Setup

SponsorHound is a remote MCP server. Your AI assistant asks it which brands plausibly sponsor content like yours, and gets back evidence: dated, public ad reads from podcasts and newsletters, each with a short quote and a link.

1. Request access. Once your account is open, sign in to the dashboard.
2. Create an API key. It's shown once, and the dashboard fills it into the snippets below for you to copy.
3. Add the server to your client, then ask your assistant something like "Use sponsorhound to find brands that would sponsor my podcast about …".

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http sponsorhound https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Check it with claude mcp list, or run /mcp inside Claude Code. Add --scope user to make it available in every project.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop's custom connectors (Settings → Connectors) need OAuth, which the beta doesn't have yet. Connect through the mcp-remote bridge instead (needs Node.js 18 or later). Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config, add this to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sponsorhound": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp", "--header", "Authorization:${SPONSORHOUND_AUTH}"],
      "env": { "SPONSORHOUND_AUTH": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

The header goes in env because some systems split arguments that contain spaces. If the file already has an mcpServers block, add the "sponsorhound" entry inside it.

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (one project):

{ "mcpServers": { "sponsorhound": { "url": "https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" } } } }

VS Code (GitHub Copilot agent mode)

.vscode/mcp.json. VS Code asks for the key once and stores it securely:

{
  "inputs": [{ "type": "promptString", "id": "sponsorhound-key", "description": "SponsorHound API key", "password": true }],
  "servers": {
    "sponsorhound": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${input:sponsorhound-key}" }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "sponsorhound": { "serverUrl": "https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" } } } }

Other clients

Any MCP client that supports Streamable HTTP with custom headers works. Clients that only allow OAuth or no-auth connectors aren't supported in the beta. That includes the claude.ai and ChatGPT web connectors.

To test your key without a client:

curl -s https://mcp.sponsorhound.com/mcp -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_usage","arguments":{}}}'

Tools

Example prompts

• "Use sponsorhound to find brands that would sponsor my podcast: a weekly show for new runners about training plans, injury prevention and race-day nutrition. Show the evidence for the top 5."
• "My newsletter covers AI tools for small accounting firms, about 4k subscribers. Which brands advertise in similar newsletters and podcasts? Leave out anything that hasn't advertised since August."
• "Who sponsors Money Made Simple? Which of those brands also sponsor shows like mine?"
• "Find 10 podcasts similar to mine and tell me who advertises on them."
• "Is this brand still advertising on personal finance podcasts? Show the three most recent ad reads."
• "List supplement brands that advertised on fitness podcasts in the last 30 days, most active first."
• "Draft a short pitch email to the top brand, quoting the ad reads you found as evidence that they sponsor shows like mine."

Tips: a 1–3 sentence description with the topic, audience and language works best. Ask for filters (language, category, "active since") only when you need them. Every answer includes data_version and as_of, the date of the newest episode in the data. Read what the data is and isn't before you quote results to a brand.

Limits and errors

The first call after a quiet period can take a couple of seconds while the server connects. Later calls usually take under 2 seconds.

What we log

For each call we log your key's prefix (never the key), the tool, its arguments (free text cut to 300 characters), the IDs returned and the latency. Logs are kept for 14 days and used only to run and improve the service. Don't put anything confidential in descriptions. See the privacy policy.

Reporting bad results

The beta's goal is to learn whether the top 10 recommendations are plausible, so a bad result is useful feedback. Write to support@sponsorhound.com with:

1. what you asked (the prompt, or the tool and its arguments),
2. the data_version from the answer,
3. the brand_id or observation_id that looks wrong, and what's wrong with it (not a brand, wrong brand, not a sponsor, stale, irrelevant to your content, duplicate),
4. the brands you expected to see but didn't, if any.

To have a brand or show removed, see opt-out and removal.