What do top-ranked connectors and plugins have in common?

What does it take to get my connector to the top of ChatGPT or Claude?

The connectors at the top are mostly tools that people already use every day. The top of both stores is email, files, calendars, chat and tickets. It is not famous consumer brands: Spotify ranks #216 in ChatGPT and Uber #1,357, while a fantasy sports plugin called Flaim Fantasy ranks #4.

Some context: neither store publishes installs or usage, only a rank. We compared the top 100 in ChatGPT and in Claude with every other ranked app in the same store, as of October 20, 2026, to see what the leaders share.

What does a store rank actually measure?

In Claude, it is usage. Anthropic's developer docs say rank counts the distinct Claude accounts that sent a connector any MCP message in the last 30 days.

In ChatGPT, it is partly editorial. OpenAI does not say how it orders its directory. Its submission guidelines say only that useful, well-liked plugins may get "enhanced distribution opportunities, such as directory placement." So a high ChatGPT position can mean many users or an editorial pick.

Either way, a rank tells you a connector is ahead of others in that store, not by how much. That is why we never compare a ChatGPT rank with a Claude rank directly.

Who is at the top today?

Here is ChatGPT's top 10, with today's ranks in both stores. Five of the ten are developer tools, although developer tools are only 11% of ranked ChatGPT plugins.

Claude's top 10 is all business software: Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Canva, Microsoft 365, Notion, Figma, Slack, HubSpot and Asana. The two stores agree more than you might expect: 40 apps are in the top 100 of both.

What kinds of connectors make the top 100?

Everyday work tools. In ChatGPT, docs, files and email are 13% of the top 100 but 5% of the store. Travel, shopping and learning together are about 14% of the store, and none of them has a plugin in the top 100.

Claude tilts the same way, with one twist. Design and creative tools are 15% of Claude's top 100 and 4% of its ranked connectors: Canva, Figma, Adobe, Miro and Gamma are all in the top 25.

What else do the top 100 share?

• They sign you in to an account you already have. Gmail, Drive and Jira are only useful once they can see your own data. Almost half of the rest of ChatGPT's directory needs no sign-in at all.
• They are reviewed. Every one of Claude's top 100 is Verified or built by Anthropic, against 14% of the rest. But new connectors start as Community, and Anthropic escalates useful ones to review (Anthropic), so usage can lead to the checkmark as much as the reverse.
• They are in both stores. Three in four leaders are in both, against one in four for everyone else. Big companies ship everywhere, so this is partly a size signal.
• They are not more cautious. About 60% of tools only read data, for leaders and everyone else alike. Our post on read, write and delete tools has the detail.

Will a famous brand get me to the top?

Less than you might expect, and much less in ChatGPT than in Claude. In Claude, Indeed is #19, Spotify #22, Strava #33, Booking.com #39 and Expedia #57. In ChatGPT, Walmart is #212, Spotify #216, Expedia #279, Zillow #311, Target #558 and Uber #1,357, and all of these plugins show interactive UI.

Our reading is that a famous name helps once a connector does a job people repeat. A single trip or order is not that kind of job. Flaim Fantasy is the counterexample: not a household name, but fantasy managers check their leagues every week, and it works with the leagues they already have.

Do I need more tools to rank higher?

No. The median top-100 ChatGPT plugin has 34 tools against 9 for the rest, but we think that is company size, not a recipe. Inside the top 100 there is no link between tool count and position, and across the store plugins with 1 to 5 tools rank about the same as plugins with more than 100.

The extremes make the point. The three largest tool sets in ChatGPT (767, 624 and 590 tools) rank #3,279, #3,893 and #5,844. Meanwhile Exa has 2 tools and ranks #13 in ChatGPT, and Indeed has 2 tools and ranks #19 in Claude.

How do top connectors describe themselves?

In plain words, usually starting with a verb. Gmail's ChatGPT listing reads: "Use Gmail to summarize inbox activity, draft replies, and organize email threads through the connected Gmail app." Atlassian's subtitle is just "Jira, Confluence, Loom, & more." About half of ChatGPT's top 100 open with an action verb, against about a quarter of the rest.

This matters more now that both stores suggest connectors in the chat. When Claude offers one, the user sees a name, a logo and one short line. That line is the pitch.

So, what should you do?

Start from a job people repeat. Email, files, calendars, tickets and leagues come back every day or week. One-off jobs rank lower, even with famous names attached.

Connect to the account people already have. Sign-in to real user data is close to universal at the top.

Ship in both stores. Three in four leaders do, and a brand can do much better in one store than the other.

Write the first line for a stranger. Lead with a verb and the things the user already knows (an inbox, a ticket, a league). Don't chase tool count; build the tools the job needs.

Methodology

We read the ChatGPT and Claude directories every day; all numbers here are from October 20, 2026. "Top 100" means a rank of 100 or better in that store, and "rest" means every other ranked app in the same store. These are correlations, and the top 100 is full of big companies with many existing users. Categories and audiences are our own labels. More on our method page.