About ModelCostComparison
ModelCostComparison is a hosted MCP server for finding AI model prices and estimating or comparing token costs. It uses a reviewed pricing snapshot and reports cost estimates, not invoices or model-quality rankings.
Key features
- 01Find models and tariff identifiers
- 02Retrieve prices, sources, and review dates
- 03Estimate token costs
- 04Compare offers for a workload
- 05Find lowest-priced eligible offers
- 06Summarize providers and price ranges
Use cases
- 01Check a model's listed rates and sources
- 02Estimate input, output, and cached-token costs
- 03Compare offers for a specified token workload
- 04Find reviewed offers within workload constraints
MCP support
Provides pricing discovery and calculation tools through a remote Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint. No API key or local package is required, and the tools do not call provider models.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http lazige-modelcostcomparison https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcp{"mcpServers":{"lazige-modelcostcomparison":{"type":"http","url":"https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"lazige-modelcostcomparison":{"type":"http","url":"https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"lazige-modelcostcomparison":{"type":"http","url":"https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"lazige-modelcostcomparison":{"serverUrl":"https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/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.
Tools
6| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| limit | integer | No | Maximum offers per page to return: 1–50; default 20. |
| query | string | No | Optional model name, recorded label or API ID to search. Use when the exact offer ID is unknown; omit to browse. Matching tolerates case, spacing and punctuation differences. |
| cursor | string | No | Opaque next_cursor returned by list_models. Omit on the first page; on later pages repeat the original filters and limit unchanged. Restart without a cursor if it expires or the dataset changes. |
| status | enum | No | Use current (default) for reviewed offers. Choose expired, unreviewed or all only to inspect catalogue records; those records may not support calculations.current | expired | unreviewed | all |
| provider_id | string | No | Optional exact provider_id returned by list_providers or offer identity. Use to restrict results to one provider; omit for all providers. |
| pricing_tier | string | No | Optional exact tariff name from offer identity, such as standard or peak. Use to restrict results to a tariff; omit to include all tariffs. |
Details
From the project READMEModelCostComparison MCP
Measured by MCPmetrics:
Connect your AI client to the same pricing source and calculation engine used by ModelCostComparison.
Connect
Remote endpoint: https://modelcostcomparison.com/api/v1/mcp
Transport: Streamable HTTP. No API key or local package required.
Cursor
Use the install link above and confirm the server in Cursor. Alternatively, merge the contents of mcp.json into your Cursor MCP configuration, preserving existing servers. Enable ModelCostComparison in the agent's tools.
Claude
Open Connectors, choose Add custom connector, name it ModelCostComparison and paste the endpoint above. Connect it and enable its tools for your conversation. Organization settings may require an administrator to add it.
Other clients
Add a remote MCP server with the endpoint above and Streamable HTTP transport.
Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
list_models | Find model and exact tariff identifiers. |
get_model_pricing | Get rates, sources and review dates. |
calculate_cost | Calculate input, output and cached-input token costs. |
compare_model_costs | Compare offers for the same token workload. |
find_cheapest_models | Rank eligible reviewed offers for a token workload. |
list_providers | Summarize providers, offers and current price ranges. |
Try it
- “Use ModelCostComparison to list available OpenAI models and show pricing sources and review dates.”
- “Find reviewed offers for OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Compare 1 million input tokens and 200,000 output tokens, with no cache and at most 8,000 input tokens per request.”
- “For the selected offer, estimate 1 million input tokens including 500,000 cached input tokens, plus 100,000 output tokens. Maximum input per request is 8,000 tokens.”
Start with model discovery; use the exact offer IDs returned by the service. Missing or ambiguous workload details should be clarified before calculating.
Scope
Results are estimates of text-token subtotals in USD, not invoices or model-quality rankings. Cache writes, storage, tools, search and taxes are excluded. Expired or unreviewed offers cannot be calculated. Unsupported offers are reported separately in comparisons. Pricing is served from the website's reviewed deployment snapshot, not fetched from providers on every request.
The service is rate limited. On HTTP 429, wait for Retry-After before retrying. HTTP 503 indicates temporary unavailability. No provider credentials are needed, and tools do not call provider models.
This repository contains connection settings and documentation only. Pricing and calculations remain on the hosted service.
References
Official MCP Registry
Published as io.github.Lazige/modelcostcomparison, version 1.0.1. Registry entry. The registry metadata lives in server.json.
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.