# Reducto API + MCP vs Unstructured API + MCP

> Reducto API + MCP has a score of 63.2 (B) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is reliability, 45 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reducto-vs-unstructured
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reducto-vs-unstructured.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reducto-vs-unstructured.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reducto-vs-unstructured.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Reducto API + MCP has a score of 63.2 (B) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is reliability, 45 points.

- Reducto API + MCP: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #207 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/reducto.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/reducto.json
- Unstructured API + MCP: grade D, 47/100, rank #390 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/unstructured.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/unstructured.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Reducto API + MCP for reliability (+45), schema & documentation (+29), agent ergonomics (+26), transparency & trust (+8).

Pick Unstructured API + MCP for security & auth (+7), payments & pricing (+10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Reducto API + MCP | Unstructured API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 72 | 27 | Reducto API + MCP +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 51 | Reducto API + MCP +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 58 | Reducto API + MCP +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 42 | Unstructured API + MCP +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Unstructured API + MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 80 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 52 | Reducto API + MCP +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **47 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Reducto API + MCP | Unstructured API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Reducto | Unstructured |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://platform.reducto.ai` | `https://transform.unstructured.io/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 9 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.unstructured/transform` |
| Last release | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 342k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk | 16k stars, 385 npm/wk, 612k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Reducto API + MCP.** Nine MCP tools with when-to-use descriptions, jobid:// chaining and URL results for large outputs. Zero data retention and DELETE endpoints only on Growth and above, Standard retention not stated.

**Unstructured API + MCP.** Apache-2.0 library partitions 45+ file types locally at no cost, tagged 11 times since 3 July. No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA.

## Before you call either

### Reducto API + MCP

1. Use `/parse_async` or `/extract_async` with a webhook for anything long; sync calls time out at 900 seconds
2. Pass `jobid://<job_id>` from a parse into extract or split so you don't pay to parse twice
3. Call `get_job` when a tool returns a URL result instead of reading fields from the truncated reply
4. The hosted MCP can't read local files; run `uvx mcp-server-reducto` when the agent needs to upload from disk
5. Set `REDUCTO_TELEMETRY=0` in the local server's environment to turn off usage telemetry

### Unstructured API + MCP

1. For local ingestion, `pip install "unstructured[all-docs]"` and call `partition()`; no key needed, and set `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop telemetry
2. Transform returns 202 with a Location header for long parses; poll it, then pass the parse `id` as `parse_id` to Extract
3. Uploaded files expire after 24 hours; keep the original and re-upload on a 404
4. Treat 409 `parse_expired` and 410 `result_expired` as a signal to rerun the parse, not to retry
5. Check for an existing job ID before resubmitting, since there's no idempotency key

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