Pay $0.99 to give an AI a US phone number: Cue by Manus, 80K installs in one month, powered by something you can't borrow

Cue is a standalone app Manus launched in 2026 Sep 28, alongside Manus 2.0. The pitch in one line: each AI assistant has its own email, phone number, wallet, and cloud computer, and several assistants can join a group chat to split up work. In its first month it reached about 80K installs on Google Play. But what drove that was an established app with tens of millions of users, launch-level media coverage, a news story about "acquired by Meta, then shut down, then back as an independent product," and a batch of invite codes. Followers can't copy any of these. What you can take away is how it turned an abstract "agent" into something people could screenshot and share.

A $0.99 phone number

On launch day, users with early access started posting their signup flows on X. One mobile step no other AI assistant had: giving your agent a phone number. A US number was $0.99 a month, and Linux cloud computers started at $39 a month. Before long people reported that the $0.99 tier had sold out and the price had risen to $9.99 a month (reposted by 36 36Kr, 9-29). The App Store now lists US, Canadian, and Singapore numbers as $9.99 in-app purchases.

The same day, AI blogger Santiago (@svpino) posted on X introducing Cue. Manus described it as "an operating system for persistent personal agents," and his post included an invite code, EWJD8. It got 15K views (X, 9-28). In Chinese-language circles, Baoyu also posted an introduction, reminding people an invite code was needed to sign up.

"AI now has its own phone number and wallet" became the headline. TNW's 9-29 headline was "Manus 2.0 and Cue give AI agents their own email, phone and wallet," and Reddit discussions also opened with that point.

What it actually is

According to the store page and official blog, a Cue can:

• have its own email and phone number. You can forward calls to it, and after answering, it leaves you a call summary in the app;
• pay within a budget you set (you confirm each payment) and finish tasks on its own cloud computer;
• join a group with other Cues. The official example is one finding a venue in New York for a launch event, one drafting a candidate list, and one writing the presentation, with a human making the final call;
• scan in-store: at supported coffee shops and restaurants, scan the merchant's ordering code to create a Cue dedicated to that shop, which can check the menu, place your order, or hold your place in line.

It's currently invite-only and free for a limited time. The free allowance resets every 7 days, and phone numbers, cloud computers, and credit packs cost extra. The Google Play in-app prices range from $9.99 to $1,999.99, the same model as credit packs in the main Manus app.

How much it grew

• Google Play: the page was already live in Sep 8, three weeks before the official launch. In Oct 9, a third-party review logged "10k+ downloads, 4.7 stars, 1,830 reviews" (cellcog.ai). By 10-29 the install count was 63,647,11-06 79,662, up about 16k in a week. The numbers jump in steps (10-31 +4,722, 11-03 +9,268, 11-05 +2,025), which looks like the store's update cadence rather than a paid-acquisition pulse (Google Play, 10-29 to 11-06).
• Charts: it only entered the productivity free charts in a few Asian regions: #82 at its best in Singapore, #108 to #183 in Hong Kong, #176 to #193 in Taiwan, and #132 to #191 in Indonesia. It hasn't charted in any grossing list.
• iOS: it only passed review in Oct 8. The US store had 129 ratings at 4.81 stars, Japan 43, and Hong Kong 22 (App Store, 11-06).
• Comparison: Manus's main app, from the same company, has 11.5M installs on Play and gained 110K in a week. Cue is at 0.7% of that. Meta's Muse, which launched the same month, has 9M installs on Play and gained 1.61M in a week.

The early ratio of reviews to installs was high (about 1.8 thousand reviews against ten to twenty thousand installs), which suggests a group of heavy Manus users piled in first (inferred).

Where users come from

It's coming from Manus's own app. Manus's help center says existing users can scan a code on the Agents page in the sidebar to download Cue. The markets where Cue charted (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia) are exactly where the main Manus app ranks high on the iOS Top Grossing chart (Hong Kong Productivity #6, Singapore #11, Taiwan #13). Muse, meanwhile, is only open to people aged 18+ in the US and Canada, and hasn't reached these Asian markets yet (Muse business page, via rzlt.io).

From the news. At the end of 2025, Meta announced it would acquire Manus for about $2B. In April 2026, China's NDRC blocked the deal, and in Sep 1 Manus announced it would resume independent operations. The Sep 28 launch ties into this story: founder Xiao Hong posted "We're back" on X, and Bloomberg, TNW, InfoWorld and 36 Caixin followed the same day or the next. InfoWorld's headline read "Meta's former ... launches a rival to Muse". Then on Oct 8, TechCrunch reported that Manus's parent company had closed a raise of more than $500M.

Comes from invite codes. The public code MEETCUE is first come, first served, and each person who gets in receives a few codes to share. Bloggers put their own codes at the end of their posts, and r/ManusOfficial on Reddit has dedicated code-request threads. This is the same playbook Manus used in March 2025, when its invite codes were impossible to get.

Whether they bought ads is unknown. No Manus or Cue ads show up in the public Meta, Google or TikTok (Europe) ad libraries, but those libraries have incomplete coverage, so not finding ads doesn't mean none were run.

Who it's competing with

From September to October, "always-on personal assistant with its own cloud computer" became a crowded lane: Meta in September 8, Manus in September 28, OpenAI in September 29, three companies in three weeks. Cue was the only one giving every agent its own phone number and wallet, with multi-agent group chats as the main pitch, which is why it got its own headline. But the differentiation didn't turn into mass growth: it needs an invite code, the full pricing wasn't disclosed, and the iOS version came more than a month later, so growth stayed inside Manus's existing users.

Where it wins, and where it gets stuck

It wins on resources. A long-running app with tens of millions of users puts a QR-code entry point in front of its base, a launch that every tech outlet covers, a "back to going solo" news angle, and a stream of invite codes that manufacture scarcity. Without those, an app that needs an invite code and hasn't disclosed full pricing would not reach 80k installs in a month.

It gets stuck on "who will trust it" and "who will deal with it." Users have to decide how much permission to give an AI that can spend money and make calls, and businesses that receive calls or email have to be willing to deal with an AI. Some users on X speculated that the number can't send SMS and is just a "voice shell for agents"; Manus's official account says it can call, receive calls, and send and receive texts. What the number can actually do, and whether it still exists after you unsubscribe, hasn't been made clear.

If it were you

D: Worth knowing about, but I wouldn't copy it. Cue was pushed up by a large company using its existing users and news momentum, and its rivals are Meta, OpenAI and xAI. Revenue hasn't been disclosed, yet coverage is already everywhere. A small team copying "multiple personal assistants with identities" would have to pay for cloud computers, phone numbers and payment compliance on its own, while competing with three giants for the same early adopters.

Who it suits: A 1 to 3 person team that has built phone, SMS or voice AI integrations (in the style of Twilio), has a concrete industry client such as landlords, small clinics, renovation contractors or study-abroad agencies, and knows which kinds of calls and emails bury those people every day.

Who it doesn't suit: Anyone who wants to build a general-purpose "AI personal assistant" to compete head-on with Muse and dots; anyone with no existing users who can only rely on invite codes and media attention to grow; anyone not prepared for the complaints and compliance issues that come with AI paying for things and making calls on people's behalf.

How to build it: Don't build a general assistant. Take the one thing that sells best: "the AI has its own phone number." Pick an industry, give each client a dedicated number, and have the AI answer calls, reply by rules, leave summaries and book appointments, charging monthly for the number and call minutes (Cue's number is $9.99 a month, which can serve as a benchmark).

How to get customers: Copy its two moves. First, make something screenshot-worthy the hook, such as "a call summary from an AI that answered the phone for you," which spreads far better than talking about a "smarter assistant." Second, in the early stage, use public codes plus existing users inviting others to control the pace of entry and create scarcity. Customer acquisition within an industry runs through that industry's own communities and intermediaries, not tech media.

When to move: Big companies' personal assistants are currently only open in the US, Canada and a few other markets, and Muse hasn't made phone numbers standard yet. If you want to do this, it's best to have one industry and one country working by the first half of 2027. Once Muse or ChatGPT includes numbers by default and expands to your market, the window will be smaller (inference).

What would show you got it wrong: (1) Before January 2027, if Cue hit over 500k installs on Play or charted in any country's top grossing list, that would show that "identity-bearing multi-agent" is itself mass demand and worth reassessing. (2) Conversely, if Cue's weekly growth still drops to a few thousand after invite-only access ends, that would show even Manus's resources can't sustain this format. (3) If Meta or OpenAI announce that their assistants get dedicated phone numbers, the industry-number route will have to compete with their free features.

Sources

• Google Play page ai.manus.agents, daily installs, ratings and regional charts from 10-29 to 11-06; install counts for the Manus main app, Monica, Muse and Pickle (11-06).
• App Store id6808613358 ratings count by storefront (11-06); Manus main app Top Grossing rank by storefront.
• Manus official blog "Introducing Manus 2.0" (9-28), help center; posts on X from @ManusAI, @svpino (9-28) and @dotey.
• Reposted from 36 36Kr · AI Frontline: "Manus2.0 takes on Meta Muse: an AI phone number for under $1?" (9-29).
• TNW (9-29), InfoWorld (9-29), Bloomberg (9-28), TechCrunch (4-27, 10-08).
• cellcog.ai (10-09) and rzlt.io's summaries of Cue pricing and Muse's open regions; CNBC on Muse pricing (9-08); OpenAI, "Introducing dots."