splitbasket-prices

SplitBasket Grocery Prices — MCP server & data API

Cached US grocery prices for developers and agents, from the price panel behind SplitBasket. Every price carries its observation date; the API tells you what it can answer at a location before you ask, and returns found: false rather than a plausible wrong number.

• API docs & quickstart: https://splitbasket.shop/developers
• Terms: https://splitbasket.shop/api-terms
• Get a key (free, closed beta): email [email protected] — one line about what you're building; keys are issued by a human, usually within a day.

Connect over MCP

Endpoint: https://api.splitbasket.shop/v1/mcp (Streamable HTTP, bearer auth)

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http splitbasket \
  https://api.splitbasket.shop/v1/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..."

Any MCP client that speaks Streamable HTTP works the same way — point it at the endpoint with the Authorization header.

Or plain HTTP

curl "https://api.splitbasket.shop/v1/compare_price?q=whole+milk&zip=94110" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..."

Tools

tool	what it does
search_products	Find products near a location, with the price each nearby store last showed
get_price	The cached price of one exact product (banner + product_id) at one place
compare_price	Best match at each banner for one query, ranked on canonical unit price
coverage	What the API can actually answer at a location — call this first in an unfamiliar area
live_check	Fetch from the retailer right now (paid tier); returns a job id + measured ETA
live_check_status	Poll a live_check job

Coverage, honestly

Two layers (measured weekly — 2026-08-09; coverage is the runtime source of truth):

• National layer — six banners: Walmart, Costco, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Sam's Club, Aldi. 51 states (incl. DC) with at least one priced, 2+ banner comparison in 50, 3+ in 46 (measured 2026-08-11). These stores are priced weekly against a ~43-item staples basket.
• Deep metros — San Francisco, Fresno, Phoenix, Austin: 7–17 banners with full shopping catalogs.

Prices are cached observations, not live quotes. Exact-match rate by cache age, measured over 275k observation pairs: 99.6% under a day, 93.8% at a week, 79.9% at 30 days. Every row carries price_as_of and price_age_days; pass max_age_days to enforce what your use case tolerates.

What this deliberately is not

• No basket optimizer. To estimate a basket, call compare_price per item and sum it yourself.
• No state-level answers where prices measurably don't hold state-wide. Chain-wide for target, smartandfinal, bashas, frys, foodsco — and per-state where a chain is bimodal: Costco in ten measured states, Whole Foods in CA and NV. Measured, not assumed; the demote list tracks the weekly panel.
• No blended accuracy score. Price staleness is bimodal: a stale price is either exactly right or meaningfully wrong, so we disclose age instead of averaging it away.

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Operated by VoiceArc Inc. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any retailer; retailer names identify where a price was observed.