Thrifle is answering right now. Last checked 4 min ago. It exposes 24 tools. Last commit 3 Oct 2026.
US return policies, price-match rules, discounts, deals and Amazon price verdicts. Read-only.
Uptime history
61 days of history · worst day 93%
61 days agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
92 of 92 checks
24
Tools
read from the server
858 ms
Response time
average over 24h
0
Stars
last commit 3 Oct 2026
What changed 2
Every tool that appeared, vanished or quietly changed what it asks for. Recorded since 25 September 2026. No other catalogue keeps this.
19 Oct
a tool description was rewritten
compare_return_policies
25 Sep
a tool description was rewritten
predict_amazon_price
Nothing serious here today
Today is the operative word: we check Thrifle every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.
Connect this server
Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 4 min ago.
run in your terminal
claude mcp add mcp --transport http https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcpSettings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste this address
https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.mcp]
url = "https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp".cursor/mcp.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"mcp": {
"url": "https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp"
}
}
}.vscode/mcp.json
{
"servers": {
"mcp": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp"
}
}
}Available tools 24
Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on.
If a tool disappears, we record the date.
birthday
get_birthday_freebie
What a US restaurant or retailer gives away for your birthday, whether it is actually free or needs a purchase or prior spend, how to sign up and how far ahead, the validity window, ID requirements, and known gotchas. Call for 'what does X give you on your birthday' questions.
search_birthday_freebies
Browse verified birthday offers from US brands. Filters: actually_free (no purchase and no prior spend required), kids (child-eligible), no_signup, category (e.g. 'Restaurant', 'Beauty'), name fragment. Returns slim rows; use get_birthday_freebie for the full terms of one brand.
blog
get_blog_post
The full text of one Thrifle article by URL or slug (HTML stripped, long posts truncated at ~20,000 characters), plus its FAQ, author, date and URL for citation.
search_blog
Find Thrifle articles by keyword: original data studies (e.g. what actually dropped on Black Friday, Prime Day fact-checks), buying guides, and the Money section's credit and BNPL explainers. Returns title, one-line summary, date, author and URL. Use get_blog_post to read one.
credit
get_credit_card
Full record for one card by its card_key (from search_credit_cards): APR tiers, intro and penalty APRs, fees, promotional financing terms with the issuer's own fine-print quote, rewards, perks, welcome offer, and provenance (pricing-terms URL, verification date, confidence). Store cards link to the partner retailer's return policy.
search_credit_cards
Browse Thrifle's US credit-card database (store and co-branded cards first): filter by issuer, retailer, store cards only, or cards that use deferred-interest promotional financing. Rows carry purchase APR range, annual fee, financing type, data confidence and the verification date. Numbers come from issuer pricing pages, never roundups.
deal
get_deal
Everything Thrifle knows about one deal, by its thrifle.com URL or slug: price and list price, merchant, coupon, why it's great, the editorial verdict, the price-history verdict for Amazon items, FAQ, and the buy link. Use after search_deals when the shopper wants detail on one item.
get_deal_of_the_day
Thrifle's editor-picked deal of the day with price, merchant and buy link. Cheap to call; returns found:false when none is set.
price
get_price_match_policy
Whether a US retailer matches competitors' prices (which competitors, proof required, exclusions, how to claim) and whether it offers a post-purchase price adjustment (window in days). Call for 'does X price match' or 'will X refund the difference if the price drops' questions.
get_price_pulse
Latest US Consumer Price Index by spending category (headline, food, energy, shelter, apparel, etc.) with month-over-month and year-over-year change, plus average gas prices by grade with week-ago and year-ago comparisons. Sourced from BLS and EIA.
return
get_return_policy
Verified return policy for a US retailer: return window, free returns, restocking fee, holiday extension, non-returnable items, an A+–D− grade, how it compares with its category, and the retailer's own policy URL. Optionally pass what the shopper bought to surface a product-specific exception (e.g. electronics at Costco). Call this for any 'what is X's return policy' question.
search_return_policies
Find retailers in Thrifle's return-policy database by name fragment and/or category (e.g. 'Fashion', 'Electronics', 'Home'). Returns slim rows with the return window and a link. With no arguments it returns the category list and total count. Use it when get_return_policy says a retailer was not found, or to list retailers in a category.
store
get_store_credit_cards
The store and co-branded credit cards a US retailer offers, with APR, annual fee, whether promotional financing is deferred interest, and links to each card's full terms, the retailer's store-card page and its return policy. Call for 'is the X store card worth it' or 'does X card have deferred interest' questions.
get_store_deals
A retailer's store page on Thrifle: how many live deals it has, the most recent ones with prices and buy links, and its military/student discount summary when known. Use for 'what deals does Costco have right now' questions.
about
about_thrifle
What Thrifle is, what each database covers and how big it is, how to cite it, and which tool answers which kind of question.
cancellation
get_cancellation_guide
Step-by-step guide to cancelling a US subscription or membership: available channels (online, app, phone, in person), notice period, fees, refund after cancelling, retention tactics to expect, and an ease-of-cancellation grade. Coverage is still small; the response lists what is available when the merchant is not found.
compare
compare_return_policies
Side-by-side comparison of two US retailers' return policies with grades, per-axis winners (return window, cost to return, restocking fee, exclusions, holiday extension, transparency) and an overall winner. Use for 'is it easier to return to X or Y' questions.
deals
search_deals
Search Thrifle's curated US deals by product, brand or keyword. Returns live deals with price, list price, discount %, merchant, coupon code when there is one, the thrifle.com deal page, and a buy link. Expired deals are excluded unless include_expired is set. Use for 'is there a deal on X' or 'best price on X right now' questions.
discounts
search_discounts
Browse Thrifle's discount database: filter by programme type (military, student, or both), retail category, and/or a name fragment. Returns slim rows with the discount value and a link per retailer.
merchant
get_merchant_discounts
Verified military (active duty, veterans, reserve) and student discount programmes for a US retailer: value, eligibility, verification method (e.g. ID.me, SheerID), online vs in-store, stackability, exclusions, whether it is running right now, and the source URL. Call for 'does X have a military/student discount' questions.
money
get_money_monitor
Current US macro numbers from Thrifle's Money Monitor: GDP growth, personal saving rate, average credit-card APR, revolving and total consumer credit, the federal debt, and mortgage / fed funds / 10-year Treasury rates, each with the previous reading and year-ago value. Sourced from FRED and the U.S. Treasury; refreshed daily.
predict
predict_amazon_price
Retired in September 2026. Thrifle no longer provides price information for Amazon products; this tool always returns found:false with retired:true. Kept only so existing integrations do not break.
product
check_product_recalls
Matches a product name (and optional brand) against recent U.S. CPSC recalls using a strict matcher tuned for zero false positives. Returns matching recalls with hazard and remedy, or an empty list. Useful before recommending a product.
who
who_will_price_match
Reverse lookup: the US retailers whose price-match policy explicitly names the given store as an accepted competitor. Optionally filter by the product category being bought so only stores that plausibly stock it are listed. Use for 'who will match Amazon's price on this' questions.
Endpoints
| URL | Transport | State | Latency | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://api.thrifle.com/api/mcp | streamable-http | answering | 623 ms | 4 min ago |
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Thrifle — questions
Answers built from our own checks of this server.
What can Thrifle do?
It exposes 24 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: about_thrifle, check_product_recalls, compare_return_policies, get_birthday_freebie, get_blog_post, get_cancellation_guide and 18 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README.
How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →
What is Thrifle mostly used for?
Its tools cluster around store, birthday and deal. That is what this server is built to work with — the grouping comes from the actual tool names, not from a category we assigned.
Is Thrifle working right now?
We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 92 of 92 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 858 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.
How do I connect Thrifle?
Copy the ready config from this page. We generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each in the form that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.
Does Thrifle need an API key?
No. Thrifle completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 24 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.
How fast is Thrifle?
It answers our handshake in 858 ms on average, which is faster than 8% of all working MCP servers we measure. That is on the slow side — worth knowing if the tool sits inside an interactive loop. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.
Is Thrifle open source?
The code is open source: it is published under the MIT licence, written in JavaScript and 0 stars on GitHub. The licence covers the code in the repository, not the hosted service at api.thrifle.com, which runs on its operator's own terms.