LinkedIn profile data is the foundation of B2B lead enrichment. Job titles, work history, education, skills, connections. Every outbound sales tool, every enrichment pipeline, every recruiting platform needs it.
The problem: pricing is opaque. Most providers bury their rates behind "contact sales" buttons or complicated credit systems that make it hard to compare apples to apples. Here is the real breakdown.
The Providers
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn's own premium product. Browser-based search and filtering with InMail credits. You get 2,500 lead saves per month, but there is no API, no programmatic access, and no way to export data at scale. Every lookup is manual.
Best for: Sales reps doing manual prospecting. Not for developers.
Proxycurl
Well-documented REST API with broad coverage across profiles, companies, and job postings. Minimum $49/mo for 500 credits, which expire at the end of each billing cycle. Rate limit of 300 requests per minute. Multiple endpoints at different credit costs.
Best for: Teams that also need company data and job posting enrichment.
PhantomBuster
A full automation platform, not just a data API. Starter plan is $56/mo for 500 credits, Pro is $128/mo for 2,500, and Team is $352/mo for 10,000. Credits are shared across all "Phantoms" (automations), so LinkedIn scraping competes with your other workflows. Credits expire monthly.
Best for: Growth teams running multi-platform automations beyond just LinkedIn.
Nubela / RocketReach / Clearbit
Various providers that bundle LinkedIn data with email finding and company enrichment. Pricing ranges from $50 to $200/mo minimum depending on the provider and plan. Most charge per-credit with different rates for different data types.
Best for: Teams that want a single vendor for both profile data and verified emails.
ScrapeLinkedIn
Single REST API endpoint. No monthly minimums, no subscriptions, credits never expire. 5 free profiles on signup with no credit card required. Smallest paid package is $1 for 100 credits. Failed lookups are automatically refunded. Results are cached for 24 hours.
Best for: Developers who want the simplest, cheapest access to LinkedIn profile data.
Cost at Scale
This is the table worth bookmarking. What you actually pay each month at different volumes.
| Profiles/mo | Sales Nav | ScrapeLinkedIn | Proxycurl | PhantomBuster | RocketReach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | $99* | $0.50 | $49 | $56 | $80 |
| 100 | $99* | $1 | $49 | $56 | $80 |
| 500 | $99* | $5 | $49 | $56 | $80 |
| 1,000 | N/A | $10 | $49 | $56 | $150 |
| 5,000 | N/A | $50 | $150 | $128 | $300 |
| 10,000 | N/A | $100 | $300 | $352 | $600 |
| 50,000 | N/A | $500 | $1,500+ | Custom | Custom |
*Sales Navigator is manual-only. No API, no exports, no automation.
Hidden Costs to Watch For
The per-profile price is only part of the story. Here are the costs that do not show up on the pricing page.
- Expired credits. Both Proxycurl and PhantomBuster reset unused credits at the end of each billing cycle. If you buy 500 credits and use 200, you lose 300. With pay-as-you-go providers, you only pay for what you use.
- Overage charges. Some providers charge premium rates once you exceed your plan limits. Check whether overages are billed at 1x or 1.5x your normal rate.
- Failed lookups still charged. Not every provider refunds credits for profiles that cannot be found. ScrapeLinkedIn auto-refunds failures. Others do not. Ask before you buy.
- Multiple endpoints, different prices. A "profile lookup" might cost 1 credit, but a "company lookup" costs 2, and a "search" costs 5. Read the fine print on what each credit actually buys.
- Seat-based pricing multiplies fast. Sales Navigator at $99/seat means $495/mo for a team of 5. Platform-level tools are even worse. Per-credit APIs avoid this entirely.
The $0.01 Math
Here is what a typical enrichment pipeline looks like at $0.01 per profile.
- 1,000 leads enriched: $10
- 15-20% qualify after filtering: 150-200 qualified leads
- Cost per qualified lead: $0.05 - $0.07
Compare that to buying pre-built lists at $0.50 to $2.00 per lead, or the opportunity cost of manual research at 2-3 minutes per profile. At 1,000 profiles, manual research is roughly 40 hours of work. The API call takes under a second.
Bottom line: At $0.01 per profile, LinkedIn data stops being a line item in your budget and becomes a rounding error. The question shifts from "can we afford this data?" to "what else can we build with it?"
Frequently Asked Questions
Is scraping LinkedIn legal?
Accessing publicly available LinkedIn profile data via API is common practice across the B2B data industry. Major providers like Proxycurl, RocketReach, and ScrapeLinkedIn all operate in this space. The 2022 hiQ v. LinkedIn ruling affirmed that scraping public data does not violate the CFAA.
Do ScrapeLinkedIn credits expire?
No, never. Buy credits once and use them whenever you need them. This is different from Proxycurl and PhantomBuster, which reset unused credits at the end of each month.
What happens if a profile can't be found?
You are not charged. ScrapeLinkedIn automatically refunds the credit for any failed lookup. Some other providers still deduct a credit for profiles that return no data.
Can I try it before buying credits?
Yes. Every new account gets 5 free credits with no credit card required. Register, verify your email, and start making API requests in under a minute.
Is there a rate limit?
Individual requests are limited to 10 per minute. For higher throughput, use the batch endpoint which accepts up to 1,000 profiles per request. Both options use the same $0.01 per profile pricing.
5 free profiles. See the data before you spend a dollar.
No credit card required. Register and start making API calls in under a minute.
Get Your API Key