PaidSync is our pick for most teams choosing between Google's official Google Ads MCP and its alternatives: it gives Claude or ChatGPT 158 Google Ads tools that read reports and make changes, it connects with no API key, no Google developer token and no Google Cloud project, and the same login reaches 14 platforms, including Meta and LinkedIn. PaidSync is free for 15 tasks a month with no credit card, then priced by usage, from $99 a month for 600 tasks.
Google's official server is the free pick for a narrower case, when you only need answers and can host it yourself. It is first-party and still read-only: release 0.0.4, published on 25 September 2026, has 3 tools for reporting and diagnostics, so it cannot pause a campaign, change a budget or add a negative keyword, and a Google maintainer says write access is planned, with no date. You no longer need a developer token for it: Google's developer token documentation says developer tokens were sunset on 9 September 2026, and access now follows the Google Cloud project behind your OAuth credentials. Disclosure: PaidSync publishes this page.
Every fact on this page was checked against a live primary source on 27 September 2026: the official repo and its release notes, the PyPI release history, Google's developer token page and MCP server docs, and the community repos named below. Several third-party pages still get the release date or the capabilities wrong, and some still tell readers to get a developer token. The primary sources are linked so you can check them yourself.
Our pick for most teams is PaidSync. With nothing to host, it gives Claude or ChatGPT 94 Google Ads write tools and creates five campaign types: Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping and Demand Gen. By default, new campaigns and ads start paused or as drafts, and budget edits run as a preview first. Live pauses, enables and removals need an explicit confirmation flag, and a Google Ads campaign budget move of more than 50% needs a second one. PaidSync is free for 15 tasks a month with no credit card, then priced by usage, from $99 a month for 600 tasks. The same login works on Meta and LinkedIn.
What to know. Search Console access is read-only, and PaidSync's free plan stops at 15 tasks a month.
Pick something else if one of these narrower cases fits you. The facts behind each pick are in the sections and the table below.
This page was first published on 1 August 2026. Three things changed in September and one did not, and some pages that rank for this topic still describe the old setup.
On 7 October 2025, the Google Ads API team published "Open Source Google Ads API MCP Server" on the Ads Developer Blog and open-sourced the code at github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp. The first package reached PyPI on 22 October 2025. The announcement has one sentence that settles the whole comparison:
"This initial release is read-only, meaning it can be used for reporting and diagnostics but will not make changes to your account."
Google Ads API team, Ads Developer Blog, 7 October 2025Nearly a year later, that is still true. The repo lists three tools: search (runs GAQL queries against your account), get_resource_metadata (describes the fields of an API resource type such as campaign) and list_accessible_customers (returns the customer IDs your login can reach). In the code, the search tool runs through search_stream and is registered with readOnlyHint=True. The server also offers 4 resources: the API discovery document, metrics, segments and release notes. A tools_config.yaml file lets you switch single tools or whole groups on and off and rename their prefixes. It needs Python 3.10 or later, uses the Apache 2.0 license and runs locally with pipx or Docker, or on Google Cloud Run. Google offers no hosted endpoint.
Setup has changed since launch. You no longer need a developer token. Your API access level comes from the Google Cloud project behind your OAuth credentials, and to query real accounts that project needs at least Explorer access, which allows 2,880 Google Ads API operations a day on production accounts. You also enable the Google Ads API in that project and pick one of three credential setups: the FastMCP OAuth proxy with your own OAuth client ID and secret, Application Default Credentials, or a google-ads.yaml file for the Google Ads API Python client.
One line from the repo worth reading before you connect anything: "The MCP Server will expose your data to the Agent or LLM that you connect to it." That applies to every option on this page, including ours. The README also says an extra header is added to your API calls so Google can collect usage data.
Read-only sounds like a detail. In a live account it is the whole workflow. The official server can tell your AI assistant that spend on a campaign doubled overnight. It cannot pause that campaign. A human still opens the Google Ads interface and clicks.
So the honest framing is not "official vs unofficial". It is "read-only vs write". If your workflow ends at a report, the official server finishes the job. If your workflow ends with the account changing, it stops one step short, every time.
There are real cases where the official server is the correct pick, and pretending otherwise would be silly:
If that list describes you, use it. We compare against it head to head at PaidSync vs the official Google Ads MCP, and the free option is sometimes our own recommendation.
The gap shows up the first time your assistant finds something worth fixing. Wasted spend on a search term needs a negative keyword. An overspending campaign needs a pause. A budget needs shifting before a weekend. Read-only turns each of those into a handoff; write access turns them into one approved action.
PaidSync is our product, so here are the plain facts rather than adjectives. It is a hosted MCP server with 630+ tools across 14 platforms. 158 of them work on Google Ads: 64 read data and 94 make changes, from budgets, bids and negative keywords to conversion actions and experiments. It creates five Google Ads campaign types: Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping and Demand Gen. The same login makes changes on Meta (92 tools) and LinkedIn (34 tools). By default, new campaigns and ads start paused or as drafts, and budget edits run as a preview first. Measurement rides in the same endpoint: 39 Google Tag Manager tools covering tags, triggers, variables and publishing, 26 GA4 tools including conversion event creation, and 6 read-only Search Console tools. There is no Google Cloud project, OAuth client or server for you to set up: you sign in to PaidSync and approve access on Google's own consent screen.
Pricing is public on the pricing page. PaidSync is free for 15 tasks a month on all 14 platforms, with no credit card and no time limit. After that you pay for usage, the tasks your AI runs, not seats or a share of ad spend: Pro is $99 a month for 600 tasks, $149 for 1,200 and $199 for 4,000, or $999 billed yearly for 600, and you can add tasks if you run out. Team starts at $249 a month for 5 seats sharing 6,000 tasks. A Done For You tier has custom pricing.
These are the four realistic ways to put Google Ads behind an MCP endpoint in 2026, with PaidSync first as our pick. The community row comes from the two most-starred community repos we checked. There are others, and their tool lists vary, so read the source of any repo before connecting it to a spending account.
| Option | Google Ads tools | Write access | Platforms | Setup | Measurement (GA4, GTM, GSC) | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PaidSync | 158, of which 94 make changes (630+ in all) | Yes, on Google, Meta and LinkedIn | 14 platforms | Hosted. Sign in to PaidSync, then approve Google's consent screen | GA4 26 tools, GTM 39 with publish, GSC 6 read-only | Free for 15 tasks a month with no credit card, then priced by usage, from $99 a month for 600 tasks. |
| Official Google Ads MCP | 3 | No, read-only in 0.0.4. Write access planned, no date | Google Ads only | You host it. Python 3.10 or later or Docker, a Google Cloud project with Explorer access or higher, your own OAuth credentials. No developer token | No | $0 a month for the software, Apache 2.0. You pay your own hosting |
| Community servers (cohnen, gomarble) | 12 (cohnen), 3 (gomarble) | No, read-only in the code | Google Ads only | You host it. The code still asks for a developer token and calls API version 19 | No | $0 a month, MIT |
| DIY on the Google Ads API | Whatever you build | Possible, you build the safety layer | Whatever you build | A Google Cloud project with the right access level, plus engineering time | Separate APIs, separate builds | Engineering cost |
Checked 27 September 2026. Official and community rows come from the live GitHub repos and their code; the PaidSync row comes from our generated tool catalog, summarized on the MCP server page.
Search Console access is read-only, 6 tools. PaidSync creates new campaigns on Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and ChatGPT Ads; on Microsoft, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest and X it takes action inside campaigns you already run. And past the free plan's 15 tasks a month, you pay for usage, from $99 a month for 600 tasks. If everything you need is reporting on Google Ads alone and you can host a server, the official one does that job for free, and you should use it.
Yes. Google's announcement on the Ads Developer Blog (7 October 2025) says: "This initial release is read-only, meaning it can be used for reporting and diagnostics but will not make changes to your account." Release 0.0.4, published on 25 September 2026, is still read-only, and Google's MCP server docs say it "cannot modify bids, pause campaigns, or create new assets." Checked on 27 September 2026.
No. Google's developer token documentation says developer tokens were sunset on 9 September 2026. You can still send one in your API call headers, but Google says it is optional and ignored by the API servers. Your access level now comes from the Google Cloud project you used to create your OAuth credentials, and to query real accounts that project needs at least Explorer access (2,880 Google Ads API operations a day on production accounts). The official server dropped its developer token check in release 0.0.3 on 10 September 2026. On PaidSync you sign in with Google, and there is no token or key to add.
Three: search (runs GAQL queries against your account data), get_resource_metadata (describes the fields of an API resource type such as campaign) and list_accessible_customers (returns the customer IDs your login can reach). It also serves 4 resources: the API discovery document, metrics, segments and release notes. A tools_config.yaml file lets you switch tools on or off. Checked in the GitHub repo on 27 September 2026, at release 0.0.4.
Not yet. It cannot pause or enable campaigns, change budgets or bids, add negative keywords, edit ads or create anything. A Google maintainer wrote on 4 June 2026: "We already have plans to add write access soon", with each write tool to be switched on one by one in the server's YAML config file. No date was given, the maintainer added "we won't accept PRs adding write features", and no write tool had shipped by 27 September 2026. Until then, a human makes the fix in the Google Ads interface, or you use a server that writes, such as PaidSync.
A Google Cloud project with the Google Ads API enabled and at least Explorer access for real accounts, Python 3.10 or later with pipx (or Docker), and one of three credential setups: the FastMCP OAuth proxy with your own OAuth client ID and secret, Application Default Credentials, or a google-ads.yaml file for the Google Ads API Python client. You host it yourself, on your computer or on Google Cloud Run. Google offers no hosted endpoint. A developer token is optional since Google sunset them on 9 September 2026. It is a developer install, not a sign-up flow.
7 October 2025. The announcement, titled "Open Source Google Ads API MCP Server", was published on the Google Ads Developer Blog by the Google Ads API team. The first package, 0.0.1, reached PyPI on 22 October 2025, and the latest release, 0.0.4, came out on 25 September 2026. Some third-party articles date the launch to 2026; the primary source says 7 October 2025.
The two most-starred ones we checked are not. cohnen/mcp-google-ads (709 stars, 12 tools, last code push 16 October 2025) and gomarble-ai/google-ads-mcp-server (145 stars, 3 tools, last push 5 August 2026) only run read queries, and neither calls a Google Ads mutate endpoint. Both still stop with an error when no developer token is set, and both call version 19 of the Google Ads API, which is no longer on Google's list of available versions. On 27 September 2026 the oldest version listed is v22, and Google says requests to a sunset version fail. Read the source of any community repo before connecting it to a live account.
PaidSync is our pick for most teams, and since we build it, read this answer as the vendor's own claim with the facts attached: 158 Google Ads tools, 94 of which make changes, among 630+ tools across 14 platforms. It creates Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping and Demand Gen campaigns, and the same login makes changes on Meta and LinkedIn. By default, new campaigns and ads start paused or as drafts, and budget edits run as a preview first. Live pauses, enables and removals need an explicit confirmation flag, and a Google Ads campaign budget move of more than 50% needs a second one. PaidSync is free for 15 tasks a month on all 14 platforms, with no credit card and no time limit. After that you pay for usage, the tasks your AI runs, not seats or a share of ad spend: Pro is $99 a month for 600 tasks, $149 for 1,200 and $199 for 4,000, or $999 billed yearly for 600, and you can add tasks if you run out. Team starts at $249 a month for 5 seats sharing 6,000 tasks. If you only need reporting and can host a server, the official one is free and first-party, and that is the honest recommendation for that narrower case.
No. It speaks only to the Google Ads API. GA4, Google Tag Manager and Search Console each need their own connection. PaidSync bundles them in one MCP endpoint: 26 GA4 tools including conversion event creation, 39 Google Tag Manager tools covering tags, triggers, variables and publishing, and 6 read-only Search Console tools.