# CostBench (remote · costbench.com)

Verified pricing, hidden costs, negotiation data & TCO for 3,290+ software products.

- Trust score: 56/100 (low)
- Change this week: +3
- Registry status: active
- Liveness: live
- Owner verified: no
- Last scored: 2026-08-03

## Components

- remote · `costbench.com`: 56/100 (this document), [markdown](https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench.md), [page](https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench)

## Channel facts

- Endpoint: `https://costbench.com/mcp`
- Transports: `streamable-http`
- Auth: `none`
- Version: `1.0.1`

## Trust breakdown

How this component scores in each security and reliability category. Every signal is checked automatically against the live server, and we only credit what we can confirm. Scores are 0–100 per category. Scoring method: https://verifymcp.io/docs/scoring (what has changed: https://verifymcp.io/docs/scoring/changelog)

Scored 2026-08-03.

- **Endpoint Security**: 46/100
  - The endpoint's TLS certificate is valid, in date, and uses a strong key.
  - Authorisation not fully verified: no authorisation is required to call this server, and 8 tool(s) never declared a destructiveHint. The MCP spec treats an absent hint as destructive by default, so we cannot call this surface safe.
  - HTTPS not yet verified: we couldn't determine whether a plaintext access path exists.
  - HSTS check failed: the Strict-Transport-Security header is absent.
  - DNSSEC check failed: this domain isn't protected by DNSSEC.
- **Transport & Reachability**: 100/100
  - Verified streamable-http transport via a live MCP handshake.
- **Schema Quality & AI Usability**: 71/100
  - AI-judged instruction clarity (good).
  - Tool/resource definitions use about 664 tokens (~83/item across 8 items; 8 tools + 0 resources), lean.
  - Usage-examples check failed: none of the tools include examples.
- **Stability & Change Management**: 27/100
  - Stability observed for 8 of 30 days with no destabilising changes; credit accrues until the full window elapses.
- **Tool Coverage**: 74/100
  - 100% of tools have a non-trivial description (not blank, and not just the tool's name).
  - 22% of tool parameters carry a description.
- **Capabilities**: 40/100
  - Spec-recency check failed: implements MCP spec 2025-03-26; the latest is 2026-07-28.

## Install

### Claude

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

### Codex

```toml
[mcp_servers.com-costbench-mcp]
url = "https://costbench.com/mcp"
```

### opencode

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "mcp": {
    "com-costbench-mcp": {
      "type": "remote",
      "url": "https://costbench.com/mcp",
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}
```

### OpenClaw

```bash
openclaw mcp add com-costbench-mcp --url https://costbench.com/mcp --transport streamable-http
```

### Hermes

```yaml
mcp_servers:
  com-costbench-mcp:
    url: "https://costbench.com/mcp"
```

### Other

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

The mcpServers block is a cross-client convention. Remote transports vary, so check your client's docs.

## Changelog

Every change recorded for this component, newest first. Days that predate change tracking, or that we cannot explain, say so: "we were watching and nothing happened" and "we were not watching" are different claims.

### 2026-08-03 (score 56, +1)

No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 23 to 27. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 7 days of observed history at the previous scan, 8 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.

### 2026-07-31 (score 55, 0)

- [functional] We updated how we score, so this day's move reflects our rubric, not a change to the server

### 2026-07-29 (score 55, +1)

No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 7 to 10. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 2 days of observed history at the previous scan, 3 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.

### 2026-07-28 (score 54, +1)

No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 3 to 7. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 1 days of observed history at the previous scan, 2 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.

### 2026-07-27 (score 53, 0)

- [functional] We updated how we score, so this day's move reflects our rubric, not a change to the server

### 2026-07-26 (score 53)

First indexed and scored.

## MCP tools (8)

### `get_pricing` (~82 tokens)

Full sourced pricing record for a software product: tiers, hidden costs, contract terms, market data, sentiment, negotiation tips, TCO scenarios, price history — every claim with its sources + a confidence/verification envelope.

Input parameters:

- `depth` (string): summary = numbers+sources only
- `slug` (string, required): Product slug, e.g. "salesforce"

### `get_hidden_costs` (~56 tokens)

The documented hidden/implementation/add-on costs of a product (uplifts, onboarding fees, overages), each with a sourced quote + date. The "what they don't tell you" answer.

Input parameters:

- `slug` (string, required)

### `get_negotiation_tips` (~37 tokens)

Sourced negotiation tactics for a product with success-likelihood (how to get a discount).

Input parameters:

- `slug` (string, required)

### `get_price_history` (~61 tokens)

Dated per-quarter snapshots of a product's pricing page. Returns observations, NOT a trend figure — CostBench does not publish one, because diffing snapshots across renamed/restructured plan lineups is ~90% measurement artifact.

Input parameters:

- `slug` (string, required)

### `compare_software` (~44 tokens)

Side-by-side pricing comparison of 2–4 products (starting price, enterprise tier, median annual cost, free tier, ratings).

Input parameters:

- `slugs` (array, required)

### `discover_software` (~62 tokens)

Find software products by criteria (category, max price, free tier). Returns matching slugs to look up.

Input parameters:

- `category` (string)
- `hasFreeTier` (boolean)
- `limit` (number)
- `maxPrice` (number)

### `calculate_tco` (~87 tokens)

Total cost of ownership for a product and team size: sourced line items (licenses with price escalation, benchmark implementation), year-one + multi-year totals, effective per-seat cost. The defensible "true cost for an N-person team" answer.

Input parameters:

- `seats` (number, required)
- `slug` (string, required)
- `termYears` (number)
- `tier` (string)

### `estimate_llm_cost` (~121 tokens)

Estimate the cost of an LLM/API workload (input + output tokens) for a usage-priced provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock…) from its real rate card.

Input parameters:

- `inputTokens` (number): Input tokens for the workload (e.g. per month). At least one of inputTokens/outputTokens must be > 0.
- `model` (string)
- `outputTokens` (number): Output tokens for the workload. At least one of inputTokens/outputTokens must be > 0.
- `slug` (string, required)

## Diagnostics

Captured diagnostic sections: TLS, DNSSEC, Authorisation, Transports. The full working is on the page: https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench#diagnostics

## Score history

- 2026-08-03: 56
- 2026-08-02: 55
- 2026-08-01: 55
- 2026-07-31: 55
- 2026-07-30: 55
- 2026-07-29: 55
- 2026-07-28: 54
- 2026-07-27: 53
- 2026-07-26: 53

## Links

- Remote endpoint: https://costbench.com/mcp
- Repository: https://github.com/aadilr/costbench-mcp
- Website: https://costbench.com/
- Changelog RSS feed: https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench/changelog.xml
- Changelog JSON feed: https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench/changelog.json
- HTML version of this page: https://verifymcp.io/servers/com-costbench-mcp/costbench