frontdesk-data
Independent, sourced data on what things cost and how they actually perform.
4,764 products across 359 hardware categories, plus software pricing across
267 categories — every figure traced to its source (the vendor's own page URL and the date
we captured it). Quote-only tiers and unknown specs are recorded as null rather than guessed.
Nothing is invented.
Current version: 2026-06-12.
Query it live from an AI assistant (MCP)
This dataset is served by a live Model Context Protocol server. No API key, no account,
read-only. Every record an assistant receives carries its source URL and capture date, so any
figure it repeats can be cited.
Endpoint: https://mcp.frontdeskreview.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP)
Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http front-desk-review https://mcp.frontdeskreview.com/mcp
Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf — add to the client's MCP config:
{
"mcpServers": {
"front-desk-review": {
"type": "streamable-http",
"url": "https://mcp.frontdeskreview.com/mcp"
}
}
}
VS Code (Copilot agent) — .vscode/mcp.json uses a top-level servers key:
{
"servers": {
"front-desk-review": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://mcp.frontdeskreview.com/mcp"
}
}
}
ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can add it from their own connector settings — paste the endpoint
and leave authentication set to None. Setup for every client:
https://frontdeskreview.com/connect/
Registry entry: com.frontdeskreview/front-desk-review-data · server card: https://mcp.frontdeskreview.com/mcp/server-card
All 19 are read-only and annotated as such, so a client can call them without prompting
on every request.
| Tool | What it answers |
|---|
list_sections | Every software/SaaS pricing theme covered, with slug, label and vendor count. |
search_vendors | Free-text search across a theme's vendors — names, domains, integrations, plan notes, capabilities. |
compare | Named vendors side by side within a theme, full sourced records. |
get_normalized_pricing | Effective monthly cost at a chosen volume, with flat, per-minute and per-call billing reduced to one comparable number. |
get_benchmark | One vendor's card: entry price, cost at reference volumes, compliance, free tier, integration breadth. |
find_best | “Cheapest X with a free tier / HIPAA / SOC 2 / GDPR” — ranked, and never on an unverified claim. |
list_coverage | What the index covers, how many vendors, over what date range — and what it does not cover. |
whats_changed | Recent price changes, each dated and corroborated by two sources. |
get_price_history | The full dated price series for one product or vendor, plus archived points read off Internet Archive snapshots. |
price_movers | What moved most recently across a category or the whole index. |
volatility_for_entity | How much one product's price actually moves — withheld rather than guessed when the record is too thin. |
most_volatile_in_category | The least stable prices in a category, ranked. |
list_product_categories | Every hardware category, with product counts, comparable spec keys and brands. |
search_products | Free-text search inside a hardware category across names, brands and spec values. |
compare_products | Named products lined up on the spec keys that category actually compares on. |
find_products | “Best under $N” or “most ” — filter and rank by price, release date or any spec. |
get_independent_test_coverage | How many independent labs measured a product, and what they measured — a count of evidence, never a rating. |
list_cost_decoders | Which categories have a cost decoder explaining what actually drives the bill. |
get_cost_decoder | The drivers behind a category's real cost, so a quoted price can be read properly. |
Coverage
- Hardware — 359 categories, 4,764 products with specs, prices and independent-test
coverage.
- Software — 267 categories of SMB/SaaS pricing, from AI receptionists and call tracking to
CRM, VPNs and web hosting.
- Provenance — 22,765 source citations; 88% of products carry a published price.
Files
<category>.json — full records, each figure with provenance (source URL + accessed date)<category>.csv — one flat row per plan/product, with source columnscatalog.json — schema.org DataCatalog indexcroissant.json — ML Commons Croissant 1.1 descriptor (Google Dataset Search / Hugging Face)datapackage.json — Frictionless Data Package (Table Schema per CSV)CITATION.cff — machine-readable citationLICENSE — CC BY 4.0
Methodology
Published prices are normalized to a common monthly basis; both the raw published figure and the
normalized one are kept. Each row carries its own accessedAt date and is re-checked on a rolling
basis. Independent-test coverage counts how many labs measured a product — a count of evidence,
never a rating. Full methodology: https://frontdeskreview.com/data
License
CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution to The Front Desk Review (https://frontdeskreview.com).
See CITATION.cff.