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Building websites for local small businesses in 10 minutes using Manus: A solo side hustle generating 8,000 RMB per month

Workflow: Every day, search Meituan Dianping and local WeChat groups for small shops without official websites, feed the store inf

AGENT

Key Fields

FIELD STAMPS

IndustryMarketing / Advertising

RegionChina

ScaleSME

ChannelOnline

🔧 Workflow

Every day, search Meituan Dianping and local WeChat groups for small shops without official websites, feed the store information and the owner's verbal requirements into Manus, and input the store details to output a launch-ready website draft. After manually checking the layout and contact information, deliver the project and charge 300 to 800 RMB per order, while also offering ongoing management for minor updates for a monthly fee. A typical order takes 10 minutes for the initial draft plus half an hour of manual proofreading. Manus automatically generates the page structure, copywriting, and navigation in a cloud sandbox, while the individual is only responsible for domain name resolution, style fine-tuning, negotiation, and collection. Review which industry templates run smoothly every week, distill them into reusable prompts, and turn single deliveries into compounding template value.

🛠 Setup Requirements

Requires a Manus Pro subscription (starting at $20/month, approx. 4,000 points), basic web-building knowledge (domain purchase and resolution), and channels to reach merchants via Xianyu or Meituan. The technical barrier is low, focusing mainly on sales communication and manual quality control. No coding is required; you only need to replace the domain name with the page files generated by Manus, and you can secure your first order within a week. You can start by testing single-page complexity using the free version's 300 daily points, then decide on an upgrade tier based on actual consumption to avoid initial cost overruns.

🧰 Toolchain

🔧 Manus Pro Subscription
🔧 Alibaba Cloud Domain & ICP Filing
🔧 WeChat or Xianyu for Client Communication
🔧 Meitu Xiuxiu or Canva for Image Editing

💰 Revenue

Calculated at 300 to 800 RMB per order and 3 to 5 orders delivered per week, generating about 4,000 to 8,000 RMB per month, with an additional compounding monthly maintenance fee of 50 to 100 RMB per store. Securing 10 maintenance stores creates an extra recurring revenue of 500 to 1,000 RMB per month, and word-of-mouth referrals from regular clients can drive customer acquisition costs down to near zero. The product's annualized run rate of roughly $400 million in 2026 indicates that the path of high-value task-driven payments has been validated by the market, and premium pricing space for individual orders still exists.

💸 Cost

Manus Pro costs about $20 per month, and domain/server costs amortize to about 100 RMB per client annually. The main cost is the time spent on customer acquisition and communication. There are no platform commissions, and the only variable cost is purchasing extra points when high-frequency tasks exceed the package limits. It is recommended to use the free version and Lite mode to control order volume, keeping total monthly costs under 200 RMB.

⏱ Time Investment

About 2 to 3 hours per day, including finding clients, running Agent tasks, and manual proofreading for delivery. When batching templates, you can concentrate tasks on the weekends and only handle fine-tuning and client replies during the week, making it suitable as a side hustle schedule for working professionals.

🚀 Getting Started

Step one: Register for the free version of Manus, practice using the 300 daily points, and build two or three sample websites for your own or friends' shops for free. Post screenshots in Moments and local groups to build initial trust before quoting prices for paid orders. At the same time, break down the structure in official creator marketing scripts, imitate their phrasing to write your own client acquisition copy, and accumulate at least two successful case studies within two weeks before charging external clients.

🔑 Keys to Success

✅ Act as a manual judge: AI-generated copy and contact information must be verified word-for-word before delivery
✅ Build reputation with free samples first, then lower customer acquisition costs through referrals
✅ Focus on catering and housekeeping small shops without an online presence; low ticket size but fast decision-making
✅ Break down different industries into independent prompt templates and build a reusable delivery library; compounding comes from templates rather than one-off manual labor
✅ Keep a close eye on point consumption pacing, using the free version and Lite mode to offset waste from failed tasks

⚠️ 风险

⚠️ General-purpose Agent generation quality is unstable; without manual proofreading, novice errors like incorrect contact information easily occur
⚠️ Fierce competition in the low-cost website building market, making clients vulnerable to platform template poaching
⚠️ Under geopolitical conditions, the availability and pricing of Manus services carry uncertainties, so local domain and data backups must be prepared in advance

📌 Real Cases

📌 Official paid creator marketing case study: Creators follow scripts to use Manus to generate and sell websites for local small businesses in minutes. The product's annualized revenue run rate was about $100 million at the end of 2025, rising further to about $400 million in 2026, with data sourced from leadion.ai pricing pages and 36Kr reports.
📌 Manus launch traffic surge case study: Demo video exceeded 1 million views within 20 hours, Discord community reached 138,000 members in days, and the waitlist exceeded 2 million in a week. Invite codes were scalped for 50,000 to 100,000 RMB on platforms like Xianyu, validating the reference value of scarce narratives for individual order-taking scripts.
📌 Capital cycle case study: In late 2025, Meta planned to acquire Manus for about $2 billion. In April 2026, it was suspended due to national security reviews by China's National Development and Reform Commission. In September 2026, it resumed independent operations, advanced a $500 million financing round, and targeted a $4 billion valuation, demonstrating that subscription-based Agent products remain a high-certainty track in 2026.

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