What Is LinkedIn API? Complete Guide On How It Works in 2026

LinkedIn holds valuable data for millions of professionals and businesses worldwide.

With over 1 billion users, it's a core prospecting channel for recruiters, sales reps, and marketers doing lead generation or market research.

When manual copy-paste and scraping tools aren't viable, the LinkedIn API becomes your programmatic option — if you can get approved.

If you can negotiate reasonable pricing using the LinkedIn API is a game changer for sales teams.

If you could reduce the time identifying prospecting and enriching their contact data by 50% think of the impact.

How much more effective would your sales teams be with more time speaking to prospects rather than doing sales prep.

In this article, I'll cover:

1. What is LinkedIn API?
2. How To Become A LinkedIn Partner?
3. LinkedIn API Approval Process: What to Expect
4. How Much Does LinkedIn Scraper API Cost?
5. Types of LinkedIn APIs
6. Alternatives To LinkedIn API

What is LinkedIn API?

The LinkedIn API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of programmatic endpoints that lets authorized developers and businesses request, read, and write LinkedIn data — such as profiles, connections, and posts — within their own applications.

To access it, you must first become an approved LinkedIn Partner.

With LinkedIn API, you can gather information from LinkedIn profiles such as:

• user IDs
• names
• cities
• job titles
• profiles
• posts
• current company details
• work experience

LinkedIn Scraper API improves application functionality and user experience, offering flexibility and scalability without infrastructure, proxy server, or blocking concerns.

By leveraging this API, you enhance your product's capabilities and extract valuable LinkedIn data within the boundaries LinkedIn sets.

Does LinkedIn provide an API?

Yes, LinkedIn provides an official API — but access is restricted to approved partners only.

Since 2015, LinkedIn removed open public API access.

Today, developers must apply to a partner program and wait for review before they can use any LinkedIn API endpoints.

This gating exists to protect user privacy and prevent abuse.

If your use case doesn't align with LinkedIn's partner categories (Talent, Marketing, Sales, Learning), you won't get approved.

Important note:

The LinkedIn partner programs spends long periods paused to new application.

LinkedIn API vs. Web Scraping: What's the Difference?

LinkedIn API and web scraping both let you extract LinkedIn data, but the methods, legality, and access differ sharply.

If you need a handful of profiles per day and can wait months for approval, LinkedIn API is the compliant route.

If you need hundreds of leads per day and can't wait, tools like Evaboot (which scrapes Sales Navigator) are the practical choice.

We stay within LinkedIn's usage policies by mimicking human behavior.

What You Can and Can't Do with LinkedIn APIs

LinkedIn's official APIs unlock specific use cases, but they come with hard limitations most developers don't realize until after approval.

What you can do

What you can't do

If your use case is outbound prospecting, recruiting, or lead generation at scale, the official LinkedIn API won't support it.

That's why most teams rely on tools like Evaboot, which extract data from Sales Navigator directly.

How To Become A LinkedIn Partner?

The LinkedIn Partner Program is the gateway to LinkedIn API access.

Getting approved can take weeks or months, so choose the category that best fits your business and apply accordingly.

You need to apply to a specific partner program to get LinkedIn API access.

While LinkedIn's APIs, including the Sales Navigator API, are powerful, accessing them is complex and time-consuming.

Even if the LinkedIn API program is open, and you get approved, the limitations and rate caps will slow you down fast.

That's why we built the Evaboot API.

Instead of applying for partner access, you can connect your Sales Navigator account and start exporting, enriching, and verifying leads at scale in minutes — without breaking the bank.

No hoops. No delays. Just clean LinkedIn data, ready for action.

Here's how it works:

Types of LinkedIn Partner Programs

LinkedIn organizes partner access into four main tracks. Each unlocks different APIs and has its own qualification criteria.

1. Marketing Developer Program

For: Marketing automation platforms, social media management tools, analytics providers.

What it unlocks: Advertising API, Organization API, Share API, UGC API.

Who qualifies: Companies with an established product, active user base, and a marketing use case that complements LinkedIn's ad platform.

Approval criteria: LinkedIn reviews your product roadmap, user volume, and compliance posture. You'll need to demonstrate you can handle member data responsibly.

2. Sales Navigator Solutions

For: Sales tech startups building on top of Sales Navigator (e.g., CRM integrations, outreach automation, lead enrichment).

What it unlocks: Limited Sales Navigator API endpoints (varies by partnership tier).

Who qualifies: Companies serving Sales Navigator customers with a product that enhances the Sales Navigator workflow.

Approval criteria: LinkedIn prioritizes partners with significant Sales Navigator seat volume and a clear integration plan. This is the hardest track to access.

3. Talent Solutions Partnership

For: Applicant tracking systems (ATS), recruiting platforms, HR tech providers.

What it unlocks: Profile API, Job Postings API (for partners with active job slot agreements).

Who qualifies: Recruiting software vendors with a large customer base and active job posting volume on LinkedIn.

Approval criteria: LinkedIn evaluates your ATS's reach, compliance history, and integration depth. Smaller HR tools rarely get approved.

4. LinkedIn Learning Partner Program

For: Learning management systems (LMS), content platforms, corporate training providers.

What it unlocks: LinkedIn Learning API for content embedding and reporting.

Who qualifies: LMS vendors and enterprise L&D platforms with significant user bases.

Approval criteria: LinkedIn looks for established platforms with strong content governance and data protection practices.

If your use case doesn't fit one of these four tracks, you won't get LinkedIn API access — period.

LinkedIn API Approval Process: What to Expect

Getting LinkedIn API access isn't automatic. Here's what the approval process actually looks like.

1. Key requirements

Before you apply, LinkedIn expects:

• A live product with real users (no prototypes or MVPs)
• A verified company page on LinkedIn
• A clear use case that fits one of the four partner tracks
• Data protection policies that comply with GDPR, CCPA, and LinkedIn's terms
• An existing business relationship with LinkedIn (helpful but not required)

2. What LinkedIn reviews

Once you submit your application, LinkedIn evaluates:

• Product-market fit: Does your integration serve LinkedIn's ecosystem?
• Data security: Can you protect member data?
• Compliance history: Have you violated LinkedIn's terms before?
• Scale: Do you have enough users to justify API access?

3. Typical timelines

• Initial review: 2–4 weeks
• Follow-up questions: 1–2 weeks per round
• Final approval (or rejection): 4–12 weeks total

Some applications sit in review for months. Others get rejected outright.

4. Common rejection reasons

5. What to do if rejected

If LinkedIn rejects your application:

• Request feedback. LinkedIn sometimes explains why you didn't qualify.
• Wait 6–12 months. Reapplying immediately rarely works.
• Build scale first. Grow your user base and reapply later.
• Use third-party tools. If you need LinkedIn data now, tools like Evaboot don't require partner approval.

This is a very time-consuming and painful process. If this process isn't mandatory for your business, you're better off using scraping tools like Evaboot.

How Much Does LinkedIn Scraper API Cost?

LinkedIn API access ranges from free (up to 3 profiles) to $499/month (up to 10,000 profiles), depending on your plan.

Wait — scratch that. Those pricing tiers are not real.

LinkedIn does not publish public API pricing like SaaS software. Access is granted via partner approval, and terms are negotiated case-by-case.

If you see pricing tables like "Basic Plan $0 / Standard $59 / Premium $499" circulating online, ignore them. They're fabricated or outdated.

Here's what LinkedIn API access actually costs:

• No public price list. You negotiate pricing with LinkedIn after partner approval.
• Volume-based. LinkedIn charges based on API call volume, user seats, or job slot agreements (depending on the partner track).
• Enterprise deals only. If you're approved, you'll sign a commercial agreement with LinkedIn. There's no self-serve checkout.

Some users experience includes:

For small teams and startups, the barrier isn't the price — it's getting approved in the first place.

If you need LinkedIn data without the partner gate, tools like Evaboot let you export Sales Navigator leads at a flat monthly rate with no approval process.

How Does LinkedIn Scraper API Work?

LinkedIn API provides a variety of products and permissions for professionals to engage in, such as:

• Consumer to enhance their sign-in experience and share content
• Marketing tools to build technology to grow B2B communities and businesses
• Sales to integrate with LinkedIn's APIs for sales professionals
• Talent for finding the right candidates with LinkedIn's data and insights
• Learning to add Learning content and reporting to your app
• Plugins for offering LinkedIn functionality inside a website
• Regulatory Developer Products for accessing LinkedIn user and page data

LinkedIn APIs can be used only by businesses and app developers who received authorization to leverage data and features from LinkedIn to meet business needs, like building applications or integrations.

Follow LinkedIn's API Terms of Use and Developer Agreement to understand your web scraping limitations and usage policies.

Now let's see what the LinkedIn API system consists of:

1. API Key Features

LinkedIn API is a versatile toolkit with 14 resource methods tailored to specific needs.

LinkedIn developed and uses the Rest.li framework for building RESTful architectures at scale and developing microservices in response to member requests.

Rest.li is LinkedIn's open-source framework for building type-safe RESTful APIs at scale using a resource-oriented model.

For user authorization and API authentication, the LinkedIn API uses OAuth 2.0.

OAuth 2.0, or Open Authorization, is a protocol that allows websites or applications to access user data from other web applications securely.

OAuth 2.0 ensures that client applications can access specific resources on behalf of a user without sharing the user's credentials.

This protocol is critical to the LinkedIn API because it provides secure, permission-based access to LinkedIn data.

This enables developers to build applications that can interact with LinkedIn in a secure and efficient manner.

2. Authorization

There are two types of Authorization Flows:

1. Member Authorization (3-legged OAuth flow)

Member Authorization is user permission that allows an application to access a LinkedIn member's data.

When to use: Ideal for applications that need direct access to a member's LinkedIn data.

Permissions: Request only the permissions necessary to protect member data.

2. Application Authorization (2-legged OAuth flow)

Application authorization allows an application to access LinkedIn resources that are not member-specific without requiring individual member permissions.

When to use: Suitable for accessing non-member-specific data, such as some marketing APIs.

Permissions: Request only the minimal permissions needed for your use case.

3. User Consent and Permission

If your application needs to access a user's LinkedIn data, it must first obtain the user's explicit consent through LinkedIn's OAuth 2.0 authorization process.

This ensures that users are aware of and approve of the data your application will access, protecting their privacy and maintaining trust.

4. API Rate Limits

The LinkedIn API enforces rate limits to prevent abuse and ensure efficient request management.

Adherence to these limits is critical to avoid restrictions or bans. Each application has a daily request limit, and exceeding this limit results in a 429 error code indicating too many requests.

By regularly monitoring your application's usage and respecting its limits, you can ensure continuous access to LinkedIn data points.

5. Data Usage and Protection

Once you access LinkedIn data, use it responsibly and for authorized purposes.

Don't spam LinkedIn users or follow unauthorized marketing or other unethical practices.

You must protect the dataset collected by LinkedIn.

Types of LinkedIn APIs

LinkedIn organizes its API products by use case. Here's what each API does and who it's for.

1. Profile API

What it does: Retrieves a user's profile data (name, headline, photo, location).

Who it's for: Consumer apps that let users sign in with LinkedIn and display their profile.

Limitations: You can only access profile data for users who authenticate with your app. You can't bulk-fetch profiles by search criteria.

2. Share API

What it does: Lets users post text, links, images, and videos to their LinkedIn feed.

Who it's for: Social media management tools, content platforms, marketing automation software.

Limitations: You can't post on behalf of a user without their OAuth token. No bulk posting or automation beyond what LinkedIn allows.

3. Organization API

What it does: Retrieves and manages data for LinkedIn Company Pages.

Who it's for: Marketing platforms that manage multiple brand pages, analytics tools, social listening software.

Limitations: You can only access pages you manage. No access to competitor pages or public company data at scale.

4. UGC API (User-Generated Content)

What it does: Lets you create, read, and manage user-generated posts and comments.

Who it's for: Community platforms, employee advocacy tools, content aggregators.

Limitations: You need user authorization for each action. Rate limits apply per user, not per app.

5. Connections API

What it does: Returns a user's connection count and basic network data.

Who it's for: Networking apps, CRM integrations, relationship management tools.

Limitations: You can't access a full list of a user's connections. LinkedIn restricts this to protect privacy.

6. Compliance API

What it does: Lets you report content that violates LinkedIn's policies.

Who it's for: Moderation tools, trust and safety platforms, community management software.

Limitations: You can report content, but LinkedIn decides what action to take. No bulk reporting.

7. Advertising API

What it does: Programmatically create, manage, and report on LinkedIn ad campaigns.

Who it's for: Marketing automation platforms, ad agencies, analytics providers.

Limitations: Requires Marketing Developer Program approval. You can't access campaign data for advertisers you don't manage.

8. Sales Navigator API

What it does: Exposes limited Sales Navigator functionality for approved partners.

Who it's for: CRM vendors, sales engagement platforms, lead enrichment tools.

Limitations: This is the most restricted API. LinkedIn grants access only to large, established partners. You can't bulk-export Sales Navigator search results via the API.

If your use case is prospecting or lead generation, the official Sales Navigator API won't work. That's why tools like Evaboot exist — they extract Sales Navigator data directly without requiring partner approval.

How To Set Up LinkedIn Scraper API?

Now that you know what LinkedIn Scraper API is and how it works, here's a clear tutorial on how to get started.

1. Create a new application

Sign in to the LinkedIn Developer Portal and click Create a new App by entering details such as name, LinkedIn URL, and company logo.

2. Request App Verification

Once you've added your company, click "Verify".

Once you verify your company, send the verification link to your company page administrator.

After confirmation, you'll get your API key and can proceed to the next step.

3. Complete the OAuth2.0 Flow

On the Auth tab, register your app's OAuth redirect URL.

Choose the Advertising, Community Management, Lead Sync or Conversions API under the Products tab of your app.

Ensure your app has the required scopes based on your chosen products.

In this picture, you can see the scope for developers who want to build marketing-related integration by using Advertising API permissions.

4. Store and Protect User Data

Once you're all set, you need to store the scraped data and client IDs securely in a secret database or vault.

To protect your data, follow these practices:

• Secure your API keys by keeping them out of the application's front end.
• Ensure all communications involving token exchanges or sensitive data use HTTPS.
• To prevent redirection attacks, validate all redirect URIs.
• Regularly monitor your API usage for unusual activity and potential security breaches.
• Implement token expiration and refresh mechanisms to maintain security.

How To Do Token Introspection?

Token introspection is the process of querying LinkedIn's OAuth server to verify whether an access token is still active, and to retrieve its associated metadata such as expiry time, scope, and authorization type.

The token introspection tool allows developers to check the time to live (TTL) and status of all tokens, including enterprise tokens.

Here is an example of a token introspection.

Let's say I'm sending a POST request to the following endpoint:

`curl --location --request POST 'https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/introspectToken' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
--data-urlencode 'client_id=<Application Client ID>' \
--data-urlencode 'client_secret=<Application Client Secret>' \
--data-urlencode 'token=<Token Value>'

The request must include:

• client_id: This is your application's unique identifier provided by LinkedIn
• client_secret: This is a secret key associated with your application, used for secure communication
• token: This is the token you wish to inspect. It can be obtained through the Client Credential Flow (2-legged OAuth), Authorization Code Flow (3-legged OAuth), or Enterprise OAuth Flow

As a response, you get the following:

The response can provide detailed information about the token, such as:

• Active: A boolean indicator of whether the token is active
• Status: The status of the token, which can be "active", "revoked", or "expired"
• Scope: A comma-separated list of permission scopes associated with the token, displayed for 3-legged OAuth tokens
• client_id: The client ID associated with the token
• created_at: The timestamp when the token was issued
• expires_at: The timestamp when the token will expire
• authorized_at: The timestamp when the token was authorized
• auth_type: Indicates the type of token, which can be "2L" for application tokens, "3L" for member tokens, or "Enterprise_User" for enterprise tokens

Lastly, you will also receive the following HTTP Response status codes:

• 200 (Success): Indicates the token introspection request was successful
• 400 (Invalid client ID or token): The provided client ID or token is incorrect
• 401 (Invalid client secret): The client secret is incorrect

LinkedIn API Documentation

Once you're approved for LinkedIn API access, you'll need the official documentation to understand endpoint schemas, request formats, and rate limits.

LinkedIn hosts its API docs in two places:

• developer.linkedin.com — Core API reference, OAuth flows, product catalog
• learn.microsoft.com/linkedin — Detailed guides, error codes, sample requests

The Microsoft Learn site is the most complete resource. It covers:

• Authentication flows (3-legged OAuth, 2-legged OAuth, OpenID Connect)
• API endpoints (Profile, Share, Organization, UGC, Advertising, etc.)
• Rate limits and throttling (429 error handling, daily caps)
• Error codes (400, 401, 403, 404, 429, 500 — what each means and how to handle it)
• Versioning (how LinkedIn deprecates old endpoints and migrates to new ones)

If you're building an integration, bookmark both sites. The docs are dense, but they're the only source of truth for what LinkedIn's API actually supports.

And if you're evaluating whether LinkedIn API fits your use case, skim the endpoint reference first. You'll quickly see what's possible — and what's not.

Is LinkedIn Scraping Legal?

LinkedIn scraping without API authorization is illegal under LinkedIn's Terms of Service.

Using unauthorized web scrapers violates those terms, which is why the only compliant programmatic option is the LinkedIn Scraper API — though that itself requires LinkedIn Partner approval.

However, third-party tools like the Evaboot Chrome extension scrape LinkedIn data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator and scrape LinkedIn for you.

Due to their huge databases, they do the job for you in seconds, so there is no need to spend time setting up your LinkedIn API.

Simply follow the LinkedIn User's Agreement and its terms of service, and you'll have no problems.

Alternatives To LinkedIn API

Lead generation and prospecting are crucial for all businesses and individuals looking to boost their sales.

There are purpose-built LinkedIn scraping tools — such as Evaboot, PhantomBuster, and Dux-Soup — that facilitate this process, making it effective and accessible without developer setup.

These web scraping tools are made for extracting contact or company information from websites, LinkedIn user accounts or company profiles, or other web platforms into CSV files, Excel sheets, or even directly to your CRMs.

With these data extractors, you can create prospecting lists with scraped data, such as emails, phone numbers, first and last names, company names, locations, and more.

If you want to try out a scraping tool, you can check out Evaboot, which scrapes data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

It's a great tool if you've built a network on LinkedIn and want to target them in the first place.

With Evaboot, you get a ready-for-outreach Excel or CSV file in just one click.

Main Features

• Export leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Export company profiles
• Export LinkedIn profile URLs
• Clean the data (emojis, capital letters, typos…)
• Detect false positives in your search results
• Find professional emails
• Verify emails

To learn more about other data-collection tools, check our guide on the best LinkedIn Scraping tools.

AI Use Cases for LinkedIn Data Extraction

AI agents and language models have changed what's possible with scraped LinkedIn data. Here are four use cases that became viable in the last 18 months.

1. Automated lead qualification and enrichment workflows

What it is: AI agent workflows (e.g., n8n, Make, Zapier) that scrape LinkedIn profiles, enrich them with external data, score them against your ICP, and route qualified leads to your CRM — all without manual intervention.

Why it's now possible: LLM-powered agents can parse unstructured profile text (bio, experience, recent posts) and orchestrate API calls without custom code. You define the logic in plain English, and the agent executes the scraping, enrichment, and filtering steps.

2. Natural-language profile search and extraction

What it is: AI agents that interpret a plain-English brief ("Find VP Sales at Series B SaaS companies in the US who posted about outbound in the last month") and autonomously build LinkedIn search queries, scrape results, and return structured data.

Why it's now possible: Reasoning models can convert ICP descriptions into boolean search syntax and drive scraping tools or APIs on your behalf, removing the need for boolean-search expertise.

3. Hyper-personalized outreach at scale

What it is: AI-generated outreach messages that reference specific details from a prospect's LinkedIn profile (recent posts, job changes, skills, mutual connections) — written uniquely for each lead.

Why it's now possible: GPT-class models can turn raw LinkedIn profile JSON (or CSV exports) into context-aware first lines in real time, something that previously required manual copywriting per lead.

4. Browser-automation agents for UI-based scraping

What it is: Multimodal AI agents that log in to LinkedIn, navigate the UI like a human, and extract data — an alternative when official API access is denied and traditional scrapers break due to UI changes.

Why it's now possible: Vision-enabled agents (GPT-4V, Claude with screenshots) can understand LinkedIn's UI reliably without hard-coded CSS selectors, adapting to layout changes on the fly.

These use cases are live today. The LinkedIn Partner Program gate remains, but AI agents give teams a workaround — and they're faster than waiting months for approval.

Conclusion

You learned from this article that scraping with LinkedIn API is extremely demanding and time-consuming.

For some of you, this might seem impossible, as setting it up and using it to export data requires coding and developer skills.

However, if you can't get a developer to do this, you'd better try using LinkedIn scraping tools like Evaboot.

Simply follow the usage regulations not to be banned and complete data enrichment for your outreach campaigns.

FAQ