Get LinkedIn Data
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Your LinkedIn API shut down
Proxycurl closed July 4, 2025, after LinkedIn sued over fake logged-in accounts. Dead code. Stranded credits.
Move to public-only supply
No accounts, no logins, no fake profiles. We read the same pages a signed-out visitor sees. The lane that ended Proxycurl is one we are not in.
I'm Dawson Young, founder of CrustAPI. I ran the calls on this page on July 15, 2026, and the receipt below is real output.
Here’s how we’ll move your code
Three steps. One afternoon. No sales call.
Mint a key
Sign up, copy the key. Live the same minute, no onboarding review.
Swap the base URL
Same input, a LinkedIn URL. Clean JSON back.
Map the rest. Ship.
Every Proxycurl endpoint has a home. The full map is below.
What happened to Proxycurl
Proxycurl, built by Nubela, was one of the biggest LinkedIn data APIs, around $10M in revenue by the founder's own number. In January 2025 LinkedIn sued it, alleging hundreds of thousands of fake accounts and the scraping of millions of member profiles.
On July 4, 2025 Proxycurl announced it was shutting down. The founder said a bootstrapped company could not afford to litigate against Microsoft-backed LinkedIn even if it might win, so it settled.
The court-confirmed outcome was a permanent injunction: delete the LinkedIn data obtained through unauthorized means, and stop accessing LinkedIn unlawfully. In 2026 it is still closed, and the successor product does not scrape LinkedIn.
What LinkedIn went after was fake logged-in accounts, not public data collection. CrustAPI uses no accounts, no logins, and no fake profiles. It reads only public pages that anyone can view without signing in. The lane Proxycurl got caught in is one CrustAPI is not in.
Where each Proxycurl endpoint maps
Most of what people used Proxycurl for has a direct home in CrustAPI's one LinkedIn endpoint, switched by a type= parameter.
| Proxycurl endpoint | CrustAPI | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Person Profile | type=profile | Pass a linkedin.com/in/ URL |
| Company Profile | type=company | Pass a linkedin.com/company/ URL |
| Person Search | type=search (beta) | Search by keywords; add enrich=true for full profiles |
| Employee Listing | type=company&employees=true | Returns an employee sample |
| Jobs | type=jobs | Search by keywords and location, or one job by URL |
| Email / contact lookup | Not in the endpoint today | CrustAPI returns the public profile, company, posts, jobs, and people data. Email lookup is not part of it today. |
Proxycurl also had a Posts feed. CrustAPI serves recent public posts for a profile or company with type=posts. Migration questions? Email support@crustapi.com.
Proxycurl vs CrustAPI
| CrustAPI | Proxycurl | |
|---|---|---|
| Status in 2026 | Live | Shut down July 4, 2025 |
| Paid funds expire | Never | Yes, monthly on plans; PAYG expired too |
| Method | Public, logged out, no accounts | LinkedIn alleged fake accounts |
| Free tier | $6 of free usage each month | Not available (closed) |
| Profile speed | ~0.8s server time | n/a |
| Email / contact lookup | Not offered | Had one (3-credit endpoint) |
Proxycurl figures from its shutdown post and its archived pricing page. CrustAPI figures from live calls on July 15, 2026. Something off? Email support@crustapi.com and we'll fix it.
What data do you get?
Here is the exact request and a trimmed version of what came back for a public profile on July 15, 2026. It returned HTTP 200 in 796ms of server time.
We drop LinkedIn's fake guest connections value of 8, so connectionsCount reads 500 the way a signed-out visitor sees it. Full field list is in the docs.
Why expiring credits hurt
Proxycurl credits ran out
On subscriptions they reset each month, and even the pay-as-you-go credits expired after long inactivity. Buy a batch, pause a project, come back to a smaller balance.
CrustAPI paid funds stay available
What you buy stays yours until you use it, and our terms say so in writing. A seasonal or on-and-off workload keeps its balance between runs.
You pay per successful call
Pay per successful call. A private or empty profile returns a clean 200 with a note and costs nothing, so failed pulls don't quietly bill you.
Nothing to get banned
There is no LinkedIn account behind these calls, so there is no login to restrict and no daily cap tied to a session. It reads the same pages a logged-out visitor sees.
Public, logged-out, no accounts
CrustAPI reads public pages while signed out. No account, no login, no fake profiles, no CAPTCHA solving. It only reads what any signed-out visitor sees. That logged-out, public-only approach has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims.
In hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, the Ninth Circuit held in 2019, reaffirmed on April 18, 2022, that scraping a public website is not access "without authorization" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A public page has no login gate to circumvent.
To be fair about how that case ended: hiQ ultimately lost on contract, not hacking. A court found it had breached LinkedIn's User Agreement, including by using fake accounts, and it settled for $500,000 and shut down.
The point that stands is narrow: reading a public page is not hacking. The loss was for violating a contract hiQ had agreed to.
Two more recent rulings involve public data. In Meta v. Bright Data (January 23, 2024, Judge Chen), a federal court ruled that the Facebook and Instagram terms do not bar logged-off scraping of public data.
In X Corp. v. Bright Data (May 9, 2024, Judge Alsup), the court dismissed X's claims on a motion to dismiss, finding attempts to block copying of public data preempted by federal copyright law.
Those two decisions are district-court rulings, persuasive but not nationwide binding precedent, and they turned on those platforms' specific terms. The summary is that logged-out, public-only collection has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims, not that scraping is settled law. What drew Proxycurl's injunction was fake accounts, which is logging in, not reading a public page. This is background, not legal advice. Check your own use with a lawyer.
Who this isn't for
A clean migration means being straight about the gaps. Skip CrustAPI if:
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Common questions
No. Proxycurl shut down on July 4, 2025 after a LinkedIn lawsuit, and in 2026 its site says it is no longer in service. LinkedIn had filed a federal lawsuit in January 2025, alleging the unauthorized creation of fake accounts and scraping of member profiles, and the case ended with a permanent injunction. CrustAPI is a live LinkedIn data API you can move to.
Because the issue LinkedIn raised was not public reading. LinkedIn alleged Proxycurl created fake accounts and logged in, which crosses an authorization gate. CrustAPI uses no accounts, no logins, and no fake profiles. It reads only public pages a signed-out visitor can see, and that logged-out, public-only collection has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims. This is background, not legal advice; check your own use with a lawyer.
Most of them. Person Profile becomes type=profile, Company Profile becomes type=company, Person Search becomes type=search (beta), Employee Listing becomes type=company with employees=true, and Jobs becomes type=jobs. The one thing with no equivalent today is Proxycurl's email and contact lookup.
Not from this endpoint today. CrustAPI returns the public profile, company, posts, jobs, and people data. Email lookup is not part of the response right now.
No. Purchased CrustAPI funds never expire, and the terms of service state this in writing. Proxycurl credits reset monthly on plans, and even its pay-as-you-go credits expired after long inactivity.
For a public profile, fields like name, headline, current title and company, location, follower count, connections count, work experience, education, and skills. Skills can be empty on some profiles. A live call on July 15, 2026 returned in about 0.8 seconds of server time.
Profiles and companies come back in about a second, measured near 0.8 seconds of server processing time on July 15, 2026, with wall-clock a bit higher because of network. People search is discovery-level and slower, usually about one to three seconds.
LinkedIn Person, Company and Posts cost $6.00 per 1,000 successful requests at standard prices, down to $1.50 for the largest deposit. Work email lookup is included. People with Full profiles uses that rate per full profile returned. Empty and inaccessible results are free. Paid funds never expire.
You are not charged. A private or empty result returns a clean HTTP 200 with a null value and a note, and it costs $0. You pay only for calls that return data.
Clay
Get LinkedIn Data Or You Don’t Pay.
Pay per successful call. A private or empty profile costs nothing. Run your real pulls tonight.
Related: LinkedIn API · Public LinkedIn API · LinkedIn enrichment API · LinkedIn company API