a known transformation; a script runs it once at near zero cost. | The trigger and action never change; Zapier, Make or n8n does it for less. |
The verdict
Both hand long or repeated work to an agent and both bill from credits, but they start work differently. Kimi Work's Goal Mode chases one goal for up to 24 hours on your own Mac or Windows computer, loops until its success standard is met, and lets you choose how often it asks permission; it starts at $39 a month on Pro, is still in Beta, and a deployed Kimi Claw cloud host uses about 0.6% of your credits every day even when idle. Manus has a free plan and Pro from $20 a month, starts work when a signal or schedule fires, and Cue agents can email, call and hold money under their own identity, though Cue is invite-only for now.
Pick Kimi if you have one long, checkable job, like turning a pile of PDFs into an organized knowledge base; pick Manus if you want smaller jobs to start on their own when something happens.
Read the full take on each
Sources
- kimi.ai/help/membership/membership-pricing
- kimi.com/en/help/kimi-work/overview
- kimi.com/help/kimi-work/goal-mode
- help.manus.im/en/articles/17190150-what-is-new-in-manus-2-0
- help.manus.im/en/articles/11711111-what-is-the-current-membership-pricing-for-manus
Spotted something out of date? Email indra@kratuva.com.