Reddit user measures MCP token overhead: 67K tokens consumed before any question

MCP token overhead measurement

A developer on r/ClaudeAI measured the token overhead of their Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and found significant context consumption before any user interaction.

Key findings from the measurement

The developer reported:

• 67,000 tokens consumed before typing a single question
• This represents one-third of their context window just loading tool definitions
• Playwright MCP alone used 21 tool definitions (~13,600 tokens) every session, whether they used a browser or not
• GitHub MCP used ~18,000 tokens idle

Alternative approaches with lower overhead

The developer implemented alternatives:

• Replaced Playwright MCP with a skill that loads on demand, achieving the same capability with roughly 1/7th the context cost
• Used the GitHub CLI (gh) instead of GitHub MCP, which uses ~200 tokens per command instead of 18,000 tokens idle

Comparison between approaches

The developer noted that skills + CLI tools:

• Do the same work as MCP servers
• Only consume tokens when actually used
• CLI tools compose with each other in ways MCP servers cannot

The measurement highlights the trade-off between convenience and context efficiency when using MCP servers versus on-demand tools.