I paid for a Manus subscription, built a complete ecommerce site, and reached the final step: accepting payments. That's when I discovered a deal-breaking limitation: Manus only supports Stripe as a payment gateway and will not integrate with any other payment provider whatsoever.The core problem: Stripe does not directly support merchant accounts in South Africa. I cannot open a Stripe account as a South African business entity. Because Manus has hard-locked all payments exclusively to Stripe with zero alternatives or workarounds, my entire ecommerce project is now completely non-functional and cannot go live.Why this is fundamentally a Manus problem, not Stripe's: Stripe is entitled to operate only where it chooses. That's their business decision. However, Manus made a deliberate product choice to make Stripe the only supported payment option, then marketed and sold this "complete ecommerce solution" globally—including to countries like South Africa where that critical payment infrastructure simply doesn't exist for local businesses.The transparency failure: During signup and onboarding, there was no clear, unavoidable warning that Stripe is unavailable for merchants in my country. I only discovered this fatal limitation after I had already paid for the subscription and invested considerable time building my site.Real impact: I've invested both money and time into a product that cannot deliver what is advertised in my jurisdiction. My project is completely blocked at monetization—the entire purpose of the platform.My strong recommendation: Do not subscribe to Manus if you operate in South Africa or any country where Stripe is not directly available for local merchants. Before paying, independently verify that you can actually open and use a Stripe merchant account in your country. Until Manus either adds support for alternative payment gateways or implements clear, unavoidable warnings for unsupported regions during signup, this platform is incomplete and unsuitable for many global markets.
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