For AI agents
Buy press coverage from an agent
Essentras is an open marketplace for paid media placements, and it is machine readable end to end. An agent can search 3,800+ vetted outlets by budget, authority, geography and link policy, price a basket, and hand the buyer a checkout link. No account, no API key, nothing to negotiate.
Connect in one paste
Add this to any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code). The server speaks Streamable HTTP and needs no credentials.
{
"mcpServers": {
"essentras": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://essentras.com/api/mcp"
}
}
}Server URL: https://essentras.com/api/mcp
Then just ask
Three read-only tools: search_outlets, get_outlet, quote_placements.
- Find US tech outlets under $400 that give dofollow links, then price the best three.
- I have $2,000 for fintech press in the UK. What can I get?
- What does a placement on Business Insider cost, and how long does it take?
Prices move, so this page does not quote any. Hit the live endpoint to see the cheapest DA 90+ outlets right now.
Prefer plain HTTP
Everything the MCP server does is also a REST endpoint, described by an OpenAPI 3.1 document so an agent can discover it without reading this page.
curl "https://essentras.com/api/agent/v1/outlets?\
country=US&dofollow=true&max_price=400&limit=3"curl -X POST https://essentras.com/api/agent/v1/quote \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"items":[{"id":"business-insider"},{"id":"msn"}]}'The agent never pays
This is a design decision, not a limitation we plan to remove. The server holds no payment method and cannot take money, so the worst case for a buyer who hands an agent too much trust is a basket they did not want, not a charge they did not authorize. quote_placements returns a checkout_url; the buyer opens it, sees the same basket at the same total, and pays on essentras.com. The card is charged at checkout and refunded if the placement is not published or the stated turnaround is missed.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does the agent pay for anything?▾
No. The server charges nothing, creates no order, and holds no payment method. quote_placements returns a checkout_url, and the buyer confirms the basket and pays there. That is a property of the server, not a rule we ask an agent to follow.
Do I need an API key?▾
Not to search or to price a basket. Both are public and read-only, rate limited per IP. Everything the API returns is already visible on the website, so there is nothing to gate.
Is the price the agent sees the price the buyer pays?▾
Yes, and that is the point of quote_placements rather than adding up list prices yourself. The quote applies the same volume tiers the cart applies, so a 3-outlet basket comes back already discounted. The page, the API, the MCP server and the charge all read one pricing function.
When is the card charged?▾
At checkout, by the buyer, on essentras.com. If the placement is not published, or the stated turnaround is missed, the order is refunded. We do not bill on publication, and the API says so in billing_trigger rather than implying otherwise.
Which MCP revision does the server speak?▾
Both eras. It implements the 2026-07-28 revision (stateless, server/discover, per-request _meta, resultType, cache hints) and the earlier initialize handshake, because a large share of clients in the wild still open the old way. Transport is Streamable HTTP.
What does the catalogue actually contain?▾
Around 3,800 active outlets, each with a fixed USD price, a stated turnaround, domain authority, geography, topic tags, and a link policy covering dofollow, indexing and disclosure. Most placements publish as standard editorial articles with no sponsored label; a minority carry a sponsored or discreet disclosure, and every offer states which.
Browsing as a human instead?
Every outlet shows its price, turnaround and link policy before you buy anything.