Head to head · CRM records · October 2026 research run

Breakcold vs Nutshell

Breakcold scores 58 (C) on agent readiness against Nutshell's 49.4 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Nutshell leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do crm records.

Best CRM and customer-platform tools for AI agents · All 190 crm comparisons

Which one, for what

Breakcold C

Best for Small sales teams who run outreach on email and social channels and want an agent to keep records, tasks and replies in order.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 57
  • Agent ergonomics, 67 against 44
  • Maintenance & community, 60 against 36

Watch for

No status page or SLA was found; status.breakcold.com did not answer

Nutshell D

Best for Small sales teams already on Nutshell who want an agent to read and update pipeline data over MCP or REST at a low seat price.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 15
  • Transparency & trust, 72 against 67

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No rate limit numbers, 429 handling or Retry-After found for the REST API

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Schema & documentation Breakcold +33

Breakcold 90

OpenAPI 3.1 contract at docs.breakcold.com/api/openapi.json with 70 operations, each with a description (25). llms.txt and a Markdown copy of each page, plus auth.md and an MCP server card (10). Tool descriptions say how to use them, such as records_create asking for every required field and a stable idempotency key and the send tools saying to send only after the user confirms (17 of 20). 84 enums and 488 required lists, with typed attribute pages for each field type (13 of 15). Every operation documents 400 to 429 responses and the error body is shown, but the spec carries only two examples (10 of 15). /api/v1, and an API changelog with dated entries and migration steps (15). 25 + 10 + 17 + 13 + 10 + 15 = 90.

Nutshell 57

Each of the 114 REST reference pages carries the OpenAPI 3.0 definition of its operation, but whole-spec download is disabled (18 of 25). llms.txt and Markdown for every docs page (10). 78 of 114 operations have a description, and the newer ones state scope and visibility rules (11 of 20). Enums on sort fields and patterns on IDs, but filters and custom fields are open objects and page[limit] is typed as a string on some operations (9 of 15). Schema examples are present, and error responses appear on 9 operations with no error body schema (5 of 15). The spec is version 2.0.0 and pages carry update stamps, with no dated API changelog (4 of 15).

Maintenance & community Breakcold +24

Breakcold 60

API changelog entry on 6 November 2026 (30). More than 60 dated entries since 8 August 2026 (20). Closed service with a public API changelog, an RSS feed, a help centre and support by email; no public issue tracker (10 of 15). The CRM MCP server is not in the official MCP registry (the registry's io.github.breakcold/inboxmcp is a separate product at inbox-mcp.com), and no official SDK exists (0). No package to check (0). 30 + 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 = 60.

Nutshell 36

The MCP server help article, updated 27 October 2026, documents create and update tools that the 8 October reading did not find, a dated change to a listed surface 8 days before the check (30 of 30). The REST reference pages carry update stamps, the newest 21 August 2026, but the stamps record no API change, and the product updates page is undated, so no other dated entry counts. One dated change in the 90 days from 6 August (0). No API changelog. Live support on every plan per the pricing page, untested (6 of 25). No current official SDK, and the MCP registry was not checked (0). No packages to judge (0). 30 + 0 + 6 + 0 + 0 = 36.

Agent ergonomics Breakcold +23

Breakcold 67

72 MCP tools (5), with tools_search and capabilities_list to find tools by capability or granted scope, and scopes that limit which tools apply (8 back). Cursor pagination, record search and a fields selection on record lists since 3 November (18 of 20). Errors carry a code, message, requestId and retryAfterMs, and the 4 November changelog removed stack frames from messages (17 of 20). Idempotency keys on creates, and compose and send tools return a non-sending draft by default; MCP annotations are not published (14 of 20). No official SDK; setup is one URL with OAuth (5 of 15). 13 + 18 + 17 + 14 + 5 = 67.

Nutshell 44

The MCP server has about 18 groups of search and report tools and six groups of create and update tools per the help centre, updated 27 October 2026. The tool definitions sit behind OAuth and were not read. REST lists take page[limit] with no field selection (13 of 25). page[page], sort, q and filter[...] keys, with field lists from /accounts/list/fields, and no stated maximum page size (16 of 20). Error responses appear on 9 of 114 operations with no error body schema, partly met (4 of 20). No idempotency keys. Deletes can be undone within 30 days, and the MCP server cannot delete records, partly met (6 of 20). Few required fields, and no official REST SDK. The only client is a PHP JSON-RPC sample last pushed in 2023 (5 of 15).

Payments & pricing Nutshell +20

Breakcold 15

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, and each call's cost in usage tokens is published, but the money value of a token is not (10). The 14-day trial needs a card (0). auth.md documents an agent identity endpoint that takes an identity assertion or an anonymous request followed by a claim by a person, which we read and did not call; access still needs a paid or card-backed trial account (5 of 20). 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 = 15.

Nutshell 35

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, $13 to $79 a seat a month billed yearly, with nothing per call (10). 14-day trial with no card, and the API is included (20). A person signs up in a browser and an admin creates the key. The docs publish sandbox credentials for a shared demo account, which lets an agent test calls with no signup but not reach its own data (5 of 20).

Transparency & trust Nutshell +5

Breakcold 67

Closed service with a legal centre whose terms name Logike SAS, its registration and French law (15 of 30). The privacy policy of 27 October 2026 and the DPA agree, give retention periods for specific copies (deleted record snapshots 30 days, exports 7 days, import rows 90 days, call recordings 30 to 365 days) and promise breach notice without undue delay (27 of 30). The developer terms tie notice of material breaking changes to the services agreement, and the changelog gives migration steps, with no fixed notice period found (12 of 20). DPA Annex C lists providers and their functions with 30 days' notice of changes; locations are said to depend on configuration, with US and EU app regions (15 of 20). 15 + 27 + 12 + 15 = 69.

Nutshell 72

Closed service with clear terms naming Nutshell, Inc. (15). The terms, privacy policy and DPA, all dated 2 June 2026, agree on a 30-day export window after termination, deletion from production afterwards, backup copies that may persist indefinitely and no training of generalised AI models on customer data (24 of 30). The JSON-RPC API is marked legacy with a promise of indefinite support, but there is no deprecation policy and the terms allow functions to be removed without prior notice (5 of 20). The subprocessor list at trust.nutshell.com could not be read. The policy names AWS and regions, and the DPA promises 10 days' notice of a new subprocessor (12 of 20).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBreakcoldNutshellEdge
Reliability16%204545even
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29057Breakcold +33
Agent ergonomics13%16.26744Breakcold +23
Security & auth14%17.56058Breakcold +2
Payments & pricing10%12.51535Nutshell +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86036Breakcold +24
Transparency & trust7%8.86772Nutshell +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58/100D 49.4/100

Facts side by side

FactBreakcoldNutshell
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLogike SASNutshell, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.breakcold.com/mcp/v1https://app.nutshell.com/rest
TransportsStreamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingPaidPaid
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary service under Nutshell's Terms of Service
Tools exposed72none
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-11-062026-10-27
Terms last updatedcouldn't be read2026-06-02
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2026-06-02
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readyes
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readyes

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Breakcold

Breakcold's API and hosted MCP server are built for agents, with an OpenAPI contract, scoped and expiring keys, published rate limits, idempotency keys and message sends that stay drafts until confirmed. No status page, SLA or security certification was found, and the only trial needs a card on a plan from $99 a month.

Nutshell

The REST reference is served as Markdown with an OpenAPI fragment per operation, and the hosted MCP server uses OAuth with PKCE and can create and update records but not delete them. No rate limit numbers, error format or API changelog were found in the reviewed documentation, and API keys carry no scopes.

Before you call either

Breakcold

  1. Call capabilities_list or tools_search first to see which tools the granted scopes allow
  2. Send an Idempotency-Key on REST creates and a stable idempotency key on records_create, so retries return the original result
  3. Leave sendMode unset on compose and send tools until the user has confirmed the message
  4. Pass fields on record lists to cut the response to the fields you need
  5. On 429 wait for Retry-After or retryAfterMs; over MCP the error code is -32029

Nutshell

  1. Authenticate REST calls with HTTP Basic, a Nutshell user's email as username and the API key as password, against https://app.nutshell.com/rest
  2. Use IDs in the <number>-<type> form, such as 3-accounts, and send updates as JSON Patch with content-type: application/json-patch+json
  3. Page lists with page[limit] and page[page], which is 0-based, and call /accounts/list/fields or the lead and contact equivalents for valid filter keys
  4. Ask for create and update access on the MCP consent page if the agent must write. A read-style grant stays read-only, and the MCP server cannot delete, so use REST for deletes
  5. Filter webhook events yourself, because every webhook receives all events and subscriptions are created in Setup, not through the API

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Breakcold or Nutshell?

Breakcold scores 58 (C) on agent readiness against Nutshell's 49.4 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Nutshell leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

Do Breakcold and Nutshell need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Breakcold and Nutshell without installing anything?

Yes. Breakcold has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.breakcold.com/mcp/v1 and Nutshell at https://app.nutshell.com/rest.

Other comparisons with Breakcold or Nutshell

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