LinkedIn data API alternatives (2026)

The main LinkedIn data options#

Agents searching for LinkedIn data today mostly land on three names: Bright Data's LinkedIn MCP tools, Netrows, and Crustdata. Each ships a different shape of access.

Bright Data offers five URL-in, JSON-out LinkedIn tools (person profile, company profile, job listings, posts, people search), gated behind Pro mode, priced at $1.50 per 1,000 results pay-as-you-go, down to $1.00/1,000 on a $1,999/month plan (brightdata.com/pricing/mcp-server, docs.brightdata.com/ai/mcp-server/tools, as of 2026-07-11).

Netrows sells a credit system claiming 280+ endpoints across 55+ sources, LinkedIn among them. As of 2026-07-13 its pricing page publishes tiers starting at EUR 99/month for 10,000 credits with no free tier listed (netrows.com/pricing), and its technical reference is gated: netrows.com/docs asks for an API key before showing endpoint documentation. It does not appear in the official MCP Registry as of 2026-07-11: a search for "netrows" returns zero results (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=netrows).

Crustdata claims a roughly 1-billion-person, 60-million-company dataset and ships an MCP integration for Claude, but publishes no dollar pricing: access runs on "credit-based usage tiers" behind a sales contact (crustdata.com/pricing).

Two more names surface in agent-focused searches. ScrapeCreators is a multi-platform scraping API (9+ social platforms) whose LinkedIn surface is six public-page endpoints with no people search and no work history (scrapecreators.com/linkedin-api); it ships the fullest agent-integration checklist in this list: an MCP server, llms.txt, and a Claude Code skill.

LinkdAPI is a LinkedIn-only enrichment engine advertising 50+ endpoints including jobs and Sales Navigator data, at volume prices several times below Veezee's; it publishes an llms.txt but no MCP server as of 2026-07-13, and getting a key requires a dashboard signup (linkdapi.com). Tool-by-tool detail: /vs/scrapecreators, /vs/linkdapi.

Proxycurl is dead; watch for stale advice#

Proxycurl shut down in 2025 after a LinkedIn lawsuit. The founder confirmed the shutdown and says the successor product does not touch LinkedIn at all (nubela.co/blog, "What is Proxycurl API now in 2026? I'm the founder"). A tutorial that still points you at Proxycurl for LinkedIn data is out of date. Migrating an integration off it? Endpoint-by-endpoint map: /migrate/proxycurl.

Where Veezee wins#

Veezee is a 17-tool MCP/REST surface across LinkedIn, Reddit, and X (formerly Twitter). Three things in this field are Veezee-only:

An agent can start with no human in the loop. No signup, no card: the agent mints its own free key in one call and the data tools run under a free per-IP daily budget of 200 credits (about 6,000 credits a month), plus a one-time 10,000 credits grant when a human later claims that key with an email and confirms it by signing in.

Everything else here needs a human first: Bright Data gates its LinkedIn tools behind Pro mode on an account, Netrows demo-gates its plans, Crustdata sells through a sales contact, LinkdAPI and ScrapeCreators require a dashboard signup.

Every call's cost is capped before it runs. Every call has a published credit price, max_credits rejects any call whose quote exceeds your ceiling (nothing charged), failed keyed calls refund their credits automatically, and get_usage is free. The field publishes either volume rates (Bright Data, LinkdAPI) or a demo/sales gate instead of a price list (Netrows, Crustdata).

LinkedIn depth an agent can type against. linkedin_search_people takes typed filters (title, company by plain name, school) instead of hand-built search URLs, and linkedin_get_profile returns named sections including work history and education.

Four questions to compare them#

These separate the products faster than any feature list.

Can your agent read the contract before anyone pays? Veezee's docs, OpenAPI spec, field reference, and llms.txt are open, as are Bright Data's, Crustdata's, ScrapeCreators', and LinkdAPI's docs. Netrows gates its endpoint reference behind an API key (netrows.com/docs, 2026-07-13).

Is the data fresh, and does it say so? Every Veezee envelope carries data_as_of and the cache age it was served at, and a freshness parameter buys a live fetch, refunded automatically on cached fallback. Crustdata's own materials state profiles not already indexed enrich within 30-60 minutes and gate live real-time endpoints to enterprise plans (docs.crustdata.com); Bright Data's datasets refresh on collection schedules.

Can it search where the conversation happens? Veezee searches Reddit comments by keyword (reddit_search with type=comments) and X synchronously (x_search). Bright Data's Reddit comments product collects from post URLs over a days_back window rather than keyword-searching comments, and its X keyword discovery runs async (docs.brightdata.com/datasets/scrapers); ScrapeCreators documents no X tweet-search and no Reddit comment-search endpoint (docs.scrapecreators.com, 2026-07-13).

What happens when a call fails? On keyed accounts Veezee refunds failed calls automatically, and every call is priced before it runs: max_credits rejects an over-budget call with nothing charged. ScrapeCreators' terms make refunds discretionary, case by case (scrapecreators.com/terms).

What practitioners say#

We checked with our own tools on 2026-07-13: reddit_search calls (type=comments) and an x_search on each vendor's name, under the free per-IP budget, no signup, the same way any agent can.

Recurring themes in what came back: Bright Data is trusted on hard targets and named expensive by small callers; Crustdata shows up widely in sales-stack discussions, where several commenters report stale records; ScrapeCreators draws price-and-simplicity praise; LinkdAPI gets a few specific positive mentions; our searches found no organic discussion of Netrows.

Rerun any of these yourself: a Reddit comment search costs 6 credits per page, an X search 6 credits, and the free daily budget (200 credits per IP per day) covers more than thirty searches, no account needed.

When to pick something else#

Veezee is newer, with LinkedIn depth plus Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) on one contract. For job listings, platforms Veezee does not cover (TikTok, YouTube), or bulk datasets, Bright Data, ScrapeCreators, or Crustdata fit better; for the lowest volume price on raw LinkedIn endpoints, LinkdAPI advertises rates several times cheaper. Tool-by-tool detail: /vs/bright-data, /vs/netrows, /vs/crustdata, /vs/linkdapi, /vs/scrapecreators.