Cleanfetch

An MCP server that gives AI agents clean, reliable web reading. One job, done well.

Why this exists

Agent builders constantly need to read web pages — but the generic fetchers choke on real-world HTML, return nav/ad noise, or get blocked. Reliability is the moat: a server that consistently returns clean, structured content is worth paying for. There are 14,000+ MCP servers listed and almost none are production-hardened or monetized — that's the opening.

Run it locally

npm install
npm run build
npm start          # runs on stdio
# or, no build step:
npm run dev

Sanity-check the tools with the MCP Inspector:

npm run inspect

Connect it to a client

Claude Desktop / Claude Code / Cursor — add to the MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cleanfetch": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/Users/alexandre/projects/mcp-cleanfetch/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask the agent: "Use fetch_clean to read https://example.com and summarize it."

Config (env vars)

• CLEANFETCH_UA — override the User-Agent.
• CLEANFETCH_TIMEOUT_MS — request timeout (default 15000).

Go-to-market (the actual point)

1. List it everywhere (free distribution). Submit to the MCP directories — this is the "App Store moment", and free-tier listings rank highest:

• PulseMCP — https://www.pulsemcp.com/
• Glama — https://glama.ai/mcp/servers
• Smithery — https://smithery.ai/
• Awesome MCP Servers (GitHub PR) — https://github.com/punkpeye/awesome-mcp-servers
• The official MCP registry.

Publish to npm so npx mcp-cleanfetch works, and add a 30-second demo GIF to the README.

2. Harden the moat (what makes it paid-worthy). Roadmap, in order of value:

• JS rendering fallback (Playwright) for client-side-rendered pages.
• Rotating proxies + retry/anti-bot handling for sites that block plain fetch.
• Caching + rate limiting.
• batch_fetch (many URLs in one call), search (query → top results → clean content).

3. Monetize. Free tier = local stdio (what's here). Paid tier = a hosted HTTP MCP endpoint with an API key + usage billing:

• Host the server over the Streamable HTTP transport (the SDK supports it).
• Meter calls per key; bill with Stripe (Stripe shipped MCP/usage billing rails in 2026) or a usage-billing layer. Typical pricing in this category: a free tier + ~$20–40/mo, or per-call credits. Realistic target: $0.5–3K MRR per server — cheap enough to run several.

4. Validate before hardening. Ship the free version, list it, and watch installs/usage. If a tool gets real pull, that's the signal to build the paid hosted tier. Don't build billing for a server nobody installs.

License

MIT