{
 "study_id": "aibm-r03-mcp-plan-disclosure",
 "slug": "mcp-pricing-disclosure-2026",
 "title": "Report 03: which plan do you need for a vendor's MCP server?",
 "type": "market_observation",
 "edition": "2026-09-04",
 "first_published": "2026-08-19",
 "edition_published": "2026-09-15",
 "corrections": [
  {
   "date": "2026-10-07",
   "previous_version": null,
   "what": "Until 7 October 2026 the page title and the research hub card still read '65 SaaS vendors ship MCP. 38 won't say which plan you need.', the figures of the 19 August state, while the figures on the page had moved to this edition. Title, card, citation and data now come from the edition manifest, and 'won't say' became 'don't state'."
  }
 ],
 "population": "425 business-software vendors in the AIBuilder Marketplace partner database (affiliate and partner programmes), skewed to SMB and mid-market sales, marketing, support, HR and infrastructure tools.",
 "population_short": "425 vendors checked",
 "selection": "Full registry-plus-sitemap-plus-llms.txt sweep on 17 August 2026 over the 363 partners then listed, extended to partners added up to 2026-09-04. Every hit read by hand on the vendor's own domain.",
 "measurement_period": {
  "start": "2026-08-17",
  "end": "2026-09-04"
 },
 "headline": {
  "text": "of the vendors with a first-party MCP server state no plan, tier or price for it in their own docs",
  "numerator": 42,
  "denominator": 74,
  "metric": "unstated_share"
 },
 "metrics": [
  {
   "id": "adoption",
   "label": "vendors with a first-party MCP server",
   "numerator": 74,
   "denominator": 425
  },
  {
   "id": "unstated",
   "label": "servers with no stated plan or price",
   "numerator": 42,
   "denominator": 74
  },
  {
   "id": "higher_tier",
   "label": "servers behind a specific higher tier",
   "numerator": 9,
   "denominator": 74
  },
  {
   "id": "any_paid",
   "label": "servers on any paid plan",
   "numerator": 10,
   "denominator": 74
  },
  {
   "id": "free",
   "label": "servers on every plan including free",
   "numerator": 13,
   "denominator": 74
  },
  {
   "id": "dated",
   "label": "servers with a published ship date",
   "numerator": 6,
   "denominator": 74
  }
 ],
 "limitations": [
  "Not a random sample of software vendors: our own partner database.",
  "'Not stated' means not found on the vendor's own public pages, not unavailable or hidden on purpose.",
  "Vendors with no server found were not re-checked after the edition; per-vendor negative outcomes were not recorded in this edition."
 ],
 "method_url": "#method",
 "evidence_url": "#list",
 "verification": {
  "last_verified": "2026-09-04",
  "register_last_checked": "2026-10-01"
 },
 "next_full_recheck": "16 November 2026: full sweep of every partner",
 "schema": "aibm-research-manifest/1",
 "files": [
  {
   "name": "definitions.json",
   "url": "/research/mcp-pricing-disclosure-2026/data/2026-09-04/definitions.json",
   "bytes": 814,
   "sha256": "17927fbfcfdac07f494ad9a34f5fd531f9a03f569b4cec8f209101f86024e8c7"
  },
  {
   "name": "servers.csv",
   "url": "/research/mcp-pricing-disclosure-2026/data/2026-09-04/servers.csv",
   "bytes": 19317,
   "sha256": "04134ef95b0355d367492a15ceb3f68a84d371f1dd5f234aac7b2f2a32b0a494"
  }
 ],
 "author": {
  "name": "Daniel Haket",
  "url": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/about/",
  "email": "daniel@aibuildermarketplace.com"
 },
 "reviewer": null,
 "license": {
  "name": "CC BY 4.0",
  "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "scope": "Our own data, analysis, tables and charts. Quoted vendor text and screenshots of vendor pages remain the vendor's; we reproduce them as evidence."
 },
 "contact": "daniel@aibuildermarketplace.com",
 "fingerprint": "6df8a187ec4d2bc4"
}