Salesforce MCP Server: Tools, Setup and Limits (2026)

Facts checked October 30, 2026. Every Salesforce fact below comes from Salesforce's Hosted MCP Servers developer guide, two posts on the Salesforce Developers blog and the GitHub pages of the two local servers, each read on October 30, 2026. We did not connect a Salesforce org for this review, so it carries no speed or accuracy numbers.

Does Salesforce have an official MCP server?

Yes. A team searching "Salesforce MCP" will find three options:

The hosted servers are what a sales or RevOps team needs, so most of this page covers them. Salesforce's own guidance is to use them instead of wrapping its REST API in a home-built proxy, which skips the platform's security controls and request telemetry.

The hosted service started as a pilot in spring 2025, went to beta in October 2025 and reached general availability in April 2026. Teams that connected during the beta must reconnect. The GA release changed the server URLs (the beta path was v1-beta.2), turned every server off by default, and replaced four OAuth scopes with two: mcp_api and refresh_token.

Which tools does the Salesforce MCP server expose?

Standard servers have fixed tool sets. An admin can turn them on, but cannot change their tools. Pick the narrowest server that does the job.

The four SObject servers

What each tool does, per Salesforce's reference:

• getObjectSchema: with no input, a compact index of your queryable objects. With an object name, its fields, picklist values, relationships and any guidance your admin wrote.
• soqlQuery: runs a SOQL query, the main way to read data. At most 50,000 records per transaction.
• find: a SOSL text search across objects, in all, name, email or phone fields. At most 2,000 records.
• getUserInfo: the signed-in user's ID, role, profile, manager and time zone, so "my accounts" works.
• listRecentSobjectRecords: records of one type the user recently viewed or changed.
• getRelatedRecords: the child records of a parent, such as an Account's Contacts.
• createSobjectRecord and updateSobjectRecord: create or update one record from field-value pairs.
• updateRelatedRecord: updates a child record reached through a parent's relationship.
• deleteSobjectRecord and deleteRelatedRecord: send a record to the Recycle Bin, where it can be restored in Salesforce for up to 15 days. There is no undelete tool over MCP.

Product servers

• Data 360 (data/data360): three meta-tools, search, payload_examples and execute, that find and run Data 360 APIs.
• Tableau Next (analytics/tableau-next): semantic models, KPIs and plain-language analytics questions.
• Archive Connect (archive/archive-connect): 13 tools to search, restore, mask and erase archived records. It lists an Archive license as a prerequisite.
• Headless 360 (platform/headless-360, a beta since July 2026): four tools, Discover, Describe, Dispatch and a read-only Dispatch, in front of a growing library of operations. Most are Setup tasks for admins today.

Custom servers

An admin can expose Flows, Apex invocable actions, @AuraEnabled methods, Apex REST endpoints, Named Queries and API Catalog endpoints as tools, with no connector code. Prompt Builder templates can show up as MCP prompts in clients that support them. Custom server URLs end in custom/<name> in place of platform/<name>.

How to set up Salesforce MCP in Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor

Salesforce puts setup at under 30 minutes. You need System Administrator or equivalent permissions.

Step 1. Turn on the servers. In Setup, type "MCP Servers" in Quick Find and open MCP Servers under API Catalog. Toggle on the servers your team needs. Every server is off by default, and one can take up to 2 minutes to go live.

Step 2. Create an External Client App. Connected Apps do not work for MCP.

1. In Setup, type "external client" in Quick Find and open External Client App Manager.
2. Click New External Client App and fill in Basic Information.
3. Expand API (Enable OAuth Settings) and tick Enable OAuth.
4. Enter the callback URL for your client:
   • Claude: https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback
   • ChatGPT: copy it from ChatGPT's Advanced settings (step 4 below)
   • Cursor: http://localhost:8787/callback, plus cursor://anysphere.cursor-mcp/oauth/callback for versions that use it
   • Postman: https://oauth.pstmn.io/v1/callback
5. Add the OAuth scopes Access MCP servers (mcp_api) and Perform requests at any time (refresh_token).
6. Under Security, select "Issue JSON Web Token (JWT)-based access tokens for named users" and deselect every other option you can change without contacting Salesforce support.
7. Click Create, then open Settings and copy the Consumer Key. The app can take up to 30 minutes to start working.

Step 3. Log in to the right org. Salesforce notes that the MCP spec does not handle multi-tenant systems like Salesforce. Log out of every other org, log in to the org that holds your External Client App in your default browser, and keep that browser open.

Step 4. Connect your client. Each server has its own URL:

Production:        https://api.salesforce.com/platform/mcp/v1/<SERVER-NAME>
Sandbox or scratch: https://api.salesforce.com/platform/mcp/v1/sandbox/<SERVER-NAME>
Example:           https://api.salesforce.com/platform/mcp/v1/platform/sobject-reads

Claude. In the left sidebar, click Customize, then Connectors, then the plus sign, then Add custom connector. Name it and paste the server URL. Open Advanced settings, paste the Consumer Key into OAuth Client ID, click Add, then click Connect. Click Configure afterward to set permissions per tool.

ChatGPT. Go to Settings, then Apps, then Create App. Name it and paste the server URL. Under Authentication, open Advanced settings, set Registration Method to "User-defined OAuth client" and paste the Consumer Key into OAuth Client ID. Copy ChatGPT's Callback URL into your External Client App, then click Create. In a chat, pick Salesforce under the plus button.

Cursor. Open Cursor Settings, then Tools & MCP, then New MCP Server, and replace the contents of mcp.json with:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Salesforce": {
      "url": "https://api.salesforce.com/platform/mcp/v1/platform/sobject-reads",
      "auth": {
        "CLIENT_ID": "YOUR-CONSUMER-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Salesforce suggests testing in Postman first, because it calls tools directly and shows the raw JSON.

How auth and permissions work

Every tool call runs as the user who authorized the connection.

• Same rights as the user. Object permissions, field-level security and sharing rules apply, and each action carries that user's name in the audit trail. What a user cannot do in Lightning, the agent cannot do through MCP.
• No service accounts. Sign-in uses the OAuth authorization code flow only, with PKCE required. Salesforce supports no machine-to-machine flow.
• Admin-approved clients. Dynamic client registration is not supported, so an admin decides which apps can connect by creating each External Client App.
• A separate scope. mcp_api grants MCP access without granting Salesforce's existing REST APIs.

What are the limits of Salesforce MCP?

• Query size. soqlQuery reads at most 50,000 records per transaction, and find returns at most 2,000.
• One record per write. createSobjectRecord and updateSobjectRecord take one record body per call, so 50 new leads means 50 tool calls.
• No undelete. Deleted records sit in the Recycle Bin for up to 15 days and can be restored only in Salesforce.
• Your org only. No tool searches outside your org. The server cannot find people your reps have not entered, or verify an email or phone number.
• No sending. No standard tool sends email or enrolls a lead in a cadence. A custom server can expose a Flow your team built for that.
• Scratch orgs. You cannot create an External Client App in a scratch org's Setup. Build it in a Dev Hub org, package it and install the package.
• Version changes. Salesforce supports each hosted MCP version for at least three years, but tools can change between releases.

How much does Salesforce MCP cost?

Salesforce prints no separate price for hosted MCP on any page we read. Access depends on your org:

• Enterprise Edition and above. Salesforce's GA post calls hosted MCP "a production-ready capability for every Enterprise Edition org and above."
• Developer Edition. Every free Developer Edition org includes Salesforce Hosted MCP Servers "at no cost," per Salesforce's April 2026 post.
• Professional Edition. Salesforce's troubleshooting guide says the org edition must support API access: "Developer or Enterprise, or Professional with API access enabled."
• Product servers need the product behind them. Archive Connect, for example, lists an Archive license.

Two costs sit outside Salesforce: your AI client's plan, and any new contact data, because the server only moves records you already have. The two local servers are free open-source packages, under the Apache 2.0 (DX) and MIT (tsmztech) licenses.

Security notes for admins

Salesforce's guide lists five optional hardening steps on the External Client App for production:

1. Require a client secret, for web-based clients only. Salesforce advises against it for desktop apps unless the vendor confirms the secret is stored safely.
2. Limit access to a permission set under OAuth Policies, and assign it only to approved users.
3. Restrict connections to known IP ranges. Some MCP clients use more ranges than Salesforce's allowlist can hold, so check with the vendor first.
4. Shorten refresh tokens to 30 days or less and turn on rotation. By default, refresh tokens stay valid indefinitely.
5. Turn on single logout, so revoking a Salesforce session ends the MCP session too.

For monitoring, MCP calls show up in Salesforce's API logs with the user attached. Filter on API_CLIENT_CATEGORY = SALESFORCE_HOSTED_MCP to see them. Salesforce's rollout advice: start with sobject-reads in a sandbox, use Named Queries or custom tools when an agent should see only a slice of your data, and keep a person reviewing writes.

For further reading from the admin side, Salesforce Ben's Salesforce Admin's Guide to Model Context Protocol (MCP) explains MCP for the people who will switch these servers on.

The community server needs its own review. Its default sign-in keeps a Salesforce username, password and security token in your MCP client's config file. Its OAuth option uses a Connected App with the client credentials flow. And its tools can write Apex classes and triggers and run anonymous Apex. Give it a user with only the permissions it needs.

The community server and the DX server

tsmztech/mcp-server-salesforce is a community server that ranks on Google's first page for this search. Its README describes a local server, run through npx, that needs Node.js 22 or later. The README makes no claim of a link to Salesforce. Its 15 tools:

• Records: salesforce_query_records, salesforce_aggregate_query, salesforce_dml_records (insert, update, delete and upsert) and salesforce_search_all (SOSL).
• Schema: salesforce_search_objects, salesforce_describe_object, salesforce_manage_object, salesforce_manage_field and salesforce_manage_field_permissions.
• Apex and debugging: salesforce_read_apex, salesforce_write_apex, salesforce_read_apex_trigger, salesforce_write_apex_trigger, salesforce_execute_anonymous and salesforce_manage_debug_logs.

The README's Claude Desktop setup, with Salesforce CLI sign-in:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "salesforce": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@tsmztech/mcp-server-salesforce"],
      "env": {
        "SALESFORCE_CONNECTION_TYPE": "Salesforce_CLI"
      }
    }
  }
}

The other SALESFORCE_CONNECTION_TYPE values are User_Password, OAuth_2.0_Client_Credentials and Access_Token, each with its own variables. Pick it for schema and Apex work from a desktop client. Pick the hosted servers when a sales team needs governed, per-user access.

The Salesforce DX MCP Server (npx -y @salesforce/mcp) has 60+ developer tools for orgs, metadata, data, testing and Lightning Web Components, switched on in toolsets with --toolsets and limited to named orgs with --orgs. Salesforce says it reaches end of life on November 2, 2026. After that date it gets no releases, its GitHub repositories become read-only, and the npm package is marked deprecated. Salesforce now ships its developer tooling as skills, in forcedotcom/sf-skills.

What a sales team does with Salesforce MCP

Salesforce's example prompts and its GA post describe the everyday jobs:

• Meeting prep. A rep asks for the account history, open opportunities, recent cases and stakeholder map in one answer.
• Pipeline questions. "Show me all open opportunities in the Manufacturing industry over $500K, grouped by owner."
• Logging work. Create follow-up tasks from a meeting summary, update a stage, add a contact.
• Clean-up. Find duplicate leads by email and delete the older copies, on the Deletes server, with a person reviewing.

What it cannot do alone is add people who are not in Salesforce yet. That needs a data server beside it.

Find and enrich leads, then write them to Salesforce

Clu makes the data server in this flow, so read it as a vendor's example. Connect two servers in Claude: Salesforce's sobject-mutations and Clu's MCP server, which is included from Clu's Starter plan.

The prompt. "Find VPs and Directors of Sales at the prospect accounts I own, skip anyone already in Salesforce, get verified work emails and phone numbers, and create them as leads with Lead Source set to Outbound."

What runs:

1. Salesforce soqlQuery pulls the prospect accounts you own, filtered on your owner email, plus the Contacts and Leads already at them.
2. Clu search_people searches those company domains for the titles. Search costs nothing.
3. Claude compares the results with what Salesforce returned, drops the matches, and checks borderline names with Salesforce find.
4. Clu create_list and add_leads_to_list save the rest. estimate_cost returns a quote before any paid step, enrich_list runs the waterfall for work emails and phone numbers, and enrich_status waits for it to finish. A lookup that finds nothing costs nothing.
5. Salesforce getObjectSchema reads the Lead fields and valid Lead Source values, and createSobjectRecord creates each lead.

Keep Claude's write tools on approval for the first runs, because 50 leads means 50 create calls. Teams on Clu's Pro or Enterprise plan can skip step 5: Clu's Salesforce sync writes enriched records to Salesforce and imports from it on a schedule.

How Salesforce MCP compares with other CRM servers

CRM servers act on the records you already have, so most teams pair one with a data source. Our reviews of the HubSpot MCP server, the Attio MCP server and the Pipedrive MCP server cover the same ground for those CRMs. The Gong MCP server adds read-only call insights to the same chat, and the ZoomInfo MCP server is a data server for account research. The full field is in our list of the best MCP servers for sales and GTM.

Where Clu fits

Disclosure. We make Clu, and this entry is our own description of our product.

Clu is the data side of the flow above. It searches people and companies, and finds verified work emails and phone numbers through a waterfall of 25+ data providers. Its MCP server is included from Starter, Salesforce sync comes with Pro and Enterprise, and the 14-day Pro trial includes MCP. Setup is on the Clu MCP page.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Which MCP clients work with Salesforce's hosted servers?

Salesforce has tested Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Postman and Agentforce Vibes. It says other clients that support the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow with PKCE should also work, and its Developer Edition post names Claude Desktop and Claude Code as examples.

Why won't my MCP client connect to Salesforce?

Salesforce's troubleshooting order: check the URL format (sandboxes need /sandbox/), confirm the server is turned on, and try sobject-all to rule out a wrong server name. Then confirm your edition has API access, and test with Postman or MCP Inspector to see whether the problem sits in your client's settings.

What happens to Salesforce DX MCP setups after November 2, 2026?

They keep running. Salesforce says the npm package stays installable, so existing and pinned setups (version 0.30.15) keep working, but no further releases ship. New developer tooling arrives as skills in forcedotcom/sf-skills.

Is Salesforce MCP the same as Agentforce?

No. Hosted MCP servers let outside AI clients work in your org under each user's permissions. Salesforce's GA post says calling Agentforce agents over MCP is coming, and Agentforce Vibes, Salesforce's coding tool, has the platform MCP servers on by default.

Sources

• Salesforce, Hosted MCP Servers: Get Started, Products Supporting MCP and Hosted MCP Servers End-of-Life, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce, Standard MCP Servers Reference, SObject All, SObject Reads, SObject Mutations, SObject Deletes, Data 360, Headless 360, Tableau Next and Archive Connect, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce, Set Up Your Org, Create an External Client App, Log Into Your Org, Activate MCP Servers and Transition from Beta, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce, Connect MCP Clients, Configure Claude, Configure ChatGPT and Configure Cursor, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce, Server Connection Failures, Security Best Practices and General Best Practices, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce Developers Blog, Salesforce Hosted MCP Servers Are Now Generally Available, April 2026, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce Developers Blog, New in Salesforce Developer Edition: Agentforce Vibes IDE, Claude 4.5, MCP, April 2026, read October 30, 2026
• Salesforce, Salesforce DX MCP Server on GitHub and End of Life: November 2nd, 2026, read October 30, 2026
• tsmztech, mcp-server-salesforce README, read October 30, 2026