Captain Data Overview
What its credits cost per endpoint, the request rates each plan allows, and what its API and MCP server return, now that it no longer automates LinkedIn accounts.
Captain Data is a REST API for people and company data, sold to teams building B2B software and AI agents. You pass a LinkedIn URL, a name, a domain or a Sales Navigator-style query and get structured JSON back, and no LinkedIn account is connected at any point. It is priced in credits, from €59.99 per 1,000 at the 2,500-credit monthly minimum down to €2.24 at 50 million, with 100 free credits to start. It used to automate LinkedIn workflows and stopped with its v1 in October 2025, and a hosted MCP server now gives AI assistants seven data tools.
On this page
What Captain Data is
Captain Data’s tagline is “AI Data for AI Products”, and its pricing page carries the line “Reliable B2B data for product builders, GTM platforms, and AI agents.” The homepage calls it a “People & Company Data API for AI agents & B2B SaaS” with “750M+ profiles, always fresh”, and its machine-readable summary adds 54M+ company records.
The product changed shape in 2025. “For years, Captain Data was known for orchestrating workflows on LinkedIn – helping growth teams run outreach at scale,” its blog post of 10 November 2025 says. The v1 platform released on 15 October 2025 was “the moment we move from being an automation tool to becoming the data layer” for go-to-market software, and the same post casts it as infrastructure that automation platforms build on: “We’re not another automation tool.” Today it sends nothing and connects no account. The company is Captain Data, a French joint stock company registered in Nantes, founded in Paris in 2019 by its own account.
What a call returns
Every call is a GET on https://api.captaindata.com/v1 with an API key, and returns a record from Captain Data’s side. Nothing in the flow logs in to LinkedIn as you. The calls fall into three groups.
- Enrich. A full person profile from a LinkedIn profile URL, with name, headline, title, experience, education and skills, or a company profile from a LinkedIn company URL with industry, size, headquarters and specialties.
- Find. Resolve a person from a full name and an optional company, or a company from a name or domain, into an ID and a LinkedIn URL.
- Search. People and company search that accepts “Sales Navigator-compatible
querystrings”, and a list of a company’s employees, paged at 25 results with cursors that expire after 24 hours.
Separate endpoints list a person’s full experience history, skills, and licences and certifications. Where the records come from is not described beyond “Data is continuously refreshed”, and a database export of the full dataset is sold separately at custom prices.
Captain Data pricing
Captain Data sells one thing: credits. “Pricing scales with volume, not features – no tier gates, no per-seat fees.” The rate per 1,000 credits drops as the monthly volume rises, and the whole volume is billed at its band’s rate. The figures below are the calculator’s, in euros.
| Credits a month | Tier | Per 1,000 credits | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 (the minimum) | Bronze | €59.99 | €150 |
| 10,000 | Bronze | €37.49 | €375 |
| 20,000 | Silver | €29.99 | €600 |
| 100,000 | Silver | €20.99 | €2,099 |
| 500,000 | Gold | €12.74 | €6,370 |
| 2,000,000 | Platinum | €6.74 | €13,480 |
| 50,000,000 (the maximum) | Titanium | €2.24 | €112,000 |
In dollars the same dial reads $65.98 per 1,000 at the minimum, $32.98 at 20,000 and $2.46 at 50 million. What a credit buys depends on the endpoint:
| Endpoint | Credits |
|---|---|
| Enrich People | 1, or 2 with full_enrich |
| Enrich Company | 1 |
| Find People, Find Company | 2 |
| Search People, Search Companies, Find Company Employees | 1 per request plus 1 per result, so a full page of 25 is 26 |
| List Experiences, Skills, Licenses & Certifications | 1 per request plus 1 per 20 results |
Unused credits do not roll over. On annual billing Captain Data can release the year’s credits up front, “a 1M credits/month plan can be unlocked as 12M credits for the year”, and the discount rises with volume. The free trial is 100 credits with no card, which the machine-readable summary calls “one-shot”. The rate-limit documentation lists a Trial tier of “Up to 1,000” monthly credits, a different figure from the pricing page’s 100. The terms promise 30 days’ notice of any price change.
The limits Captain Data sets
With no LinkedIn account in the loop, Captain Data’s limits are on the API. “Captain Data applies one customer-facing rate limit on the v1 API: your subscription plan“, set by the plan’s monthly credit volume:
| Tier | Monthly credits | Requests a second | Requests a minute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trial | Up to 1,000 | 1 | 60 |
| Bronze | 1 to 10,000 | 2 | 120 |
| Silver and Gold | 10,001 to 500,000 | 10 | 600 |
| Platinum and Diamond | 500,001 to 20,000,000 | 20 | 1,200 |
| Titanium | 20,000,001 to 50,000,000 | 40 | 2,400 |
Over the rate, the API answers 429 Too Many Requests with a Retry-After value and the limit that was hit. Beside the rate, “Each plan includes a daily credit quota consumed by billed API calls across your workspace”, and the size of that quota is not published. The /v1/quotas endpoint returns the credits used and left for the month. Each user of a workspace has an API key of their own.
The Captain Data API
The API is version 1, at https://api.captaindata.com/v1, with the key in an X-API-Key header. Every endpoint page has an interactive playground, and the homepage runs sample requests with no signup.
- Size. The homepage says “one simple API, seven calls”. The credit-costs documentation prices ten endpoints, the seven plus the three profile lists, and a quota endpoint sits beside them.
- Writes. None. Every endpoint reads, and nothing sends a message, an invitation or any other action on LinkedIn.
- Errors. A documented error reference with scopes and labels, and the
429body described above. - Documentation server. The docs themselves are served over MCP at
docs.captaindata.com/mcpfor coding assistants.
Captain Data states SOC 2 Type II certification and GDPR compliance, with a DPA, and a 99% uptime figure on its status bar and pricing page.
The Captain Data MCP server
The data MCP server runs at https://mcp.captaindata.com/sse, reached through npx -y mcp-remote with the API key in an x-api-key header. “We host everything. Just add your config and API key – no npm packages needed.” The MCP page names Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf and Continue, plus a pre-built GPT for ChatGPT.
- Tools. Seven, all reads:
people_enrich,people_search,people_find,companies_enrich,companies_search,companies_findandcompany_employees. - Cost. “MCP usage is billed the same as regular API usage – through credits.”
- Confirmation. Nothing to confirm, since no tool acts on an account.
The shape of job it fits
Captain Data fits a product team that needs people and company records inside its own software or agent: enrichment of CRM rows from LinkedIn URLs, finding the profile behind a name, or building a list from a Sales Navigator-style query, with no LinkedIn accounts to connect or keep healthy. Every feature is open from the first credit, and the price per record falls steeply with volume.
The limits of the design are as plain. It does not send anything, so outreach needs another tool. Search and employee lists cost a credit per result plus a credit per page. The daily credit quota behind each plan is not published, and the monthly minimum is 2,500 credits, €150 a month.
Captain Data alternatives
GTM API is our own product, so it is listed first. The others are described from their own pages, in alphabetical order. They split on whose access the data is read through: a vendor’s records or seats, or a LinkedIn account you connect.
| Tool | Where the data comes from | Price unit and entry | Sends on LinkedIn |
|---|---|---|---|
| gtm-api.com, ours, listed first | Profile, company and Sales Navigator reads on a LinkedIn account you connect, over REST or MCP | Per connected account: free plan with one account and no card, then from $10/account | Yes, from the connected account, limits checked on the server before each call |
| Edges | Its own managed accounts, or your users’ connected identities | Per credit: $43.99 per 1,000 at the base rate, plus $8.79 per sending identity a month | Yes, from a connected identity |
| Evaboot | Your own Sales Navigator searches and lists, through its Chrome extension | Per credit: $9 a month for 100, one credit per exported lead with its email lookup | No |
| LinkdAPI | A data API with no LinkedIn account connected | Prepaid credits: $10.00 down to $2.50 per 1,000 calls, 100 free | No |
Read the table by whose access you want. Captain Data and LinkdAPI return records without any account of yours, and Evaboot exports what your own Sales Navigator seat can see. Edges and GTM API read through accounts as well and can also send from them, Edges billing data by the record and GTM API by the connected account. How data APIs and account APIs price their calls is laid out on LinkedIn API pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Captain Data cost?
Captain Data sells credits by monthly volume, from €59.99 per 1,000 at the 2,500-credit minimum, €150 a month, to €29.99 at 20,000 credits and €2.24 at 50 million. Enriching a profile costs 1 credit, finding one costs 2, and a search costs 1 credit per request plus 1 per result. There are no seat fees, and the trial is 100 free credits with no card.
Does Captain Data still automate LinkedIn?
No. Its v1 platform, released in October 2025, moved it from an automation tool to a data API, by its own blog post. It connects no LinkedIn account and sends no messages or invitations. It returns people and company records from LinkedIn URLs, names, domains and search queries.
What are Captain Data’s rate limits?
They are set by plan: 2 requests a second on Bronze, 10 on Silver and Gold, 20 on Platinum and Diamond and 40 on Titanium, with a 429 response and a Retry-After value when exceeded. Each plan also has a daily credit quota whose size is not published.
Does Captain Data have an MCP server?
Yes, hosted at mcp.captaindata.com/sse with an API key, at the same credit prices as the API. It has seven read tools for enriching, finding and searching people and companies and listing a company’s employees. A separate MCP server serves its documentation.
Do I need a LinkedIn account to use Captain Data?
No. Calls take a LinkedIn URL, a name, a domain or a query and return Captain Data’s record, with no account connected or logged in. People and company search accept queries written in Sales Navigator’s format.
What are the alternatives to Captain Data?
LinkdAPI is another credit-priced data API with no account connected. Edges sells data by the record and outreach per connected identity. Evaboot exports your own Sales Navigator searches. GTM API, our own product, reads and acts through LinkedIn accounts you connect, checking each account’s daily budget on the server, from $10/account with a free plan.
Sources & Further Reading
- Captain Data, homepage · pricing · MCP · llms.txt · “Beyond LinkedIn Automation” (10 November 2025) · about · terms of service, read 2026-11-13
- Captain Data developer documentation, introduction · credit costs · rate limits · search people · index, read 2026-11-13
- Related: LinkedIn API pricing · LinkedIn profile data API · LinkedIn scraping vs a safe API · LinkdAPI overview · Evaboot overview
LinkedIn actions as typed API calls.
Connect an account server-side, send a connection request or a message as one endpoint, and read the limits before the call goes out. The same contract runs as an MCP server for your agent. Free plan with one connected account, then from $10/account.
Last updated: November 2026 · Definitions and benchmarks verified at time of publication