How Claude Skills, Plugins and MCP Connectors Differ

Claude users can choose among skills, MCP connectors and plugins when configuring workflows, but the three options serve different purposes. A HubSpot Marketing guide separates them into procedural instructions, connections to outside services and packages for sharing tools across a team. For marketers, the distinction can help clarify whether a task needs guidance, access to information, or both.

MCP connectors provide a link between Claude and an external service. Those services can include files, calendars, issue trackers and customer relationship management systems. The connection runs through an MCP server, which the service operates. Once a connector is enabled, Claude can read information from the service and take actions there within the permissions already available to the user.

A skill serves a different role: it provides written instructions for carrying out a task. Claude loads the relevant instructions when a request matches the subject covered by the skill. A team could use one to specify a report format, set out a review checklist or describe the brand voice it wants applied. Skills can also include scripts and reference files alongside their written directions.

The distinction matters when a workflow depends on current information from another service. A skill can describe what Claude should do with that information, including how to use data supplied through a connector. The skill itself, however, does not create a live connection to the service. Access to that source remains the connector’s job, while the skill supplies the procedure for handling the task.

Plugins address how these components are distributed. They can bring skills, MCP connectors, commands and sub-agents together in one package that a team can install and share. That makes a plugin different from either an individual instruction set or a connection to a service: its role is to deliver a collection of components rather than perform only one of those functions.

What this means for marketers

Start by identifying what the workflow lacks. Use a skill to set out a repeatable method, such as a brand-voice review, and a connector when Claude needs authorized access to an outside service. Where a team needs to share a collection of components, a plugin can package them for installation. Keeping those roles separate makes it easier to choose the appropriate setup.