Bring your own agent. Lazy Ads is the MCP bridge.
A lot of ad software now wants to be your strategist. That is a fine product if you do not already have one. It is a bad fit if you already live in Claude, Cursor, or Hermes.
Bring your own agent ads is the other shape. You keep the brain. The vendor keeps the unglamorous part: tokens, platform objects, sync, a dashboard that does not make you open six Ads Managers to see whether anything spent.
That is Lazy Ads BYOA. Pricing is $19/month billed annually, or $24 month-to-month. You get a limited MCP bridge — 33 tools — and no Lazy Ads AI spend on our side. Your agent runs the strategy. Lazy Ads is the connector and the single multi-platform dashboard.
This post is the contrast people actually need before they pick a plan: what the $19 ad MCP includes, what it refuses to pretend to include, and when you should skip it and buy Starter instead.
Definition of the shape: What BYOA means for ads. Client setup and full tool list: Manage ads from your AI agent (MCP). Fee model contrast: How AI ad tools charge.
What "MCP bridge ads" means in practice
A bridge is not a thinner AI. It is a different job.
On BYOA, the LazyAds MCP server exposes operations against the ad accounts you have connected. The agent you already pay for — Claude, Cursor, Hermes, Windsurf, anything that can call Streamable HTTP — decides what to create, what to pause, and what the next test is. Lazy Ads executes the write, stores the campaign record, and syncs performance back so you are not hopping between Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Apple, Bing, ChatGPT, and Snapchat managers for a spend read.
The production endpoint is the same one Starter uses: https://mcp.lazyads.ai/mcp (Streamable HTTP). The difference is the tool list, not the wire.
Bridge tools cover the work an operator actually does after the strategy exists. Create a campaign, ad set, and ad by hand. Build a Meta creative from an image URL and copy. Import something already live. Pause or resume at campaign, ad set, or ad level. Move daily budget. Update targeting or a manual bid when the network allows it. Add search keywords on Google, Bing, and Apple. Sync one campaign or every linked campaign. Read spend, breakdowns, and creative ranks. Attach a creative you already have. Check whether the ad account can spend. Connect ChatGPT with an Ads Manager API key.
That is 33 tools. It is enough to run a program if the program already lives in your agent. It is not enough if you wanted Lazy Ads to invent the program.
What BYOA deliberately does not include
Starter, Growth, and Scale add twelve tools and call the result full MCP: 45 tools. Those twelve are Lazy Ads AI, not more remote-control buttons.
build_ai_campaign and get_campaign_build_status are the in-product builder. chat_with_lazy_ads is the assistant inside Lazy Ads, not the Claude or Cursor tab you already have open. get_optimization_suggestions and get_audience_suggestions are platform-side analysis. get_creative_score and generate_creative sit on quota. Competitor AI — list, search, stored analysis, live scan — plus get_ai_activity close the set.
BYOA does not run those. That is the point of the price. You are not renting Lazy Ads' tokens to write a strategy you were going to write in Hermes anyway. You are renting the pipe.
If your workflow is "ask Lazy Ads to build me a Meta campaign for the new SKU," you are shopping Starter, not a cheaper bridge. If your workflow is "I already wrote the brief in Cursor; push a $40/day campaign to the accounts I can connect, then pause whatever wasted yesterday," BYOA is the plan that matches the sentence.
Pricing, without a fake free strategy
The cards on pricing:
- BYOA: $19/month annual, $24 monthly. Limited MCP bridge. Create, edit, pause, monitor. One dashboard. Track up to five competitors. No Lazy Ads AI spend.
- Starter: $79/month annual, $99 monthly. Full MCP (45 tools). AI campaign creation and management. Daily analysis. 50 AI chat messages/day. 15 AI images/month. Five tracked competitors.
- Growth: $199/month annual, $249 monthly. Higher spend cap, more analysis, more creative quota, fifteen competitors, A/B testing automation, and the REST API.
- Scale: $399/month annual, $499 monthly. Unlimited ad spend on the plan card, more frequent analysis, larger creative quotas, unlimited competitor tracking.
Read the cards, pick the shape (bridge vs full AI), and subscribe when that flow is available for your workspace.
Two plan facts people get wrong:
- MCP is not Growth-gated. BYOA has the 33-tool bridge. Starter+ has the 45-tool suite. You do not need Growth to put Claude or Cursor on the wire.
- REST is Growth+. If you want your own HTTP integration on top of the dashboard, you are past Starter. Do not buy BYOA expecting a REST key.
Who BYOA is actually for
BYOA is for people who already operate through an agent and are tired of the last mile.
A founder who briefs Cursor, then still opens Ads Manager to click Publish. A marketer who has Claude summarizing last week's export and wants the pause in the same thread. Someone running Hermes who does not want a second AI inventing a plan they will rewrite.
It is also for people who want a single place to see the connected accounts. The dashboard is not a consolation prize. Syncing performance across the networks you have access to is most of why a bridge is worth $19 instead of a pile of unofficial scripts.
BYOA is a poor fit if you wanted Lazy Ads to be the strategist. Free users have zero AI tokens. Paid BYOA users still have zero Lazy Ads AI tokens — that is the product. The free path above both plans is onboarding plus competitor ad browse, not a generated campaign. If you need the builder, chat, and AI creatives, the first honest plan is Starter.
How you actually connect the agent
Same setup as the full MCP post, because it is the same server with a shorter menu.
- Subscribe to BYOA for the bridge, or Starter if you already know you want the AI tools.
- Generate an API key at Settings → API.
- Point the client at
https://mcp.lazyads.ai/mcpwithAuthorization: BearerorX-API-Keyon every request.
Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf take the JSON block on the MCP page. Hermes takes the YAML block plus, if you want it, SKILL.md in ~/.hermes/skills/lazyads/. Send the API key on every request.
A first BYOA session should stay boring. List connections. List campaigns Lazy Ads already knows. Sync performance. Pause one thing you already decided to pause. If those four calls work, the bridge works. Then let your agent write the next campaign and call the manual create tools. Do not start by asking Lazy Ads to invent a strategy it cannot run on this plan.
Nine networks, your accounts
BYOA does not shrink the product surface. The bridge is built against the same nine ad networks as the rest of Lazy Ads: Meta (Facebook + Instagram), Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Apple, Bing, ChatGPT, and Snapchat. Meta is one network. Do not count Facebook and Instagram as two.
The product surface is nine networks. Your agent uses the same hosted endpoint as Starter; BYOA does not include Lazy Ads AI.
You still need native advertiser accounts. Lazy Ads does not mint a Meta Business Manager or a Google Ads MCC for you. The $19 is for the bridge and the dashboard, not for media or for platform approval.
BYOA vs Starter, said once without a matrix
Buy BYOA if the sentence you keep repeating is "I already have an agent." You want MCP bridge ads, a unified dashboard, and no bill for Lazy Ads AI you will not use.
Buy Starter if the sentence is "I want Lazy Ads to build and chat." You want 45 tools, build_ai_campaign, creative generation against quota, and the competitor AI scans. The price jumps from $19 to $79 on annual billing because you are buying a different product, not a longer trial of the same one.
Stay on Growth when you also want REST and higher caps. MCP access itself is not the reason to be on Growth.
Either way, start free the honest way: complete onboarding and competitor ad browse, then subscribe to BYOA or Starter when you want a key. Free accounts cannot spend tokens they do not have.
FAQ
What do I get for $19 ad MCP?
BYOA is $19/month on annual billing ($24 monthly). You get the 33-tool MCP bridge, a single dashboard for connected accounts, performance sync, and up to five tracked competitors. You do not get Lazy Ads AI tools, and you do not get REST.
Is BYOA just a cheaper Starter?
No. Starter is full MCP with Lazy Ads AI (45 tools). BYOA is the limited bridge (33 tools) for people whose agent already does the thinking. If you need build_ai_campaign, in-product chat, or AI creatives, skip BYOA.
Can I manage Meta, Google, and TikTok from my own agent on BYOA?
The product surface is nine networks. Your agent uses the same hosted endpoint as Starter; BYOA does not include Lazy Ads AI.
Does free include the MCP bridge?
No. API keys are a paid-plan feature. The free path is onboarding and competitor ad browse. Subscribe to BYOA or Starter when you are ready to point Claude, Cursor, or Hermes at the server.
Start with the agent you already pay for
If you wanted another AI to replace the one you already trust, this is the wrong SKU. If you wanted bring your own agent ads — a $19 MCP bridge, 33 tools, one dashboard, no Lazy Ads AI bill — BYOA is the plan that says that out loud.
Finish onboarding. Browse competitor ads. When you want the key, subscribe to BYOA for the bridge or Starter for the full suite. Paste the Streamable HTTP block from lazyads.ai/mcp. If you run Hermes, use the Hermes setup. Then do the unglamorous first calls — list, sync, pause — on the platforms you can actually connect.