About Omnicost
Omnicost is a hosted MCP server for construction cost data, aimed at estimators and agents that need unit prices with sources and dates. Its catalog covers materials, labor, and equipment, with strongest coverage in Spain, the US, and the EU.
Key features
- 01Search prices by text and region
- 02View item vendors and recent prices
- 03Browse top-level categories
- 04Retrieve BC3 cost breakdowns
- 05See price sources and observation dates
Use cases
- 01Find regional construction unit prices
- 02Compare vendors and recent item prices
- 03Inspect material, labor, and machinery components
MCP support
Exposes semantic catalog search, item details, categories, and BC3 decompositions to MCP clients over Streamable HTTP. Requests require an Omnicost organization API key as a Bearer token.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://omnicost.com/api/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http com-omnicost-catalog https://omnicost.com/api/mcp{"mcpServers":{"com-omnicost-catalog":{"type":"http","url":"https://omnicost.com/api/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"com-omnicost-catalog":{"type":"http","url":"https://omnicost.com/api/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"com-omnicost-catalog":{"type":"http","url":"https://omnicost.com/api/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"com-omnicost-catalog":{"serverUrl":"https://omnicost.com/api/mcp"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
https://omnicost.com/api/mcpAuth requiredTools
Details
From the project README
Omnicost MCP server
Construction unit prices with source and date for Spain, the US and the EU, available to AI agents over the Model Context Protocol.
Omnicost is a construction cost catalog and estimating tool. It gathers unit prices for materials, labor and equipment from 208 sources such as public tenders and supplier catalogs, and keeps the source and observed date on every price. The catalog holds about 81,000 priced items, and coverage is strongest in Spain, the United States and the European Union. This repository holds the public listing for the hosted MCP server: its server.json for MCP registries and ready-to-use client configs.
The server itself is hosted by Omnicost. There is nothing to install or run from this repo.
| Endpoint | https://omnicost.com/api/mcp |
| Transport | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | Authorization: Bearer <organization API key> |
| Registry name | com.omnicost/catalog |
| Website | https://omnicost.com |
Get an API key
To connect, create a free Omnicost workspace and generate an organization API key. The Free plan includes one.
- Sign up at https://omnicost.com/en and create your workspace.
- Open https://omnicost.com/dashboard/mcp and create an organization API key.
- Add it to your MCP client config as shown below.
Requests to /api/mcp without a key get a 401 that asks for an organization API key from an Omnicost workspace.
Tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
search_catalog | Semantic search over the catalog. Takes a free-text query (q), an optional limit (up to 25) and an optional region. Returns matching items with median price and vendor count. |
get_item | Fetches one item (ci_... id) with its vendor breakdown and recent prices, each with its source. |
list_categories | Lists the top-level catalog categories. |
get_decomposition | Returns the BC3 recipe for an item: the material, labor and machinery components per unit. |
For useful results, query items priced in Spain, the US or the EU.
Client setup
Replace the placeholder with your organization API key. Keep the key out of version control.
Cursor
~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json in your project (examples/cursor.mcp.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"omnicost": {
"url": "https://omnicost.com/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ${env:OMNICOST_API_KEY}"
}
}
}
}
VS Code
.vscode/mcp.json (examples/vscode.mcp.json). VS Code asks for the key the first time and stores it for you:
{
"inputs": [
{
"type": "promptString",
"id": "omnicost-key",
"description": "Omnicost API key",
"password": true
}
],
"servers": {
"omnicost": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://omnicost.com/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ${input:omnicost-key}"
}
}
}
}
Claude Desktop
Claude Desktop talks to remote servers through mcp-remote, so you need Node.js installed. Add this to claude_desktop_config.json (examples/claude-desktop.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"omnicost": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"mcp-remote",
"https://omnicost.com/api/mcp",
"--header",
"Authorization:Bearer ${OMNICOST_API_KEY}"
],
"env": {
"OMNICOST_API_KEY": "<your key>"
}
}
}
}
Any other client
Point a client that supports streamable HTTP at https://omnicost.com/api/mcp and send the key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header.
Pricing
The Free plan includes an organization API key for MCP. Omnicost Pro ($9/week, $29/month or $290/year) includes API and MCP access with 100,000 requests a month. See https://omnicost.com/en/pricing.
More
- REST API docs: https://omnicost.com/en/docs/api
- Developer page: https://omnicost.com/en/developers
- Server card: https://omnicost.com/.well-known/mcp.json
- Support: [email protected]
License
The contents of this repository are released under the MIT License. Omnicost is a product of Ipita LLC.
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.