During the closed and open beta for MCP, one question kept coming up from sellers.
How do I fit this into my week?
When I looked at who was asking, something stood out. Most of them were our bigger sellers, and they weren't really asking about cadence. These are operators who already run tight processes. They didn't need us to tell them how often to look at their own business.
What they wanted was more specific. They wanted to know when our data refreshes, so they could time their run to it.
Which got me curious. I have cats so curiosity comes naturally. I asked myself, if our most serious sellers are this deliberate about timing, how are they actually using the MCP day to day? How often do they come back? What do they open first? Is there a shape to it? What did they have for lunch today?
So I went and looked. Not at what we imagine a good routine should be, but at what our stickiest accounts genuinely do. A fairly clear pattern emerged.
|
About 2 in 3
of all MCP usage comes from the committed few (roughly 1 in 7 accounts)
|
The next day
is the typical gap between their visits. 4 in 5 come back within a day
|
|
14 calls, 4 tools
in a typical working session on a day they use it. Nobody asked a one-off question
|
2.3x
is how much more likely a bigger seller is to have built the habit
|
First, the committed accounts come back a lot. The ones using the MCP on ten or more separate days are a small group, roughly one in seven of our active accounts, but they drive around two-thirds of all usage. And they're not checking in once a week. The typical gap between their visits is a single day, and nearly four in five return the very next day. This isn't something people do once in a while. It has found its way into their regular working rhythm.
It's also mostly a weekday routine. Around 80% of their usage lands on weekdays, and Monday is the busiest day.
A weekday routine
Share of the committed cohort's usage, by day of the week.
| Mon |
|
18.7% |
| Tue |
|
16.4% |
| Wed |
|
14.3% |
| Thu |
|
17.5% |
| Fri |
|
14.3% |
| Sat |
|
8.5% |
| Sun |
|
10.3% |
And when they sit down with it, they actually do a lot of work. A typical session is around 14 tool calls across 4 different tools. Not one question and gone, but working through different parts of the account and following whatever catches their attention.
What they look at was interesting too. Sales data is the clear favourite, making up more than a third of everything they run.
Inventory comes next, followed by search terms and keywords.
The big-picture account brief, si-analyst, is where most people start. More than eight in ten users have run it at least once, but it isn't what brings them back day after day. Once people start using the MCP regularly, their usage becomes much more operational: checking sales, watching stock, digging into search terms, and getting a feel for what's happening in the account right now.
Unsurprisingly, these tend to be our bigger accounts. Sellers in our top revenue tier are more than twice as likely to have built this kind of habit as those in the bottom tier. That doesn’t mean the MCP is only useful at a certain size; plenty of smaller sellers get real value from it. But it is interesting to see how the people using it most consistently are starting to build it into the way they work.
The more I looked, the more I came back to the original question.
When should you actually run the MCP?
The answer isn't Monday at 9am. Sorry to anyone hoping we'd done the maths and found the ✨One True MCP Hour✨. The people who use it most don't follow one rigid routine. What they have in common is that they come back regularly, mostly on workdays, to understand what's happening in the business right now. It’s like going to the gym; you can’t see the results from one session. Unfortunate, I know.
Which brings us back to data refreshes. They were right to ask. If you're already reviewing your account regularly, knowing when the latest data lands means you can time your run around it, rather than re-reading something you already saw yesterday.
So, for everyone who asked what time our data refreshes?
There's no particular time. You should be able to run the MCP any time of day and get reliable data, which we work to refresh as often as we can.
According to Luke, Scale Insights' CEO/CTO
And speaking of Luke, he also wrote a founder's note on why he built the MCP in the first place, if you want a bit more of the story behind it.
So, I suppose that's the real answer to how the MCP fits into your week. You probably don't need to carve out a special MCP ritual and colour-code it in your calendar and protect the time at all costs. They've just made it part of the moments when they're already doing the work of running their business. And I think that's where it belongs.
As always, thank you to the sellers who ask very specific questions and accidentally send us down entirely new rabbit holes. We went looking for an answer about timing and somehow ended up analysing everyone's habits instead.
Haven’t used the MCP yet? You can try it here.
And while you’re at it, tell me what you’re having for lunch tomorrow? Drop it in the comments. I need ideas.