Best MAI (mai.co) alternatives in 2026
MAI (mai.co) calls itself "The Performance Marketing Agent": an AI agent that works inside your own Google Ads, Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads accounts, flags what changed, investigates why, recommends the next step and tunes campaigns within rules you set. It was founded by former Google and Instacart engineers and announced a $25 million seed round led by Kleiner Perkins in autumn 2025. Read on its own pricing page on 20 October 2026: a free start with $99 in trial credits valid for two months and no card, for up to two ad accounts per platform; MAI OS, self-serve, at $199 a month for 30,000 credits, with credit tiers from $99 for 10,000 up to $999 for 130,000; and MAI PLUS, managed for you, at a custom price.
This page is about MAI the ads agent at mai.co — not Microsoft's MAI AI models, and not the MAI maintenance software. People looking for an alternative usually want one of four things: a lower monthly price; a tool their own PPC team drives; somebody else doing the work and owning the result; or the landing page and the search campaign handled together because there is no ad program yet. If you already spend real money on Google, Meta and Microsoft and want an agent working inside those accounts under guardrails you set, with marketing-mix modelling to weigh one channel against another, MAI is built for exactly that, and none of the four below does that whole job. AgentCeres is the pick for the last of the four: it builds and hosts the page, then runs the Google Search campaign that sends people to it.
Free to start · No credit card required
The shortlist
Ryze AI
Top pickAn AI platform whose homepage reads "AI runs your ads, SEO, and website": it monitors Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and LinkedIn campaigns around the clock and adjusts bids and budgets itself, with approval controls on every change; it also sells an SEO plan and has a website builder.
Pros- The same three ad networks as MAI — Google, Meta and Microsoft — plus TikTok and LinkedIn
- A lower entry price: Paid Ads is $89 a month, with a 7-day trial and unlimited ad accounts
- A flat monthly fee at any ad spend; the percentage fee applies only if you buy its optional Managed Campaigns
Cons- SEO is a separate plan from $129 a month, so ads and search together cost two subscriptions
- Annual billing saves 30% in the first year only; renewals are at the full annual price
- Managed Campaigns add 5% down to 0.8% of the ad spend it manages, depending on daily budget
- Pricing:
- From $89/mo (Paid Ads)
- Best for:
- Small advertisers on Google, Meta and Microsoft who want an agent tuning campaigns at a lower monthly price
Optmyzr
A long-running PPC toolkit for agencies and in-house teams — rules, audits, reports and bulk changes across Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, LinkedIn and Yahoo! Japan — now with an AI Sidekick assistant and MCP access for Claude and ChatGPT on every plan.
Pros- Covers Microsoft Ads and Amazon Ads as well as Google and Meta
- A 14-day free trial with no card
- Every plan includes the AI Sidekick and MCP access, so you can work it from Claude or ChatGPT
Cons- A toolkit your team drives: it automates what you set up, but the media buying stays your job
- The price rises with your ad-spend tier, and the Shopping and Performance Max tools start on Premium
- Its entry plan runs automation rules weekly or monthly; daily runs need Premium
- Pricing:
- From $209/mo billed annually ($299 month to month)
- Best for:
- Agencies and in-house PPC teams who want to keep the decisions and automate the busywork
groas
A managed search marketing service: Google Ads, ChatGPT Ads, SEO and AI-search visibility run as one plan by automated systems and a named strategist, sold as a 90-day sprint with a written target.
Pros- A named strategist owns the result, with a dedicated Slack channel and a monthly strategy call
- A written target — 40% more sales or leads by days 77 to 90 on the Paid Ads Sprint — and it keeps working free until it is met
- Paid search, ChatGPT Ads and SEO in one programme, with a flat fee whatever you spend on ads
Cons- No published price: every route is an application and a fit call
- Its pricing page names Google Ads and ChatGPT Ads, not Meta or Microsoft
- Each sprint is paid up front, although its homepage headline says "Paid Only On Performance"
- Pricing:
- No published price — apply for a fit call
- Best for:
- Businesses that want someone else to run search ads and SEO against a written target, and accept a sales call
AgentCeres
AgentCeres — the AI Growth Officer — is a managed AI marketing team whose Ads agent runs Google Search campaigns for a page the team builds and hosts for you, next to SEO, GEO, social and content agents.
- Growth Officer
- Research agent
- SEO agent
- Social media agent
- Ads agent
- Influencer agent
- Launch & PR agent
- GEO agent
- Community agent
- Customer feedback agent
Pros- Runs the Google Search campaign from our own account for a page you host with AgentCeres, so there is no Google Ads account to set up
- Builds, publishes and hosts the landing page itself, then shows enquiries, WhatsApp taps and sales against the ads
- Connects to the Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Apple Search Ads and ChatGPT Ads accounts you already run
- A free plan, a 14-day trial with no card, then $39 or $99 a month; ad spend comes from a separate balance
Cons- No Microsoft Ads connection
- Nothing tunes a live campaign on a timer: an in-plan change, such as pausing a keyword, happens when you ask for it
- No marketing-mix modelling or incrementality studies, and managed campaigns are Google Search only
- Pricing:
- Free plan; $39–$99/mo, plus ad balance
- Best for:
- Small businesses that need the page and the search campaign, not only the optimisation
Side-by-side
| Dimension | Ryze AI | Optmyzr | groas | AgentCeres |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price to start | $89/mo | $209/mo billed annually | No published price | Free plan; $39/mo |
| Try it without a sales call | Yes — 7-day trial | Yes — 14-day trial, no card | No — application and fit call | Yes — 14-day trial, no card |
| Ad networks | Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, LinkedIn | Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, LinkedIn, Yahoo! Japan | Google Ads and ChatGPT Ads | Google Search managed; connect Google, Meta, TikTok, Apple Search Ads, ChatGPT Ads |
| Who makes the changes | Ryze, around the clock, with approval controls | Your team, with rules it runs for you | groas systems and a named strategist | The Ads agent for Google Search; connected accounts by approval |
| Builds the landing page | Yes — a website builder | No | New pages on the SEO sprint | Yes — built, published and hosted |
One thing to ask any ads agent, MAI included, learned from our own. On 31 August 2026 a customer asked our Ads agent to stop showing a campaign in two countries. It replied that this was a Google Ads API permission limit and handed over three manual steps. It was not: location targeting sits on a part of the campaign our agent had no action for, under the same access we already held, so we added one. In September it happened twice more — a paying customer spent over an hour in Google Ads' own screens changing a budget, and another hand-pasted new ad text, both because the action was missing on our side, not Google's. An agent that cannot make a change will often explain the gap as somebody else's limit. So ask for the written list of changes the agent can make itself, and which of them wait for you. MAI says you choose what it runs on an approved schedule, what needs your review and what stays out of scope, and that you can start with analysis-only access. On the campaigns we run for you, AgentCeres never spends money you haven't approved. Inside a plan you approved it can pause, lower a budget or drop a keyword on its own; anything that would spend more or reach new people waits for your approval. In an account you connect, every change is a card you approve. More on our AI ads manager page and the Ads agent.
How we checked. Read on 20 October 2026: mai.co (home, pricing and FAQ), Kleiner Perkins' post on its MAI investment, get-ryze.ai (home and pricing), optmyzr.com/pricing (the dollar figures sit in the page's plan selector; the $209 is its smallest ad-spend tier on annual billing) and groas.com (home and pricing). Do the credit arithmetic before you pick a tier: MAI's own table estimates 150 to 1,000 credits per tuning run and 250 to 1,000 per report, so the $199 tier's 30,000 credits is roughly 30 to 200 such runs a month, depending on account size. The same table lists daily tuning, "applied automatically or held for review, as you set it", on credits, and a separate "Autonomous execution" row under MAI PLUS — so ask which changes apply without review on the self-serve plan. And ask what the free start turns into: the homepage asks for no card, while the FAQ says free trials convert unless cancelled seven days before they expire. If you are weighing ads-only tools, see our Lapis AI alternatives and Opus Growth MCP alternatives.
What AgentCeres does for you
Three jobs your team takes off your plate, each one you can see working.
Builds and hosts your website
Describe your business and it builds the site, publishes it, and changes it whenever you ask.
See the AI website builder →FacebookMon 7:30 
The seeded sourdough is out of the oven. Come early, it goes fast.
LinkedInTue 12:00 
Feeding the team on Friday? We cater office breakfasts: pastries, coffee and fruit, delivered before the first meeting.
Plans and posts your social media
Posts and images about your business on one calendar. Each one waits for your approval, unless you turn on Auto mode.
See the AI social media manager →Runs your Google ads
It finds the searches your buyers make, writes the ads, and runs the campaign once you approve the plan.
See the AI ads manager →
Describe your business. Your team takes it from there.
Write a sentence about what you do, or paste your website. In a minute or two your AI growth team is set up and starts on its first piece of research. From then on it works on a schedule, briefs you every morning and brings you drafts to approve.
- 0:00You describe the businessA sentence, or your website address.
- A minute or twoYour team is set upA Growth Officer and every specialist, in your own workspace.
- Minutes laterFirst findings in your chatWhat it learned about your market, with sources.
- Next morning, 8:00Your first daily briefBy email: what moved, and what to do next.
FAQ
- How much does MAI cost?
- Read on 20 October 2026, mai.co/pricing lists three plans. Free costs nothing to start and comes with $99 in trial credits valid for two months, no card, up to two ad accounts per platform, monitoring and alerts, and a preview of its marketing-mix modelling report. MAI OS is self-serve at $199 a month for 30,000 credits, with credit tiers from $99 for 10,000 up to $999 for 130,000, shared across your team with no per-seat charge. MAI PLUS adds managed autonomous optimisation, media-plan onboarding and custom measurement at a custom price. Ad spend is paid to the ad networks, and unused monthly credits carry over for one month.
- Is mai.co the same as Microsoft's MAI?
- No. MAI at mai.co is an independent company whose AI agent manages Google, Meta and Microsoft ad accounts; it was founded by former Google and Instacart engineers and raised a seed round led by Kleiner Perkins. Microsoft's MAI is the name of Microsoft's own AI models. The only link between them is that Microsoft Ads is one of the ad networks mai.co works with.
- Does AgentCeres work with Microsoft Ads?
- Not today. AgentCeres runs Google Search campaigns for a page you host with it, and connects to Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Apple Search Ads and ChatGPT Ads accounts you already have. If Microsoft Ads matters to you, MAI, Ryze AI and Optmyzr all list it.
Try AgentCeres for MAI (mai.co) alternatives
14-day free trial. From $39/month. Cancel anytime.