The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Shortlist Price Index listing page.
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI agents software pricing data: entry prices (lowest paid plan per provider) for 16 categories, from VPNs and cloud backup to travel eSIMs and recruitment software. Prices are compiled from each provider's public pricing page and republished monthly since June 2026. Three categories (VPN, web hosting and cloud backup) are additionally measured by an automated pipeline that archives the source page behind every observation; the remaining categories are hand-curated. Published as open data under CC BY 4.0 by Orai Media.
Endpoint: https://shortlist-mcp.vercel.app/mcp (streamable HTTP, no auth, free)
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
list_categories | All tracked categories with slugs, units and currencies (11 USD/global + 5 Dutch EUR) |
get_price_index | Full index for one category: average, median, cheapest, every provider sorted by price, monthly history, methodology |
get_true_3yr_cost | Honest 3-year cost per provider (year 1 intro, years 2-3 at renewal), ranked by real total, with the renewal multiplier. Published for web hosting and antivirus today |
get_cheapest | The N cheapest providers in a category right now, with a link to the full comparison |
Every response includes a citation string and the CC BY 4.0 license note, so agents can attribute figures correctly.
The server reads the live Price Index JSON endpoints of the Shortlist comparison sites (republished monthly, cached one hour) and the open dataset repository:
License: data CC BY 4.0 (attribution + link to the cited source site), code MIT.
The included Dockerfile builds a self-contained image of the same server (the production endpoint above is the hosted equivalent):
Built with mcp-handler on Next.js, deployed on Vercel.