Thrifle

US return policies, price-match rules, discounts, deals, credit-card terms and Amazon buy-or-wait verdicts — as read-only tools for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and any MCP client.

https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp

No auth. No signup. 24 tools. Every answer links to the thrifle.com page it comes from.

Install in VS Code Add to Cursor Docs Tests

What you can ask

Tool	Example
get_return_policy	What is Costco's return policy on a laptop?
compare_return_policies	Is it easier to return to Target or Walmart?
search_return_policies	Which furniture stores offer free returns?
get_price_match_policy	Does Best Buy price match Amazon?
who_will_price_match	Who will match this Amazon price on a TV?
get_merchant_discounts · search_discounts	Does Home Depot have a military discount?
get_cancellation_guide	How do I cancel Planet Fitness?
get_birthday_freebie · search_birthday_freebies	What does Starbucks give you on your birthday?
search_deals · get_deal · get_deal_of_the_day · get_store_deals	Is there a deal on AirPods Pro right now?
predict_amazon_price	Should I buy this Amazon product now or wait?
search_credit_cards · get_credit_card · get_store_credit_cards	Does the Lowe's card use deferred interest?
get_money_monitor · get_price_pulse	What is the average credit-card APR right now?
check_product_recalls	Has this product been recalled?
about_thrifle	What is Thrifle and what does it cover?

The data behind these tools: a return-policy database covering 2,250 US retailers with an A+–D− grade computed from the policy's own terms, price-match and price-adjustment policies, military/student discount programmes, birthday offers, cancellation guides, a curated deal feed, a credit-card database built from issuer pricing pages, and price history for hundreds of thousands of Amazon products. All of it is editor-verified and every record carries a last_verified date.

Connect it

Claude.ai / Claude Desktop (every plan; Free allows one custom connector) Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste the URL → leave authentication empty.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http thrifle https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp

ChatGPT — Settings → Apps & Connectors → Create (developer mode) → paste the URL, no authentication.

Cursor — click the badge above, or add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "thrifle": { "url": "https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp" } } }

VS Code — click the badge above, or code --add-mcp '{"name":"thrifle","type":"http","url":"https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp"}'.

Perplexity (+ Custom connector → Remote), Grok (grok.com/connectors → Custom), Mistral Le Chat (Connectors → Custom MCP Connector), Gemini CLI (httpUrl under mcpServers), Gemini Enterprise (Manage team → Connected apps → Add MCP Server) all accept the same URL.

Claude Code plugin — this repo is also a Claude Code plugin (.claude-plugin/plugin.json, .mcp.json, and a thrifle-shopping skill that teaches the model which tool answers which question).

Try it from a terminal

curl -s https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp | jq .tools

curl -s -X POST https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_return_policy","arguments":{"merchant":"Costco"}}}'

Run it yourself

git clone https://github.com/ejazmu/thrifle-mcp && cd thrifle-mcp
npm install
npm start          # http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp, reading Thrifle's public API
npm test           # 17 protocol + shaping fixtures, no network needed

This is the same code that serves api.thrifle.com/api/mcp. THRIFLE_API_BASE points it at a different API base; MCP_RATE_PER_MIN / MCP_RATE_PER_DAY set the per-IP limits; MCP_API_KEYS (comma-separated) lists keys that bypass them via Authorization: Bearer.

How it is built

• Stateless Streamable HTTP. One McpServer + transport per request, JSON responses, no sessions — nothing to resume, nothing shared between callers, nothing for a CDN to buffer. GET on the endpoint returns a human-readable discovery document.
• Tools call Thrifle's public REST API, never a database. That keeps the MCP answer identical to the website's answer: affiliate-link handling, expired-deal rules and serve-time grading all apply automatically. src/api-client.js is a 60-line loopback fetch.
• Shapers, not raw payloads. src/shape.js turns each API response into the facts plus the canonical thrifle.com url and a cite block, and drops internal fields. Pure functions, all covered by fixtures.
• Read-only by construction. Every tool declares readOnlyHint: true; the catalogue in src/tools.js has no write path.
• Price verdicts never trigger a live fetch — they read the tracked-price database only.

Fair use and licensing

Free for assistants answering a person's question: 60 calls a minute and 1,500 a day per address. Bulk or commercial use is licensed — see thrifle.com/data-licensing; a licence comes with a key that lifts the limits. Deal buy_url values are thrifle.com redirects and may be affiliate links.

Links

Docs: https://thrifle.com/mcp · Return-policy database: https://thrifle.com/return-policy · Price Predict: https://thrifle.com/price-predict · Money: https://thrifle.com/money · Contact: [email protected]

MIT licensed. © 2026 Thrifle Technologies LLC.