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Are MCP servers free? What each kind costs

Most MCP servers cost nothing to connect. The protocol is free and open source, and software makers such as Stripe, Square, HubSpot and Asana list no fee for their own servers. You pay when a server meters its calls, as connector platforms do, or charges per action. We read each price below on November 10, 2026.

By Updated Sources checked 4 min read

The short answer

What you might pay for Is it free?
The protocol Yes. MCP is an open-source standard.1
Open-source server software Yes, and you run it yourself.3,4
A software maker's own server Usually. The makers below list no fee for the server.5,6,7,8
A connector platform Up to a free allowance, then by the call or the plan.9,10
A server that hosts the tools itself By the action, on Conecto.14
Your AI app Separate. Claude's Free plan allows one custom connector.15

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Every tool and what it costs

The protocol and the open-source servers are free

MCP is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications to other systems.1 Anthropic donated it in December 2025 to the Agentic AI Foundation, a fund under the Linux Foundation.2 Nobody pays to use the protocol.

Many servers are open source too. Intuit publishes its QuickBooks Online server on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license, and Xero publishes its server under the MIT license.3,4 The software is free. You run it on your own computer, and you need an account with the service it talks to.

Servers from software you already use

Stripe, Square, HubSpot and Asana each run a remote server and publish its address in their developer documentation. Those pages give the address and the sign-in, and none of them lists a fee for the server itself.5,6,7,8 You need an account with the maker, and the agent works with whatever that account can already do.

So for a business that already pays for these tools, connecting them to an agent usually adds nothing to the bill. Remote MCP servers lists their addresses.

Connector platforms: free up to a point

A connector platform puts many apps behind one MCP server and meters what your agent does. These are the free allowances and the first paid step on each pricing page.

Platform Free Then
Zapier MCP 100 tasks a month, which is 50 tool calls Paid plans from $19.99 a month9
Composio 100,000 tool calls a month $29 a month, with $29 of usage included10
Pipedream Building and testing $99 a month billed annually, or $150 monthly11
Make 1,000 credits a month $11 a month billed annually, for 10,000 credits12
Activepieces 1,000 credits a month $20 a month, for 10,000 credits13

Zapier MCP is available to every Zapier account, and each tool call uses two tasks from the plan's quota.9 Zapier MCP alternatives compares these platforms in detail.

Servers that charge per action

Some servers host the system and charge for what the agent does in it. Conecto, our product, works this way. An agent signs up with $1.00 of credit, reading the business's own data is free up to a million reads a month, a change to a record costs $0.01, and a call that fails costs nothing.14 More than half of Conecto's tools cost nothing to call, and the median paid call costs one cent. Both numbers are on our statistics page.

What your AI app charges

The server is one cost and the AI app another. Claude lets every plan, Free included, add custom connectors that use a remote MCP server, and limits Free accounts to one.15 In ChatGPT we added a custom MCP server on a Free account on November 3, 2026. In a Business workspace only admins and owners can create one.16

What it costs to run your own

The software is free when you run an open-source server such as Intuit's or Xero's.3,4 What you pay for is where it runs. A local server costs nothing beyond your own computer. A remote one needs hosting at a public HTTPS address, and ChatGPT asks for exactly that when you add a server.16

How to check a server's price before you connect

  1. Find who runs it. The maker of the software, a connector platform or a stranger.
  2. Read that company's pricing page for the words MCP, tool call, task or credit.
  3. Check what counts. Zapier counts two tasks for each tool call.9
  4. Look for a cap. Composio's free plan stops at its limit and its paid plan lets you set a spend cap.10

Questions

Are MCP servers free?

Most are free to connect. The protocol is open source,1 and makers such as Stripe, Square, HubSpot and Asana list no fee for their own servers.5,6,7,8 Connector platforms and servers that host the tools themselves charge by the call, the plan or the action.

Is MCP open source?

Yes. MCP is an open-source standard,1 and since December 2025 it belongs to the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation.2

Is Zapier MCP free?

It is available to every Zapier account. The Free plan's 100 tasks a month cover 50 tool calls, because each call uses two tasks.9

Is the Stripe MCP server free?

Stripe's documentation gives the server's address and sign-in and lists no fee for the server itself.5

Do I need a paid Claude or ChatGPT plan to use an MCP server?

No. Claude's Free plan allows one custom connector,15 and we added a custom MCP server in ChatGPT on a Free account on November 3, 2026.

What is the cheapest way to give an agent business tools?

Start with the servers of the software you already pay for, since they add no fee. For tools you don't have yet, compare a connector platform's free allowance with a server that charges per action. On Conecto a change to a record costs $0.01 and reading is free up to a million reads a month.14

Sources

We read these pages on . Each number in the guide links to the page behind that sentence.

  1. What is the Model Context Protocol, Model Context Protocol
  2. Donating the Model Context Protocol and establishing the Agentic AI Foundation, Anthropic, December 9, 2025
  3. QuickBooks Online MCP Server, Intuit on GitHub
  4. Xero MCP Server, Xero on GitHub
  5. Model Context Protocol, Stripe documentation
  6. Square MCP server, Square Developer
  7. HubSpot MCP servers, HubSpot Developers
  8. Using Asana's MCP server, Asana Developers
  9. Zapier pricing
  10. Composio pricing
  11. Pipedream pricing
  12. Make pricing
  13. Activepieces pricing
  14. Conecto SKILL.md
  15. Get started with custom connectors using remote MCP, Claude Help Center
  16. Connecting custom MCP servers in ChatGPT, OpenAI Help Center

Conecto publishes this guide and sells business tools for AI agents. How we write our guides. To report a mistake, write to hello@conecto.chat.

Written by , Co-founder of Conecto. LinkedIn

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