Metal vanadates have been popularly advocated as promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) benefiting from their high theoretical specific capacity and abundant resources. Given that manganese and vanadium are reasonably economical elements and enjoy assorted redox reactions, they have extensive application prospects in energy storage systems. Here, we synthesized cubic MnV2O4 as an anode for LIBs by an efficient sol-gel process. As a result, the MnV2O4 electrode delivers distinguished electrochemical performance, including an appealing reversible specific capacity of nearly 1325 mA h g-1 for 500 cycles at 200 mA g-1, excellent cycling stability with a capacity of 399 mA h g-1 up to 500 cycles at 2000 mA g-1 and a favorable rate capability of 516/410 mA h g-1 at 1000/2000 mA g-1 (when the current density recuperates to 200 mA g-1, the specific capacity still boosts as the number of cycles increases). What's more, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV) under various scan rates and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are executed to ascertain with a greater depth the electrochemical kinetic characteristics and morphology of the MnV2O4 electrode in different states. These results make known that MnV2O4 is a credible anode material for LIBs, and such a facile and economical synthetic route can be extended to the preparation of other metal vanadate materials.