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The Zinc connector is a hosted Model Context Protocol server that lets an AI assistant shop for you. Ask for something, pick from the results, review the total, and pay with your card on a secure payment page. Every step renders as an interactive card inside the chat. Connect to it at:
There is no API key, no wallet to fund, and nothing to sign up for before you buy. You pay per order with a card. Signing in with a Zinc account is optional and only needed to see your order history across conversations.
Looking for the developer API instead? The connector is a consumer front end to the same Zinc API v2. Orders placed by a signed-in user land on their Zinc account and show up in the dashboard, on GET /orders, and over webhooks.

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How buying works

1

Search

“Find me whole bean coffee under $20.” The results card lists products across Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and more, with price, retailer and rating. Searching is free.
2

Review

Pick one and the assistant prepares the order. The review card shows the item, an estimated total (listed price, estimated tax, shipping, and a $1.00 Zinc fee) and the hold that will be placed on your card. Nothing is charged yet.
3

Pay & place

Click Pay & place. A Stripe payment page opens in a new tab where you enter your card, shipping address and phone number. The card in the chat turns over on its own once the order exists.
4

Track

You get an order id in the chat, a tracking link on the payment page, and emails as the order is confirmed and ships. Ask the assistant for the order or its tracking any time.
Only the actual total plus the $1.00 fee is captured. The hold covers the estimate plus a margin, and the rest is released when the retailer order is placed. Tax is estimated at a flat rate because the destination isn’t known until checkout; the retailer charges the real tax.

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Tools

An order placed in a conversation can be shown again in that conversation by its id without signing in. History across conversations needs a Zinc account.

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Spending money always takes two steps

The assistant can only ever perform the first step of a purchase. prepare-order draws the review card; place-order requires a confirmation token that the MCP runtime hands to the card and withholds from the model. Only a human clicking Pay & place can produce it. This is what makes the confirmation card real rather than decorative. Without it, a model could call the spending tool on its own, and a prompt injection hidden in any web page it happened to read could become a purchase.
Each confirmation is bound to the exact items and price it was issued for, expires after 10 minutes, and carries an idempotency key. Clicking twice, reloading the card, or a client retrying a request that already succeeded cannot produce a second order or a second charge.

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What the connector won’t sell

Weapons, tobacco and nicotine, regulated drugs and paraphernalia, prescription medication, adult products, gambling, covert surveillance tools, and counterfeits. A search for one of these is refused, matching results are dropped from other searches, and prepare-order refuses a matching product. The retailer’s own age and legality checks still apply at checkout.

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Connector or Agent Skill?

Both let an agent shop through Zinc. They suit different setups:

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Prerequisites

  • A chat client that renders MCP Apps cards: Claude (web, desktop, mobile) or ChatGPT. Clients that only show text can read orders but can’t show the Pay & place button.
  • A card. Shipping is to US addresses.

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Next steps

Connect a client

Add Zinc in Claude or ChatGPT, and sign in when you want your history.

Usage guide

Search, buy, and track through conversation.