What Is ToolRouter? The Complete Guide to AI Tool Superpowers

ToolRouter is a hosted AI tool gateway that gives Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, and other AI assistants access to 200+ real-world tools through a single connection. Instead of signing up for dozens of services, configuring each one separately, and juggling API keys, you add ToolRouter once and your AI immediately gains the ability to generate images, find leads, research competitors, write deep research reports, audit websites, track stocks, create videos, and much more — all without leaving the conversation.

The core idea is simple: your AI assistant is already intelligent. What it lacks is the ability to take action in the real world. ToolRouter bridges that gap.

Why ToolRouter Exists#

Every AI assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot — has the same fundamental limitation out of the box. It knows an enormous amount from its training data, but it cannot act on that knowledge with current, real-world information or creative tools. It cannot search the web in real time. It cannot generate an original image. It cannot look up who works at a company or pull live stock prices.

Before tools like ToolRouter, getting an AI to do these things meant manually connecting to a dozen separate services. Each one required its own API key, its own authentication flow, and its own configuration. It was complex, fragile, and beyond the reach of most users.

ToolRouter solves this with a single hosted endpoint. One connection gives any MCP-compatible AI client access to the full tool catalog — no per-tool setup, no managing keys, no switching apps.

How ToolRouter Works#

ToolRouter is built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — an open standard created by Anthropic in 2024 that lets AI assistants discover and call external tools in a standardised way. Think of MCP as the USB-C port for AI: one protocol, any tool, any client. You can learn more about the underlying standard in the full MCP explainer.

Here is what happens when you use ToolRouter:

1. You connect ToolRouter to your AI. This is a one-time setup — you add a single MCP URL or run one CLI command. It works the same whether you are using Claude Desktop, Claude on the web, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, or any other MCP client.
2. ToolRouter auto-provisions your account. On the first tool call, ToolRouter automatically creates your account and grants you access to all free tools. No separate sign-up, no form to fill in.
3. Your AI discovers the full tool catalog. ToolRouter tells your AI what tools exist and what each one does. Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor reads this list automatically.
4. You ask your AI to do things. You do not pick tools manually. You just talk to your AI normally: "generate a product photo for this coffee brand," "find me 50 leads at B2B SaaS companies in London," "research who our top three competitors are and what ads they're running."
5. ToolRouter routes the request to the right providers. Behind the scenes, ToolRouter calls the appropriate APIs, handles authentication, manages provider fallbacks, and returns the results.
6. Your AI uses those results to answer you. The final response combines Claude's or ChatGPT's reasoning with live, real-world data and generated content.

The key insight: you never have to think about which tool to use. Your AI makes that decision. You just describe what you want.

What ToolRouter Can Do#

ToolRouter currently provides 200+ tools across every major category of AI-assisted work. Here are the main capabilities:

Content Creation#

• Image generation — generate original images, product photos, illustrations, and social media visuals from a text prompt using 20+ AI models including FLUX, Stable Diffusion XL, and Ideogram. Try it with the image generation tool.
• Video generation — create short video clips from text descriptions or turn images into video using models from Runway, Kling, and Luma.
• UGC-style video — produce authentic-looking user-generated content videos for product advertising. See the UGC video tool.
• Music generation — generate background music, sound effects, and audio tracks from text descriptions.
• Product photography — create studio-quality product photos from a simple object image without a physical shoot.

Research and Intelligence#

• Web search — search the web in real time for current information, news, prices, and facts beyond the AI's training data. See the web search tool.
• Deep research — run multi-source research across the web and return a comprehensive, cited report on any topic. Try the deep research tool.
• Competitor research — automatically analyse any competitor's positioning, pricing, content strategy, and ad spend.
• Ad library search — see every ad a competitor is running across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok with creative and copy.

Lead Generation and Sales#

• Lead finder — build targeted lists of companies and contacts by industry, role, location, and company size. Returns verified email addresses and LinkedIn profiles.
• Contact enrichment — enrich a list of names or companies with contact details, firmographic data, and technology stack.

SEO and Website Analysis#

• SEO tool — audit any webpage for meta tags, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and ranking issues.
• GEO tool — analyse any page for generative engine optimization signals and get specific recommendations to improve AI citation rates.
• Keyword research — identify the best keyword opportunities for any topic or domain using live search data.
• Site crawler — crawl any website and extract structured content, links, and technical details.

Finance and Data#

• Stock market — pull live prices, historical data, earnings, and fundamentals for any publicly traded company.
• Currency conversion — convert between any currencies using live exchange rates.
• Chart generation — turn any data into a clean chart or visualization.

Utilities#

• Screenshots — capture full-page screenshots of any website.
• Translation — translate any text between 100+ languages.
• Weather — get current and forecast weather data for any location.

Which AI Assistants Work with ToolRouter#

ToolRouter works with any AI client that supports MCP. As of 2026, that includes:

How ToolRouter Pricing Works#

Most ToolRouter tools are completely free. This includes web search, deep research, weather, currency conversion, charts, news, and dozens more. You can start using these without adding any payment details.

For tools that involve third-party API costs — image generation, video creation, lead data — ToolRouter uses a straightforward pay-as-you-go model:

• No monthly subscription required for individual use
• A flat $0.005 platform fee per paid tool call
• Credits purchased in advance; you only spend what you use

Bring your own key (BYOK): If you already have API keys with underlying providers, you can connect them in ToolRouter and pay the provider directly.

See the full pricing page for details.

How to Get Started#

Setup takes under two minutes for most AI clients.

For Claude (web chat or Desktop):

1. Go to claude.ai → Settings → Connectors
2. Click Add connector
3. Paste the ToolRouter MCP URL: https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp

For Claude Code:

claude mcp add toolrouter -- npx -y toolrouter@latest mcp

For Cursor, VS Code, or Windsurf: Add this to your MCP config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "toolrouter": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "toolrouter@latest", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Full setup guides for every client are in the ToolRouter documentation.