import { JsonLd } from '@/components/json-ld';
import { articleJsonLd, breadcrumbJsonLd, faqJsonLd, pageMetadata } from '@/lib/seo';
import Link from 'next/link';
import { ArticleShell, H2, Note, P, Strong, Table, UL } from '../article-shell';

const PATH = '/guides/mcp-server-hosting-pricing';
const TITLE = 'MCP server hosting: pricing & options compared (2026)';
const DESCRIPTION =
  'What hosting a remote MCP server actually costs in 2026 — Cloudflare Workers, Smithery, Composio, MintMCP and prompt-to-server generation, compared on price, effort and lock-in.';

export const metadata = pageMetadata({ title: TITLE, description: DESCRIPTION, path: PATH });

// Pricing FAQ rendered below AND emitted as FAQPage JSON-LD — single source.
const PRICING_FAQ = [
  {
    q: 'What is the cheapest way to host an MCP server?',
    a: 'If you can write the code yourself: Cloudflare Workers — the free tier covers 100k requests/day, which is more than most personal MCP servers ever see. If you cannot or do not want to write the code, generator platforms start free (BuildMyMCPServer Hobby: 1 server, 100k tool calls/month at €0).',
  },
  {
    q: 'Do I pay per tool call or per server?',
    a: 'Both models exist. Composio bills per tool call across its catalog. Cloudflare bills per request/CPU-time. BuildMyMCPServer prices tiers by server count plus a monthly tool-call allowance. Read the overage terms — per-call platforms get expensive at agent-scale traffic.',
  },
  {
    q: 'Is there a free way to get an OAuth-protected remote MCP server?',
    a: 'Yes, two honest routes: build it yourself on Cloudflare Workers with their OAuth provider library (free tier, your time is the cost), or generate one on a free tier of a hosting generator (BuildMyMCPServer Hobby is €0 for one server with OAuth 2.1 included).',
  },
  {
    q: 'What should enterprises check before picking an MCP host?',
    a: 'Compliance posture (SOC 2 / HIPAA — MintMCP leads here as of mid-2026), data residency, audit logging, SSO, and an exit path. Ask every vendor: can I export the server code and leave?',
  },
];

export default function Page() {
  return (
    <>
      <JsonLd
        data={articleJsonLd({
          title: TITLE,
          description: DESCRIPTION,
          path: PATH,
          datePublished: '2026-07-08',
          authorName: 'Marco Sadjadi',
          wordCount: 1350,
        })}
      />
      <JsonLd
        data={breadcrumbJsonLd([
          { name: 'Home', path: '/' },
          { name: 'Guides', path: '/guides' },
          { name: TITLE, path: PATH },
        ])}
      />
      <JsonLd data={faqJsonLd(PRICING_FAQ)} />
      <ArticleShell
        title={TITLE}
        subtitle="Five ways to put an MCP server on the internet, five very different bills. This is the pricing landscape as of July 2026 — including where each option quietly gets expensive, and where the free tiers are genuinely free."
        updated="July 2026"
      >
        <H2>The five options at a glance</H2>
        <P>
          &quot;MCP server hosting&quot; covers products that do very different jobs: raw compute you
          deploy to, directories that also host, connector catalogs that bill per call, wrappers
          that productionize a server you already wrote, and generators that write and host the
          server for you. Comparing them on price only makes sense once you know which job you are
          buying.
        </P>

        <Table>
          <thead>
            <tr>
              <th>Platform</th>
              <th>What you get</th>
              <th>Entry price</th>
              <th>Paid from</th>
              <th>You bring</th>
            </tr>
          </thead>
          <tbody>
            <tr>
              <td>
                <Strong>Cloudflare Workers</Strong>
              </td>
              <td>Edge compute + OAuth provider library; you build and deploy</td>
              <td>Free — 100k requests/day</td>
              <td>$5/mo</td>
              <td>All the code, OAuth wiring, upkeep</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td>
                <Strong>Smithery</Strong>
              </td>
              <td>Registry of 6,000+ servers, optional hosting of listed servers</td>
              <td>Free to browse/publish</td>
              <td>Paid tiers for hosting/usage</td>
              <td>An existing server (or pick one from the catalog)</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td>
                <Strong>Composio</Strong>
              </td>
              <td>1,000+ pre-built SaaS integrations exposed as MCP, managed auth</td>
              <td>Free — 20k tool calls/mo</td>
              <td>$29/mo (200k calls)</td>
              <td>Nothing — but only their catalog, per-call billing</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td>
                <Strong>MintMCP</Strong>
              </td>
              <td>Wraps your existing STDIO server into a remote OAuth deployment; SOC 2 Type II</td>
              <td>Custom / enterprise pricing</td>
              <td>Contact sales</td>
              <td>A working server; budget for enterprise pricing</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td>
                <Strong>BuildMyMCPServer</Strong>
              </td>
              <td>Generates the TypeScript server from a prompt, hosts it behind OAuth 2.1</td>
              <td>Free — 1 server, 100k tool calls/mo</td>
              <td>€49/mo (5 servers, 1M calls)</td>
              <td>A description of the tool. That&apos;s it.</td>
            </tr>
          </tbody>
        </Table>

        <Note>
          Competitor prices are as of mid-2026 and change often — treat the entry-tier shapes as the
          durable signal, not the exact numbers. Sources: public pricing pages of each vendor.
        </Note>

        <H2>Cloudflare Workers: cheapest if your time is free</H2>
        <P>
          The free tier (100k requests/day, KV, D1, Durable Objects allowances) comfortably runs a
          personal or small-team MCP server at <Strong>€0 forever</Strong>, and the $5/mo paid plan
          covers almost anything below serious production traffic. The catch is that the price tag
          measures compute, not effort: you write the server, wire the OAuth provider library,
          handle token refresh edge cases, and own every upgrade when the MCP spec moves. For a
          team with engineers who enjoy that work, it is the best deal on this page.
        </P>

        <H2>Smithery: pay for distribution, not development</H2>
        <P>
          Smithery is primarily a registry — thousands of community servers, CLI install, and
          hosting for servers published there, with OAuth handled for hosted listings. Browsing and
          publishing are free; hosted execution moves to paid tiers with usage. It answers
          &quot;where do I find or distribute a server&quot; more than &quot;who builds mine&quot; —
          if the tool you need already exists in the catalog, this can be the fastest free path of
          all.
        </P>

        <H2>Composio: per-call pricing for a pre-built catalog</H2>
        <P>
          Composio&apos;s model is different: you are not hosting <em>your</em> server, you are
          calling <em>their</em> catalog of 1,000+ integrations with managed auth. Free covers 20k
          tool calls/month; $29/mo buys 200k, $229/mo buys 2M, with per-call overage beyond. For
          mainstream SaaS (Gmail, Slack, Salesforce) it is excellent value. The pricing risk is
          agent-scale traffic — an autonomous agent hammering tools burns per-call budgets fast —
          and the structural limit is the catalog: your internal API is not in it. More in our{' '}
          <Link href="/guides/composio-alternative" className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline">
            Composio alternative guide
          </Link>
          .
        </P>

        <H2>MintMCP: compliance has a price tag</H2>
        <P>
          MintMCP wraps an existing STDIO server into a production remote deployment — OAuth
          brokering, SSO, SCIM, audit trails, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA-aligned controls. Pricing is
          custom/enterprise as of mid-2026. If your buyer is a compliance team, this is the honest
          shortlist leader; nothing else in this table carries that certification set. If you are a
          solo developer, it is not aimed at you.
        </P>

        <H2>BuildMyMCPServer: pay for the whole job, skip the build</H2>
        <P>
          Our own slot in this table, stated plainly: you describe the tool in natural language, the
          platform generates the TypeScript server, runs static checks, builds a container and
          deploys it behind a full OAuth 2.1 authorization server (PKCE, Dynamic Client
          Registration, Resource Indicators). <Strong>Hobby is €0</Strong> — one server, 100k tool
          calls/month. <Strong>Pro is €49/mo</Strong> for 5 servers and 1M calls;{' '}
          <Strong>Team €199/mo</Strong> adds audit logging at 25 servers/10M calls; Enterprise is
          custom. Full source export on every tier, so the exit path is real. What we do not have:
          SOC 2 (we are a young product), a giant connector catalog, or edge PoPs on six continents.
          See{' '}
          <Link href="/pricing" className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline">
            full pricing
          </Link>{' '}
          and the{' '}
          <Link href="/templates" className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline">
            template gallery
          </Link>
          .
        </P>

        <H2>Choosing by scenario</H2>
        <UL>
          <li>
            <Strong>Solo dev, comfortable writing TypeScript, hobby traffic:</Strong> Cloudflare
            Workers free tier. Unbeatable if you enjoy the build.
          </li>
          <li>
            <Strong>Need Gmail/Slack/Notion-class connectors this afternoon:</Strong> Composio free
            tier, watch the per-call meter as agents scale.
          </li>
          <li>
            <Strong>Have a server, need enterprise compliance sign-off:</Strong> MintMCP, budget for
            enterprise pricing.
          </li>
          <li>
            <Strong>Want to publish or discover community servers:</Strong> Smithery.
          </li>
          <li>
            <Strong>Need a bespoke tool hosted with OAuth, no code, this hour:</Strong> a generator
            — that is the job{' '}
            <Link href="/" className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline">
              BuildMyMCPServer
            </Link>{' '}
            exists for.
          </li>
        </UL>

        <H2>Pricing FAQ</H2>
        {PRICING_FAQ.map((f) => (
          <div key={f.q} className="mt-5">
            <h3 className="text-[15px] font-semibold tracking-tight text-[--color-fg]">{f.q}</h3>
            <p className="mt-1.5 text-[14px] leading-relaxed text-[--color-fg-muted]">{f.a}</p>
          </div>
        ))}

        <P>
          Related:{' '}
          <Link
            href="/guides/hosted-mcp-platforms-compared"
            className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline"
          >
            the four categories of MCP platform, explained
          </Link>{' '}
          ·{' '}
          <Link
            href="/guides/host-mcp-server-with-oauth"
            className="text-[--color-accent] hover:underline"
          >
            what hosting with OAuth actually involves
          </Link>
          .
        </P>
      </ArticleShell>
    </>
  );
}
