CostBench MCP Server

Verified software-pricing intelligence for any MCP client — true costs, hidden fees, negotiation data, price history, side-by-side comparisons, and total cost of ownership for 3,290+ products. Read-only, free, no API key, no signup.

Powered by CostBench.com. Every figure the server returns carries its source and date — the data is only as trustworthy as its provenance, so CostBench publishes the provenance with each number. Responses include an attribution field and per-entity links back to the sourced page.

Tools

Tool	Description
get_pricing	Full sourced pricing record for a product: tiers, hidden costs, contract terms, market data, sentiment, negotiation tips, TCO scenarios, and price history — each claim with its sources. Args: slug, optional depth (summary|full).
get_hidden_costs	The documented hidden / implementation / add-on costs (uplifts, onboarding fees, overages), each with a sourced quote + date. Args: slug.
get_negotiation_tips	Sourced negotiation tactics with success-likelihood. Args: slug.
get_price_history	Per-quarter price snapshots + trend — has the price changed? Args: slug.
compare_software	Side-by-side pricing for 2–4 products (starting price, median annual cost, free tier, ratings). Args: slugs (array).
discover_software	Find products by category, maxPrice, hasFreeTier. Returns matching slugs to look up.
calculate_tco	Total cost of ownership for a product and team size: sourced line items, year-one + multi-year totals, effective per-seat cost. Args: slug, seats, optional tier, termYears.
estimate_llm_cost	Cost of an LLM/API workload (input + output tokens) for a usage-priced provider, from its real rate card. Args: slug, inputTokens, outputTokens, optional model.

All tools are read-only (readOnlyHint: true). Products are addressed by slug (e.g. salesforce, microsoft-teams, openai-api); use discover_software if you don't know one.

Option 1 — Remote endpoint (recommended, no install)

The server is hosted at https://costbench.com/mcp using streamable HTTP transport (MCP spec 2025-03-26). If your client supports remote MCP servers, point it straight at the endpoint:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "costbench": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://costbench.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http costbench https://costbench.com/mcp

Option 2 — Local stdio server (this package)

For clients that only speak stdio, this package bridges stdio ↔ the hosted endpoint:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "costbench": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:aadilr/costbench-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or clone and run directly:

git clone https://github.com/aadilr/costbench-mcp.git
cd costbench-mcp
npm install
node index.js

Option 3 — Agent Skill / Claude Code plugin

This repo doubles as an Agent Skill and Claude Code plugin.

Any skills-capable agent (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, and more):

npx skills add aadilr/costbench-mcp

Claude Code plugin (bundles the MCP server + the skill):

/plugin marketplace add aadilr/costbench-mcp
/plugin install costbench@costbench

The software-pricing skill prefers the MCP tools when connected and otherwise falls back to a bundled script (skills/software-pricing/scripts/pricing.sh) that talks to the hosted endpoint over plain HTTPS — no MCP client required.

Option 4 — Docker

docker build -t costbench-mcp .
docker run -i --rm costbench-mcp

Quick test

# List the tools
curl -X POST https://costbench.com/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}'

# Get pricing for a product
curl -X POST https://costbench.com/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_pricing","arguments":{"slug":"salesforce","depth":"summary"}}}'

The get_pricing call above returns a record like:

{
  "slug": "salesforce",
  "name": "Salesforce",
  "category": { "slug": "crm", "name": "CRM" },
  "priceRange": { "low": 0, "median": 100, "high": 550, "currency": "USD" },
  "priceUnit": "user/month",
  "tiers": [
    { "name": "Starter Suite", "priceMonthly": 25, "priceAnnual": 300, "priceUnit": "user/month" },
    { "name": "Pro Suite", "priceMonthly": 100, "priceAnnual": 1200, "priceUnit": "user/month" }
  ],
  "attribution": "Source: CostBench (https://costbench.com) — verified, sourced software pricing intelligence."
}

What's in the data

Products	3,290+
Categories	255
Comparisons	5,850+
Coverage	Tiers, hidden costs, contract terms, negotiation data, price history, TCO, LLM rate cards

Each field carries a license marker (owned | restricted): CostBench's own sourced research is owned; a small number of third-party market-data medians are restricted — surfaceable to a user but not licensed for commercial redistribution.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
COSTBENCH_MCP_URL	https://costbench.com/mcp	Override the upstream endpoint

Privacy & limits

• No authentication or account required. All tools are read-only — the server never writes anything.
• Per-IP rate limiting: 60 requests/minute.
• Data is sourced and dated; cite the links.page URL a response returns, not the bare number.

License

MIT