Test: 96 MCP Tools Burn 2,000 Tokens Just for Discovery
Alarming-List-1313 · reddit · 2026-08-10
A developer tested the real-world token consumption of MCP. With 5 servers and 96 tools configured, the JSON listing for tool discovery alone consumed 2,034 tokens before any user query was made.
Furthermore, after 20 tool calls, the heavy JSON wrapping of responses generated an additional 40,000 tokens of overhead. This highlights potential scalability and cost issues with the MCP architecture.
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