What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf securely read data from third-party services. When you connect MerchantFlow via MCP, your AI assistant can answer questions about your store using real data from your account - your P&L, product margins, ad spend, cohorts, and business valuation - without you having to copy and paste numbers from dashboards.

Why you would want it

Most merchants spend 30+ minutes a week clicking through dashboards to answer questions like "What's my blended MER?" or "Which products are losing me money after ad spend?" MCP lets you ask those questions in plain English and get a direct, data-backed answer in your favourite AI tool.

Real examples from our beta users:

• "Summarise this week's P&L with comparison to last week." - full weekly briefing in 15 seconds.
• "I'm thinking of launching a product at $49 with $12 COGS and $8 ad spend per unit. Is it viable?" - viability check with break-even ROAS and a green/amber/red verdict.
• "Run my business valuation and tell me what's dragging the multiple down." - full SDE valuation plus scorecard.

What it can do (v1)

MerchantFlow currently exposes:

• 24 read-only tools across financial, product, ads, customer, monitoring, valuation, and search categories
• 6 guided prompts for common workflows such as weekly briefings, profit-leak audits, product launch checks, month-end close, growth scans, and exit-readiness reviews
• 4 read-only resources that help compatible clients orient themselves to your tenant, integrations, North Star definitions, and the tool catalog

A connected AI client can:

• Read your full P&L with comparisons
• Rank products by revenue, profit, margin, or units
• Simulate new product viability
• Report ad performance and blended MER across Meta, Google, Snapchat, and TikTok
• Analyse cohorts, LTV, and CAC payback
• Run the same business valuation as the dashboard
• Flag anomalies and sync health issues

All tools are read-only in v1. Write tools (update COGS, create expenses, trigger syncs) land in v2 with explicit confirmation flows.

Privacy and trust

• Every tool call is scoped to your tenant. Other tenants' data is inaccessible even if someone guesses an ID.
• Customer PII (emails, phones, addresses) is redacted by default in responses.
• Every call is logged to an audit trail you can inspect.
• You can revoke any connected AI client from Settings > MCP Server at any time.
• MCP access requires a Pro tier subscription.

Next steps

• Connect Claude Desktop - 2-minute setup, most popular
• Connect Cursor - for developer-operators
• Connect Windsurf - alternative IDE
• Connect VS Code Copilot - if you live in VS Code
• Tool reference - all 24 tools, plus the built-in prompts and resources
• 15 example prompts - copy-paste prompts to try right now
• Power up with the Skill file - download the optional AI skill file to dramatically improve answer quality

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Last updated: April 9, 2026