CostBench

What CostBench MCP server does

CostBench MCP server connects an MCP client to CostBench.com’s software-pricing dataset. The service covers more than 3,390 products across 255 categories, including commercial software and usage-priced providers. Returned records can include tiers, contract terms, hidden or implementation costs, market data, sentiment, negotiation guidance, total-cost scenarios, and historical prices.

The server is read-only. It does not require an account or API key, and responses include attribution plus links to the pages used as sources. Data fields may also include a license marker identifying CostBench-owned research or restricted third-party market medians.

How it works

Products are addressed with a slug such as salesforce, microsoft-teams, or openai-api. If the slug is unknown, call discover_software with a category, maximum price, or free-tier filter to find matching products.

CostBench MCP server can be used through the hosted streamable HTTP endpoint at https://costbench.com/mcp. Clients that only support stdio can run the supplied bridge locally; it forwards requests to the hosted service. The repository can also be installed as an Agent Skill or Claude Code plugin, and Docker support is provided for local execution.

Every pricing claim is accompanied by provenance information. Because the data is sourced and dated, applications should preserve the returned source links when presenting prices or changes to users.

Setup and configuration

For a remote MCP connection, configure the server URL https://costbench.com/mcp with streamable HTTP. A local stdio configuration can invoke the package through npx -y github:aadilr/costbench-mcp. The repository can alternatively be cloned, installed with npm, and started with node index.js.

Docker users can build the image and run it interactively. The optional COSTBENCH_MCP_URL environment variable overrides the default hosted endpoint. The repository also supports npx skills add aadilr/costbench-mcp for skills-capable agents and provides separate Claude Code plugin commands.

Tools and capabilities

CostBench MCP server exposes these read-only operations:

• get_pricing returns a summary or full record for one product.
• get_hidden_costs lists documented add-on, onboarding, uplift, and overage costs with quotes and dates.
• get_negotiation_tips returns sourced tactics and estimated success likelihood.
• get_price_history provides quarterly snapshots and a trend.
• compare_software compares two to four products by starting price, median annual cost, free tier, and ratings.
• discover_software filters the catalog and returns product slugs.
• calculate_tco estimates year-one and multi-year ownership costs for a team, including effective per-seat cost.
• estimate_llm_cost estimates input and output token costs from a usage-priced provider’s rate card.
• get_price_changes returns dated before-and-after pricing bands and source links, with filters for product, category, age, and result count.

Limitations and notes

Requests are rate-limited to 60 per IP address per minute. The service never writes data. Pricing and market information can change, so consumers should use the returned dates and source URLs rather than treating figures as permanent. Restricted market-data fields can be shown to users but are not licensed for commercial redistribution. The project is released under the MIT license.