Opening Moves EP #1: Manus

A part of this blog is to analyze the pricing tables of AI companies and I decided to name this series "Opening Moves". As an avid chess player, I designed the entire Klaim website as chess-themed. So what is better than naming the series "Opening Moves"?

Manus, now a part of Meta, was (and might be still is) one of the fast growing startups in revenue, breaking $100M ARR in just eight months. As a Manus customer myself, I can definitely see why Manus would be ideal for specific tasks as its agentic approach to finding answers often provides delightful results by getting real-time information from the web.

Manu's pricing table is as witty as its agent.

When the user is NOT signed-in, the middle price (often called the Decoy Pricing), reads "$40 / month" (see the image below)

When the user is SIGNED-IN, the same price reads "7-Day Free"Why?

When the user is NOT signed in, the $40 / month shows anchor values against $20 and $200. And the users would just perceive it merely as context and keep scrolling. If it says "7-Day Free", it often implies that it may require account creation and even credit card. For cold traffic, that's a conversion killer.Once the user IS signed in, it's much warmer traffic. Now the goal is to make the users think "Should I start using this?". Then, the "7-Day Free" removes payment fear.A ton of thinking and debate ends in one small tweak — with massive impact. And $125M ARR.