Home › Polymarket vs Manifold
Facts checked September 24, 2026 against each platform's own pages, filings and news reports · numbered sources below
The biggest difference: Manifold is play money. Trades use mana, which cannot be cashed out, and every new user starts with M1,000 [1][2]. Polymarket is real money: Polymarket.com uses a USDC-backed token and the US app uses dollars [3][4]. Any Manifold user can create and resolve a market, while Polymarket markets are listed by the platform and settle through the UMA oracle or, on Polymarket US, the exchange itself [1][5][6].
| Polymarket | Manifold | |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | Two products: the international Polymarket.com, and Polymarket US, operated by QCX LLC [7][8] | Manifold Markets, Inc., registered in California [2] |
| Regulation | Polymarket.com says it is not regulated by the CFTC; Polymarket US is a CFTC designated contract market and clearing organization [7][4] | A play-money site; prize drawings paid in the USDC stablecoin run under their own rules [2][17] |
| Who can use it | Polymarket.com is blocked in 39 countries, including the US, UK, France and Germany; US residents use the separate Polymarket US app (18+, identity check) [9][10][8] | Users 13 and older, with parental permission under 18; prize drawings are 18+ and void in several US states and countries [2][17] |
| Money | Polymarket.com: pUSD, a token backed 1:1 by USDC on Polygon; Polymarket US: US dollars [3][4] | Mana: it can be bought but has no cash value and cannot be cashed out; new users get M1,000 [1][2] |
| Trading fees | Polymarket.com: takers pay shares x rate x p x (1-p), with a rate from 0 (geopolitics) to 0.07 (crypto); Polymarket US: takers pay 0.0695 x contracts x p x (1-p) and makers get a rebate [11][12] | No cash changes hands; creating a market costs mana, which seeds its liquidity [1] |
| Deposits and withdrawals | Polymarket.com: crypto deposits from several chains, no Polymarket fee; Polymarket US: card or ACH up to $50,000 a day, wire from $1,000, free withdrawals [13][11][14][15] | No cash withdrawals; the cash sweepstakes ended in 2025 (cash-out deadline March 28, 2025) [2][18] |
| Limits | Polymarket US sets no trading size limits [16] | Interest-free daily loans against positions; subscribers can take margin loans up to 2x to 4x [1] |
| Markets | Politics, sports, crypto, economics, culture, weather, tech and more [4][11] | Yes/No, multiple choice, numeric, polls and bounties on news, politics, sports, AI, science and personal goals; any user can create one [1] |
| How markets settle | Polymarket.com: UMA optimistic oracle with a 2-hour challenge window and a UMA vote on disputes; Polymarket US: the exchange applies each market's listed sources [5][6] | The market's creator resolves it; moderators can overturn misresolutions, and N/A returns everyone's mana [1] |
All current prices: Polymarket odds today · fees on a real order: Polymarket fee calculator · where Polymarket is available
No. Manifold uses mana, which has no cash value and cannot be cashed out; every new user gets M1,000. Polymarket markets trade with real money. [1][2]
Not by trading: mana cannot be cashed out. Manifold runs prize drawings paid in USDC for users 18 and older, void in some states and countries, and ended its cash sweepstakes in 2025. [17][18]
On Manifold the creator of a market resolves it and moderators can overturn mistakes. Polymarket.com uses the UMA optimistic oracle with a challenge window and token-holder votes on disputes; on Polymarket US the exchange resolves markets from the sources listed in each market's rules. [1][5][6]
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