An MCP server for B2B data is a service that exposes contact search and enrichment as tools an AI assistant calls on its own. Cleanlist runs one at https://mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp, and a connected Claude session sees 14 tools, including search_people, search_companies, enrich_person, enrich_list, estimate_cost, create_list, add_leads_to_list and get_lists. Search costs 0 credits in Cleanlist. A verified email costs 1 credit, a phone number 10, and both together 11. Nothing paid runs until estimate_cost returns a signed quote you can see first.
Last updated: August 10, 2026. Credit costs, plan prices, rate limits and the tool list on this page reflect Cleanlist as of that date.
What is an MCP server for B2B data?
MCP is the Model Context Protocol, described at modelcontextprotocol.io as an open standard for connecting AI applications to external systems. An MCP server for B2B data wraps a contact search and enrichment engine in that standard: the Cleanlist server wraps Cleanlist people search at 0 credits and waterfall enrichment at 1 to 11 credits, so an assistant like Claude runs the query itself rather than you opening another tab. Cleanlist's server is remote and hosted at https://mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp, so there is nothing to install locally and no API key to paste into a chat window. Claude talks to it over HTTP and authorizes with OAuth. The Cleanlist server is in beta on self-serve accounts, search calls cost 0 credits, and the free tier that can drive it is 30 credits a month with no card.
Which vendors actually ship an MCP server for B2B lead data?
Cleanlist, Apollo, Clay, Lusha and Crustdata all publish first-party MCP servers, and ZoomInfo shipped native Claude and OpenAI Codex MCP integrations in its Q2 2026 8-K, filed August 5, 2026, under its ticker NASDAQ: GTM. This is a contested surface with a public-company incumbent already on it. Cleanlist differentiates on the money model instead: search costs 0 credits, estimate_cost returns a signed quote before any spend, enrichment is pay-for-results so a lookup that returns nothing is not charged, and the whole thing is self-serve from $79 a month with no annual contract. The longer ten-server side-by-side is in the Cleanlist guide to sales and GTM MCP servers.
What tools does the Cleanlist MCP server expose to Claude?
A connected Claude session shows 14 Cleanlist tools in five groups. Search: search_people and search_companies, both 0 credits. Enrichment: enrich_person for one record, enrich_list for a whole list, plus add_person_enrichments and add_company_enrichments to attach enrichment to records you have already saved. Lists: create_list, add_leads_to_list, get_lists, list_leads_in_list, remove_leads_from_list and delete_list. Cost control: estimate_cost. Identity: whoami. Names map onto Cleanlist REST API v2 endpoints, so search_people is POST /search/people and estimate_cost is POST /credits/estimate. The full Cleanlist server publishes 30+ tools across roughly 30 v2 endpoints, and a given connector exposes a curated subset, so read tools/list in your own client before you write a prompt that assumes a tool exists.
How do I connect Claude to Cleanlist lead data?
Open Claude, go to Settings, then Connectors, add a custom connector pointed at https://mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp, and complete the OAuth sign-in. There is no key to copy and no local process to run. It is a custom connector rather than a directory click because Cleanlist was not listed in Anthropic's connector directory when we last checked on August 7, 2026, while comparable B2B data connectors were. The practical difference is two extra clicks, after which the OAuth flow, the tools and the credit wallet are identical. Revoking from the same Connectors screen cuts the agent off from both your Cleanlist data and your credits immediately. Setup detail and the current beta gate live on the Cleanlist MCP server page.
How do I connect Cleanlist to Claude Code?
Run claude mcp add --transport http cleanlist https://mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp, then run /mcp inside Claude Code and complete the OAuth sign-in. Anthropic documents that syntax for remote HTTP servers at code.claude.com/docs/en/mcp and states to use /mcp to authenticate with remote servers that require OAuth 2.0 (fetched August 7, 2026). The Cleanlist endpoint returns 401 until that grant exists, which is how Claude Code knows to prompt you. Decide scope up front: --scope local keeps the server on your machine, --scope project writes it to .mcp.json for everyone on the repo. The OAuth grant is per user, but the Cleanlist credit wallet is shared across your whole organization, so a project-scoped server means teammates draw on the same balance.
What does each Cleanlist MCP call cost in credits?
Cleanlist charges MCP tool calls at the same rates as the app and the REST API. People search and company search cost 0 credits. A partial enrichment, meaning email plus LinkedIn plus title plus company, costs 1 credit. A phone-only enrichment costs 10 credits. A full enrichment, meaning email and phone together, costs 11 credits. A company enrichment costs 1 credit. Reading lists and checking your balance cost 0 credits. There is no separate MCP subscription and no per-seat fee for agent access. Credits come from one shared organization wallet, so an agent in Claude, a teammate working in the Cleanlist app and a script hitting the API all draw from the same pool. Plan prices are on the Cleanlist pricing page.
How does estimate_cost stop an AI agent from overspending?
Every paid Cleanlist operation is gated behind a signed quote. The agent calls estimate_cost first, which returns the price of the job, your current balance, whether that balance covers it, and an HMAC-signed quote_id with a five-minute time to live. The Cleanlist server rejects the paid call if the real cost would exceed the quote or the quote has expired, so an agent cannot silently start a job you never priced. Three things sit underneath that. Search and reads cost 0 credits, so an exploring agent burns nothing. Enrichment is pay-for-results, so a lookup that returns no email is not charged. Your balance is a hard ceiling, because the wallet is shared across the app, the API and MCP.
Can Claude search for leads in plain English through Cleanlist?
Yes, by delegation. Claude reads your plain-English request and calls the structured Cleanlist search_people tool with filters. The Cleanlist server takes filters and does not take prose. Ask for VPs of Sales at US SaaS companies with 201 to 500 employees, and Claude maps that onto the title, seniority, country and headcount fields itself. This is the part worth understanding before you buy: the natural language lives in the client, and the data layer stays structured and auditable. Cleanlist search defaults to 25 results per call, so an agent that wants volume has to ask for it explicitly, and every one of those searches costs 0 credits regardless of how many times the agent refines the filters.
Does the Cleanlist REST API support natural language search?
No, and the distinction is load-bearing. Cleanlist's Copilot in the app and the Cleanlist MCP server both accept plain English, because a model sits in front of the query and converts it. The public Cleanlist REST API v2 takes structured filters only and has no natural-language search endpoint. If you are writing code against POST /search/people, you build a filter object, not a sentence. Programmatic REST access is gated to a Pro plan or above at $229 a month, or an AppSumo Tier 5+ license, while the MCP beta is gated by account type instead. Anyone benchmarking vendors on "does the API understand English" should test the endpoint rather than the demo.
What can Claude filter on in Cleanlist people search?
Cleanlist People Search exposes 20+ distinct filter dimensions through search_people, and every one of them costs 0 credits to query. They cover name and LinkedIn URL, job title with contains, exact and similar match modes, seniority from Owner and CXO down to Entry, years in role, years of experience, country, state and city with include and exclude, skills, connections, certifications, recently changed jobs, degree type, school names, fields of study, past titles, past companies, company name, company HQ location, industry on the LinkedIn taxonomy, and headcount bands from 1 to 10 up to 10,001 and above. There are no intent, revenue, funding or technographic filters in Cleanlist. The full inventory is on the Cleanlist People Search page.
What can Claude filter on in Cleanlist company search?
Cleanlist Company Search accepts exactly 9 filters through search_companies, and it is worth knowing which three people assume and do not get. technologies and revenue_ranges are rejected by the Cleanlist backend outright. funding_stage is accepted by the request validator but the underlying column is empty, so it silently returns zero results and is not a usable filter today. That behaviour is the single most common way an agent workflow quietly returns nothing. Build company cohorts on the filters that carry data, then enrich, then score. If your ICP is genuinely defined by tech stack or funding round, Cleanlist is the wrong server for that job and a vendor that sells that layer will serve you better.
How does Cleanlist actually find the email once Claude asks for it?
Cleanlist runs a waterfall rather than a single lookup. A request goes through 15+ providers in sequence, stopping at the first verified result, with dedicated email verification behind it. In the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, run on 500 stratified B2B leads, the waterfall returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial. Single-source providers returned 70 to 80% email and 30 to 60% phone on identical input. That gap is the reason the credit costs are shaped the way they are: 1 credit for an email that took several provider calls to confirm, and no charge at all when nothing verified comes back. More detail sits on the Cleanlist waterfall enrichment page.
Can I import a CSV through the Cleanlist MCP server?
No. CSV file import is portal-only, and none of the 14 tools on the Cleanlist MCP connector as of August 10, 2026 accepts a file. Upload the CSV in the Cleanlist importer at app.cleanlist.ai/lists, then come back to Claude and run enrich_list against the resulting list id with a signed quote from estimate_cost. That path is the one that scales, because bulk enrichment is asynchronous and one enrich_list call covers the whole list at 1 credit per verified email. Cleanlist publishes no fixed per-call contact ceiling for MCP, so the job is bounded by your credit balance rather than a batch limit, and the agent polls until the run settles.
Can Claude sync leads to my CRM through the Cleanlist MCP server?
No. None of the 14 tools on the Cleanlist MCP connector as of August 10, 2026 syncs to a CRM, and neither AI research agents nor lookalike company search are exposed there either. Those jobs run in the Cleanlist app. The honest shape of an agent workflow today is find, enrich and organize inside Claude, then push to HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach or Lemlist from the Cleanlist portal or the REST API, where sync is priced at 0.2 credits per lead. If a vendor comparison tells you an agent takes a prompt all the way into your CRM, check its published tool list first. Cleanlist would rather publish the boundary than have an agent fail halfway through a run.
What does a full Claude prospecting run look like end to end?
A realistic Cleanlist run is four steps. Claude calls search_people with your filters, which costs 0 credits and returns 25 results by default. Claude calls create_list and add_leads_to_list to save the ones worth keeping. Claude calls estimate_cost for a partial enrichment on 40 saved leads, which quotes at most 40 credits and returns your balance plus a signed quote_id. Claude calls enrich_list with that quote and polls until the run settles. Pay-for-results means the actual charge can land below the quote when some records return nothing. The same 40 leads at full enrichment, email and phone together, would quote 440 credits, which is why the estimate step exists.
What are the rate limits on the Cleanlist MCP server?
Cleanlist enforces 60 requests per minute per organization, 30 requests per minute per API key, and a hard cap of 60 People Searches per UTC day per key. Those limits live on the REST API v2 endpoints, and MCP tool calls run against the same endpoints inside the same organization, so the per-organization ceiling and the daily search cap apply to agent traffic too. The 30-per-minute figure is scoped to a clapi_ API key rather than to an OAuth connector. Exceeding a limit returns a 429 with a Retry-After header. The daily search cap is the one that bites in agent workflows, because an agent looping over many narrow searches will burn 60 in an afternoon. Batch your filters into fewer, broader searches and page through the results. Cleanlist publishes no uptime SLA and the MCP server is in beta.
Which Cleanlist plans include the MCP server?
The Cleanlist MCP server is in beta on self-serve accounts, and AppSumo licenses are excluded from the beta. The gate is account type rather than plan tier, which is a different gate from programmatic REST API access. Self-serve pricing is Free at $0 with 30 credits a month and no card, Starter at $79 a month with 1,500 credits, Pro at $229 a month with 5,000 credits, and Scale at $599 a month with 15,000 credits. Annual billing takes 25% off. Paid plans buy credits rather than agent access, so a free Cleanlist account can connect, run searches at 0 credits up to the 60-search daily cap, and spend its 30 credits on 30 verified emails.
What can the Cleanlist MCP server not do?
Cleanlist publishes the boundary rather than letting an agent discover it mid-run. There is no CSV import over MCP, no CRM or sequencer sync over MCP, and no natural-language endpoint on the REST API. Cleanlist REST API v2 has no webhooks, so asynchronous enrichment is polled rather than pushed. There is no intent data, no buying-signal feed, and no job-change alerting: "recently changed jobs" is a query-time filter, so an agent can ask who moved but nothing will notify you when someone in an existing list moves. There is no revenue, funding-stage or technographic filtering. Cleanlist publishes no SOC 2 report and no uptime SLA, and there is no read-only agent key today.
Is my data safe when Claude calls Cleanlist?
Whatever a Cleanlist tool returns goes into the model's context, because that is how MCP works: the client hands tool results back to the model for its next turn. Verified emails and phone numbers Claude retrieves through Cleanlist are handled under your agreement with the model provider, so a data-processing review has to cover the MCP client and Cleanlist separately. The connector authorizes over OAuth scoped to your Cleanlist organization, so no raw key sits inside a chat client, and revoking from Claude Settings, then Connectors, cuts access immediately. Cleanlist publishes no SOC 2 report and no uptime SLA as of August 10, 2026, so wait for formal attestations rather than assuming them.
How do I run my first bulk enrichment through Claude?
Create a Cleanlist account, which starts at $0 with 30 credits a month and no card, add https://mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp as a custom connector in Claude Settings, then Connectors, and ask Claude to find 25 people matching your ICP. That search costs 0 credits. Save the good ones to a list, then have Claude quote the enrichment with estimate_cost before it spends anything. For a list you already own, upload the CSV in the Cleanlist importer at app.cleanlist.ai/lists first and run enrich_list against it. Thirty free credits buys 30 verified emails, which is enough to judge the waterfall against whatever you are paying for today.
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References & Sources
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