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This page answers the questions sellers ask before and just after connecting an AI assistant to Hoard. If yours isn’t here, email support@tryhoard.com and we’ll add it. If you just want to get going, the Talk to your store quick start is the safe two-minute version.

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What it is and why you’d use it

It’s a way to ask your store questions in plain English, from an AI assistant you already use, like Claude or ChatGPT, and get answers pulled from your real Hoard data. “What sold best last week?” “Which cards are underpriced?” “What should I deal with today?” The assistant looks it up live and answers.Under the hood it’s a secure connection (an “MCP connector”) between your assistant and your Hoard account. You don’t have to know how it works to use it. You ask in plain English; the assistant does the rest.
The dashboard is great when you know exactly which screen to open. The assistant is great when you have a question and don’t want to go hunting, or when the question crosses several screens at once.“Show me cards where my price is more than 30% under market, that have sold at least once in the last month, sorted by how much money I’m leaving on the table” is one sentence to an assistant and several clicks plus a spreadsheet otherwise. It’s a conversational front door to the same data, and eventually the same actions.
No. This is the part people mix up. The desktop sync app runs on your computer and keeps TCGplayer and Hoard in lockstep, that one needs your machine awake. The AI assistant talks to the data Hoard has already collected, so it works from any browser on any device, any time, even if your home computer is off.Your assistant always shows the last-synced state. If you want fresher numbers, you can ask it to trigger a sync (that’s one of the actions it can take, once you’ve turned on permissions) — but that only queues the sync. It still needs your desktop agent running somewhere to actually log into TCGplayer and pull fresh data, the same as tapping Sync Now from the dashboard.
Today: Claude (claude.ai and the desktop app), ChatGPT (Plus, Pro, or Business, the connector feature requires a paid OpenAI plan), and the OpenAI Codex CLI. Any assistant that supports custom MCP connectors can point at https://mcp.tryhoard.com/mcp and connect the same way.

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Is it safe?

Not an existing rule. Editing a pricing rule you already have, or repricing in bulk, needs your approval on a Hoard review page.There is one exception, and it applies to new rules only. If an assistant proposes a brand-new rule, explicitly opts out of the preview step, and Hoard scores that proposal low risk, the default permission settings let it commit without a review page. A new rule is created switched off unless the assistant explicitly asks for an active one, and Hoard caps assistant-created rules at 20 per 24 hours. Anything created this way is in your audit log.Whether an assistant can propose a pricing change at all is controlled by a switch at Settings → Assistants. New accounts have that switch on; Turn off price changes turns it off.When a change does go to review, it follows a propose → review → apply flow. The assistant can prepare one rule or a whole matrix, but you get one Hoard review page showing the exact before/after settings, scope, impact, and risk before anything changes. Clicking Approve and apply is the final write; rejecting applies nothing. Hard price floors and server-side safety checks sit underneath that, so a bad instruction can’t blow through your pricing. See permissions and safety for the full model.
No. The assistant never sees your bank account, payout settings, or tax info, none of that is part of Hoard. It can’t delete listings either. The main changes it can make today are pricing rules (see the answer above for when those need your approval), triggering a sync, marking orders shipped, submitting order feedback, starting a pull session, managing card lists, and watching, snoozing, or dismissing buy candidates. It also has a general-purpose HTTP tool that can reach other Hoard endpoints open to assistant writes, such as accepting or dismissing a suggestion, so treat the list as the common cases rather than a complete inventory. It’s all logged so you can see exactly what happened.
When you ask a question, the relevant answer data flows back through your assistant so it can respond to you, the same as any connector you’d add to Claude or ChatGPT. Hoard doesn’t sell your data or share it beyond fulfilling your request. The connection is scoped to your account, and you can cut it off any time by revoking it (below). For the broader trust model, see Security.
Open Settings → Assistants and click Revoke next to it. Access is cut immediately and the assistant can’t refresh its way back in. A pricing proposal it already prepared stays on its review page until you approve it, reject it, or it expires. Click Reject on that page if you don’t want it. You can reconnect any time by following the connect guide again.

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What it costs

No separate subscription. Every plan includes a monthly allowance for assistant use, measured in units: 100 on free, 500 on Gold, 1,000 on Platinum, 5,000 on Diamond, and unlimited on Vault. A read costs 1 unit, a write costs 4, and background work adds 6. Usage past your allowance is charged in credits (100 units per credit), and a request is refused if you have no credits left. The MCP usage card on Settings → Billing shows what you’ve used this month.You’ll also need an assistant account on the other side (a Claude account, or a paid ChatGPT plan for connectors).
Every plan can connect an assistant. Plans differ on sync cadence, listing capacity, data retention, and how much assistant use is included per month. Gold syncs weekly and includes 500 units, Platinum syncs daily and includes 1,000, Diamond syncs every four hours and includes 5,000, and Vault syncs every four hours with unlimited units and unlimited on-demand spot checks.The pricing page states those same allowances as queries per month. A read-only query costs 1 unit, so the figures match for reads; a write costs 4 units. The pricing page also lists assistant write-back as a Vault feature, so check the current page before you size a plan around letting an assistant make changes. If you expect heavy assistant use, size the plan on the allowance, not the sync cadence alone. See tryhoard.com/pricing.

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Common setup snags

The quick answers are below. For step-by-step fixes with what to click, see common setup issues.
Almost always a popup blocker. Allow popups for your assistant’s site and try connecting again. If you’re on a work network, a firewall can also block the sign-in window.
Usually the connector didn’t finish connecting. Remove it, re-add https://mcp.tryhoard.com/mcp, then complete the sign-in and click Allow. In ChatGPT specifically, connectors also require a paid OpenAI plan. A free Hoard plan is not a cause; free accounts can connect an assistant.
Check whether the assistant gave you a review link. Most pricing changes are prepared as a proposal, and nothing is applied until you open that link and click Approve and apply. If the page says the proposal expired, ask the assistant to prepare it again. If there was no link, check your Rules tab first, since a new rule can commit without one, then check that price changes are on at Settings → Assistants. If it still declines, it may be a capability that’s dashboard-only for now; see what your assistant can do.
Models know Magic well and newer games less well. Ground it in your own data first, ask it to pull a snapshot of your store before it reasons, and treat any claim about general market norms as a guess unless it’s backed by your numbers. More in what your assistant can do.