Best Substack MCP servers compared

Official Substack MCP wins first-party publication stats. Community servers win drafts. Trends MCP wins the live ranked board. The first-party host is https://mcp.substack.com/api/v1/mcp, announced 6 Jul 2026, and Substack help (article 50834026608916, accessed 20 Oct 2026) limits it to Admins of Bestseller publications. It reads dashboard metrics, traffic, and settings. It cannot publish posts, send Notes, or change the account. @conorbronsdon/substack-mcp 1.3.0 is the local package that drafts long-form posts and publishes Notes without a Bestseller check. Trends MCP is the one that ranks newsletters across Substack, not inside one dashboard. Narrareach MCP is a paid hosted queue. None of these is best at every job.

Which Substack MCP fits each job?

Pick by the action the assistant must take, not by which product uses the word Substack in its README.

Substack help names Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor as clients for the official connector. An anonymous tools/list POST to the official host on 20 Oct 2026 returned HTTP 401 with missing_token, so this roundup does not invent tool names Substack has not published.

@mark-liu/substack-mcp is not in the table. The npm package 404ed on 20 Oct 2026, GitHub showed 0 stars, and the last push was 22 Aug 2026. @danielsimonjr/substack-mcp 1.0.1 sat at 8 weekly downloads the same day. SubflowAI is a browser-relay plus optional cookie paste, not a first-party Substack product. Those three stay out of a buyer shortlist until a public package and a live install path exist.

Does the official Substack MCP work without a Bestseller badge?

No. Substack help requires Admin on the publication and a Bestseller badge before the connector will consent. An ineligible publication returns an error at that step.

Bestseller status is a paid-subscriber badge. Help article 10661509585428 (edited 4 Aug 2026, accessed 20 Oct 2026) sets the white badge at hundreds of paid subscribers, orange at thousands, and purple at tens of thousands. Free trials and comped subscriptions do not count. Hiding the badge on a profile does not create eligibility. The 6 Jul 2026 product post on on.substack.com introduced MCP as a stats and analytics feature for bestsellers, with a pointer back to that help center article.

What the server can answer, once connected: current subscriber count and revenue, paid retention after six months, traffic sources on the last post, free-subscriber gains since a month name. What it cannot answer: Notes activity, profile data, a draft the assistant just wrote, or a ranked list of other newsletters. Protected-resource metadata at https://mcp.substack.com/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/api/v1/mcp listed scopes mcp:read and mcp.user.read on 20 Oct 2026. That is a read contract.

A publication under the hundreds threshold needs a different server for both stats and writes. Official MCP is the right pick only when first-party numbers matter more than posting, and the badge is already on the account.

Which MCP can draft posts and publish Notes?

@conorbronsdon/substack-mcp 1.3.0, published 24 Sep 2026. The GitHub repo held 44 stars and a last push of 18 Oct 2026 on the day this was checked. npm last-month downloads were 1,493 (19 Sep to 18 Oct 2026). Node.js 22 or newer is required. The README imposes no Bestseller check.

The catalog splits into 30 read tools, four draft writes, two Note publishes, and add_free_subscriber. Read coverage includes get_subscriber_count, search_posts, get_publication_stats, get_post_analytics, and five anonymous public readers (get_user_profile, get_profile_feed, get_note_thread, list_public_posts, get_public_post). search_posts takes query (1 to 500 characters), status (published, drafts, or scheduled, default published), offset default 0, and limit 1 to 50 (default 25). Every request to Substack is bounded by a 30-second deadline.

Long-form writes stop at drafts: create_draft, update_draft, update_draft_tags, upload_image. Publish and delete for posts are omitted on purpose. Notes are the exception. create_note and create_note_with_link go live immediately because Substack has no Note draft state. Treat those two as public-publish actions. add_free_subscriber defaults to dry-run and requires consent_confirmed plus a source timestamp before a live add.

Auth is a publication URL, a numeric user ID, and a session cookie, or the optional Playwright browser login that stores ~/.substack-mcp/session.json. That cookie can do what the signed-in account can do. Rotate it if the browser session ends. This server talks to Substack's unofficial endpoints, so a UI change can break a tool without a version bump.

Narrareach is the hosted path for the same writing job if local cookies are off the table. MCP is included on eligible paid plans with scheduling and analytics. The documented limit is 120 MCP request units per ten minutes, one unit per JSON-RPC batch item. The connector URL lives in Narrareach settings. This roundup does not invent a hostname that the public pricing page does not print.

How does a live Substack board differ from one publication's dashboard?

Official MCP and conorbronsdon both describe your publication. Trends MCP describes the platform. get_top_trends with type Substack returns ranked newsletter titles. Type Substack by Category needs an official category name. llms.txt (Last updated 20 Oct 2026) lists 31 of those names, including Technology, News, Sports, Finance, Culture, and World Politics. Substack is not a keyword source for get_growth or get_time_series. Follow a title onto Google Search if a growth window is required.

Default limit is 25, maximum 200. The Free plan board returns the top 10 and pins offset at 0. Pagination is a paid feature. On MCP, get_top_trends costs 1 credit per 10 requested rows, maximum 10 credits per call. REST counts 1 request per call. Failed 2xx misses are free.

That is the durable limit set, not today's titles. A same-day leaderboard goes stale next month. The Substack by Category API exists because the overall board and a category board can disagree on the same stamp. Call both if the question is "who leads Technology" rather than "who leads Substack."

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack",
  "limit": 25
}

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack by Category",
  "category": "Technology",
  "limit": 25
}

Trends MCP does not log into a publication, so it cannot return subscriber counts, revenue, or a draft URL. Pair it with official MCP or conorbronsdon when the agent must both watch the board and edit a newsletter. Same pattern as the Wikipedia MCP roundup: first-party or local tools win the object's own data, Trends MCP wins the live rank.

What Cursor config does each server actually use?

Official Substack MCP: add a custom connector whose server URL is https://mcp.substack.com/api/v1/mcp, then sign in and pick the Bestseller publication. Help article 50834026608916 names Cursor and does not publish a JSON snippet. Do not invent transport or header keys Substack did not document.

conorbronsdon on stdio, matching the Claude Desktop block in the 1.3.0 README (the same command works in Cursor mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "substack": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@conorbronsdon/substack-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SUBSTACK_PUBLICATION_URL": "https://yourblog.substack.com",
        "SUBSTACK_SESSION_TOKEN": "your-session-token",
        "SUBSTACK_USER_ID": "your-user-id"
      }
    }
  }
}

Trends MCP on Cursor, copied from llms.txt on 20 Oct 2026. The Cursor MCP landing page is the install walkthrough.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trends-mcp": {
      "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
      "transport": "http",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Two Trends MCP hosts exist and are not interchangeable. https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp takes a Bearer key for Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop, and Claude Code. The www host /mcp path is OAuth for Claude.ai Connectors only. Narrareach's Cursor path is the HTTPS /mcp address shown inside that product's settings after OAuth, on an eligible paid plan.

Ask the assistant a job-shaped first prompt after connect. For official MCP: current subscriber count and revenue. For conorbronsdon: how many subscribers, then create_draft rather than create_note until a human is ready to publish. For Trends MCP: top Substack newsletters with type Substack, then a Technology category call if the beat is software.

FAQ

Does Substack have an official MCP server?

Yes. The host is https://mcp.substack.com/api/v1/mcp. Substack announced it on 6 Jul 2026 as MCP for stats and analytics, for bestsellers. Help article 50834026608916 (accessed 20 Oct 2026) is the setup page. Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor are the named clients.

Can the official Substack MCP publish a post?

No. The same help article states the server is read-only for dashboard metrics, traffic data, and publication settings. It cannot publish posts, send Notes, or modify the account. It also cannot read profile data or Notes activity.

Which Substack MCP works in Cursor without a Bestseller badge?

@conorbronsdon/substack-mcp for the publication itself, and Trends MCP for the live board. Official MCP will error at consent on an ineligible publication. Narrareach MCP is another no-badge path if the buyer is paying for a hosted queue rather than a local cookie.

Is Substack a Trends MCP keyword source?

No. llms.txt Last updated 20 Oct 2026 lists Substack only as live feeds Substack and Substack by Category. Keyword sources for get_growth and get_time_series do not include Substack. Use Google Search on a newsletter title when a multi-month window is the question.

How much does a Substack MCP cost?

Official Substack MCP has no separate price on the help article. conorbronsdon is MIT-licensed software plus whatever Substack session the operator already has. Trends MCP markdown pricing on 20 Oct 2026 was Free $0 / 100 requests, Starter $19 / 1,000, Pro $49 / 5,000, Business $199 / 25,000, with annual billing saving 20%. Narrareach starts at $19.99 / month on Audience Builder. Check current pricing on each vendor's page before locking a budget.

Sources (accessed 20 Oct 2026): Substack help article 50834026608916; Substack help article 10661509585428; on.substack.com post dated 6 Jul 2026; https://mcp.substack.com/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/api/v1/mcp; GitHub conorbronsdon/substack-mcp and npm @conorbronsdon/substack-mcp; Narrareach /pricing and /features/substack-mcp-integration; Trends MCP llms.txt and pricing.md (Last updated 20 Oct 2026).