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AI Assistants (MCP)

What it is​

You can connect an AI assistant such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot in VS Code to your thanks.io account. It connects through MCP, the open standard AI assistants use to work with other apps, at https://mcp.thanks.io/mcp. Once it's connected, you ask in plain language and the assistant does the work in your account.

A connected assistant can:

  • Check your balance, send history, and which designs, messages, and lists earn the most QR scans.
  • Design fronts with ThanksAI Studio, and list, create, and update your creatives.
  • Build mailing lists and add recipients.
  • Find people researching what you sell with Targeted Leads: search interests and places, preview how many match and what they cost, buy leads once, and start, pause, resume, change, or stop lead feeds.
  • Preview an order with its proofs and exact total, then send postcards, letters, notecards, MagnaCards, and gift cards.
  • Track orders, and look up whether a person or address was mailed by any of your orders.
  • Create recurring campaigns and turn them on or off.
  • List, create, change, and delete your webhooks, including Lead Board stage webhooks.

Connect your assistant​

  1. Click Integrations & API in the sidebar.
  2. On the AI Assistants card, click Connect Your AI.
  3. Either copy the setup prompt and paste it into your assistant, which walks you through connecting, or follow the steps on your assistant's tab (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Other) using the server URL https://mcp.thanks.io/mcp. Developer tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code are set up from Other, which also has an API key configuration and an mcp-remote configuration for assistants that only run local servers.
  4. Sign in to thanks.io when asked and approve access.

Most assistants need no API key. For one that can't sign in on its own, create a key under Settings → API & MCP Access with Allow MCP access turned on and use it as the bearer token. See Generate an API Key.

Decide what it may spend​

Connecting an assistant doesn't let it spend money. Two switches on the MCP Permissions card under Settings → API & MCP Access decide that, and both are off until you turn them on:

  • Allow orders via MCP - placing real, paid mail orders and turning on a recurring campaign.
  • Allow lead purchases via MCP - buying lead data:
    • Looking up a mailing address for a recipient who has only an email address. Each address found costs 7¢.
    • Buying Targeted Leads once, at 10¢ per lead added.
    • Starting a lead feed, resuming a paused one, or raising what a running feed can spend (switching it to daily or raising its per-run limit). A running feed keeps adding and charging for new leads until you pause or stop it.

Without them, an assistant can still check results, plan, design, save creatives, build lists from full addresses, and preview orders. It can also search Targeted Leads interests and places, preview an audience's size and cost, list your lead feeds, pause or stop a feed, and slow a feed down or lower its per-run limit. When it needs a switch you haven't turned on, it tells you which one, and nothing is charged. See MCP Permissions.

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Once Allow orders via MCP is on, an assistant can send real mail, which charges your balance or card and can't be undone once printing starts. thanks.io tells the assistant to show you a preview with the total and wait for your go-ahead before every send, so read the preview before you approve. Turning on a recurring campaign approves every send it makes on its schedule.

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Once Allow lead purchases via MCP is on, an assistant can buy leads and start lead feeds. Starting or resuming a feed approves every run it makes on its schedule, up to its per-run limit, until you pause or stop it. thanks.io tells the assistant to preview first and confirm the count and most it can cost with you, so check those before you approve. After buying or changing a feed, the assistant gives you a link to the list in the dashboard.

How sends work​

Before any mail goes out, the assistant:

  1. Picks the audience: a mailing list, or addresses you give it.
  2. Picks what to print, usually one of your creatives.
  3. Previews the order, showing the proofs and the exact total without charging anything.
  4. Waits for you to confirm, then sends.

Some things you can ask for along the way:

  • Postage class - First Class or Standard Mail (Marketing Mail). Without one, it mails at your account's default. See Postage Options.
  • Return address - one of your saved return addresses from Settings → Mail Preferences.
  • No email lookups - to skip recipients who have only an email address instead of paying to look up their address.

On the Free and Business plans, the preview images an assistant shows you carry a DRAFT watermark. The mail you send prints without it.

To try the whole flow without mailing anything, turn on API Test Mode. While it's on, orders an assistant places are cancelled automatically and not charged. Test Mode doesn't cover lead purchases: email address lookups and Targeted Leads an assistant buys are charged as usual.

Tips & best practices​

  • Ask it to start from your results, for example "Which of my postcards gets the most QR scans?", before planning a send.
  • To check a contact against your CRM, ask whether they were mailed. The assistant looks at what your orders actually mailed, not just who is on a list.
  • To act for a sub-account, name the sub-account in your request.

Limits & gotchas​

  • An assistant can place at most 10 orders a minute on your account, and make up to 120 requests a minute.
  • An account can start up to 20 Targeted Leads previews an hour through MCP, counted separately from previews in the dashboard.
  • An identical Targeted Leads purchase or lead feed start within 24 hours is refused as a duplicate, so a retried request can't charge you twice. Stopping a lead feed is final; ask the assistant to pause it if you may want it back.
  • Webhooks follow your plan, as they do in the dashboard: they need a paid plan, and Lead Board stage webhooks need Business or higher. Webhooks send recipient names and addresses to their URL, so the assistant confirms the URL with you first.
  • Gift card codes are never shown to an assistant.

Disconnect an assistant​

Remove the connector or MCP server in the assistant's own settings. If it connected with an API key, delete the key under Settings → API & MCP Access.