For Claude users

Ask Claude anything about your competitors. It answers with your real data.

Clinch is a native Claude.ai connector. Your timeline, battlecards, and pricing history become something Claude can query directly via the Model Context Protocol. Zero dashboards required.

What is MCP

The integration layer for AI-native work.

The Model Context Protocol, created by Anthropic in November 2024 and donated to the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation in December 2025, is an open protocol that lets AI assistants query external tools and data sources with user permission.

The practical result: instead of copy-pasting between your CI tool and Claude, Claude calls the CI tool directly. Your data stays in Clinch. Your workflow stays in Claude. The two become one surface.

Why this matters for CI

Your buyer already works inside Claude. Meet them there.

Competitive intelligence is a research discipline. Most PMMs, founders, and sales leaders already do their research inside Claude or ChatGPT. Asking them to switch to a dashboard every time they want to understand a competitor is the old pattern. MCP collapses the switch.

  • No context switch

    Claude queries Clinch while you keep working. No tab, no login, no dashboard navigation.

  • Real data, not search results

    When you ask Claude about a competitor, it answers from your Clinch timeline, not a web search.

  • Your ongoing AI gets smarter

    Every battlecard, every snapshot, every pricing change becomes an input Claude can reason over.

Setup

Five steps. About 3 minutes end to end.

  1. 01

    Upgrade to Clinch Pro

    MCP is included on the Pro tier at 149 dollars per month. The MCP endpoint unlocks automatically on upgrade.

  2. 02

    Open Claude.ai and go to connectors

    Claude.ai supports custom MCP connectors. Navigate to your settings panel and select add a custom connector.

  3. 03

    Paste your Clinch MCP URL

    Copy your MCP endpoint from the Clinch dashboard (Settings > Claude). Paste it into the Claude.ai connector form.

  4. 04

    Approve the OAuth request

    Claude will redirect to Clinch for authorization (RFC 6749 authorization code + PKCE). Click approve. Access token lifetime is 1 hour; Claude refreshes automatically.

  5. 05

    Ask Claude anything about your competitors

    The connector is live. Claude can now call five Clinch tools (get_battlecard, get_competitor_timeline, get_pricing_history, get_competitive_landscape, search_competitive_changes) whenever your prompt needs competitive context.

What to ask Claude

Real queries, real answers.

These are the actual prompts teams run against the Clinch connector. Pick the role that fits you.

What a PMM can ask

The PMM uses Claude as an always-on analyst, with the full Clinch timeline, battlecards, and win/loss data underneath.

  • Summarize every pricing change across my tracked competitors in the last 90 days.

    Claude queries the Clinch pricing_history tool, groups by competitor, and flags the two that changed twice.

  • Which competitor has been most active this quarter and what are the three biggest moves?

    Claude uses competitor_timeline plus search_competitive_changes to rank by change frequency and summarize the top moves.

  • Draft a one-page competitive brief for my board meeting next Tuesday.

    Claude pulls the latest snapshots, battlecard summaries, and trend rows, then writes the brief in your voice.

What a founder can ask

Without a PMM hire, the founder uses Claude as the CI function. Every question is answered against real data, not a web search.

  • What changed with Acme Corp since our last fundraise?

    Claude queries competitor_timeline with a date window and returns a ranked change list with context.

  • Is there a pattern across my three closest rivals I should worry about?

    Claude uses competitive_landscape to surface parallel moves (e.g., three pricing shifts in the same window).

  • What are the top three competitive objections I should prep for in next week's fundraise?

    Claude reads your battlecards plus your positioning template and writes objection responses a VC would accept.

What a VP of Sales can ask

Competitive enablement and pipeline analysis, answered in natural language against the same data the battlecards are built on.

  • Which competitor has the most deal pressure on our pipeline right now?

    Claude combines deal_outcomes with search_competitive_changes to identify the rival showing up most in recent losses.

  • Give me the five-minute prep brief for tomorrow's call with Globex.

    Claude fetches the Clinch battlecard, adds recent change context, and shapes it into a verbal briefing.

  • How has our win rate against Acme moved quarter over quarter, and what changed on their side?

    Claude correlates deal_outcomes with competitor_timeline to explain the trendline, not just report it.

What an AE can ask

Live-call prep and post-call debrief, answered on a phone between meetings without opening a dashboard.

  • I have a call in 10 minutes with a prospect evaluating Klue. Give me a landmine question and two objections to prep for.

    Claude fetches the Klue battlecard, returns a specific landmine question and the top two objections with responses.

  • What changed with Crayon in the last 30 days that might come up in a call?

    Claude uses competitor_timeline scoped to 30 days and returns bullets the AE can skim in 20 seconds.

What a sales enablement lead can ask

Program design, adoption measurement, and rep coaching, each grounded in the actual battlecard and deal data.

  • Which battlecards have been viewed the fewest times this month, and which competitors are in the most deals?

    Claude surfaces the mismatch between adoption and market pressure so you know where to focus rep coaching.

  • Draft a 15-minute rep certification quiz on our top three competitors.

    Claude reads your battlecards and generates scenario-based questions a new AE must answer to pass certification.

For builders

Technical details.

Endpoint

Streamable HTTP MCP server at /api/mcp. Manual JSON-RPC over standard HTTP. No SSE.

Authentication

OAuth 2.0 authorization code + PKCE (RFC 6749, RFC 7636). Dynamic client registration via RFC 7591.

Token lifetime

Access tokens: 1 hour. Refresh tokens: 30 days, rotated on use. Revocable from Clinch settings.

Rate limits

60 requests per minute per access token. Supabase-backed rate limiter. Fails open on the first boundary case.

Scope

Read-only. Five tools: get_battlecard, get_competitor_timeline, get_pricing_history, get_competitive_landscape, search_competitive_changes.

Discovery

RFC 8414 metadata at /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server. Protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

Frequently asked

Questions worth answering.

What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
MCP is an open protocol that lets AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot query external tools and data sources directly with user permission. Created by Anthropic in November 2024 and donated to the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation in December 2025, MCP is the de facto integration layer for AI-native workflows as of 2026.
Why does MCP matter for competitive intelligence?
CI is a research discipline, and most buyers already do their CI research inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity. MCP turns your CI tool into a native part of that workflow. Instead of switching tabs to a dashboard, you ask Claude directly and Claude answers using your real Clinch data.
Is the MCP connector included or is it an add-on?
Included on Clinch Pro (149 dollars per month). Not available on Starter. There is no separate add-on fee. MCP API usage does not count against any additional quota.
What tools does the Clinch MCP server expose?
Five read-only tools today: get_battlecard (fetch a battlecard by competitor), get_competitor_timeline (all changes for a competitor in a date range), get_pricing_history (chronological pricing snapshots), get_competitive_landscape (cross-competitor rollup), and search_competitive_changes (full-text search across all diffs). All tools are scoped to your org via OAuth access tokens.
Does the MCP server work with ChatGPT or only Claude?
As of April 2026 the MCP ecosystem is strongest inside Claude.ai and desktop Claude. OpenAI announced MCP support in April 2025. Microsoft adopted in July 2025. Practically, Claude.ai has the most mature connector UX today. We test and document against Claude.ai first; support for other MCP-compatible clients follows as those clients mature.
How does authentication work?
OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow with PKCE (RFC 6749 + RFC 7636). Claude.ai registers as an MCP client via dynamic client registration (RFC 7591). Access tokens live one hour; refresh tokens live 30 days and rotate on use. You can revoke access any time from Clinch settings; revocation is immediate across all Claude sessions.
Is my competitive data safe?
Yes. The MCP server is read-only and org-scoped. Every request is bearer-token authenticated and validated against your org. No other customer can access your data through the connector. Tokens are storage-encrypted and never logged. Rate limits (60 requests per minute per token) protect against runaway agents.
Do I have to use MCP to use Clinch?
No. The core Clinch workflow (snapshots, digest, battlecards) works without Claude. MCP is the Pro-tier enhancement for teams that already live inside Claude.ai. If you do not use Claude, skip MCP and stay on Starter.

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