PhantomBuster: cloud scrapers and LinkedIn automation by the hour

The PhantomBuster scrapers people search for: LinkedIn profiles, Sales Navigator, Instagram, Google Maps

Scraping is where PhantomBuster earns its name. Most extractors are a single Phantom that occupies 1 slot (Google Maps Search to Contact Data takes 2) and uses execution time while it runs; the plan changes the total of hours, not the speed.

LinkedIn automation in PhantomBuster: the Outreach workflow, step by step

For prospecting, the ready-made LinkedIn Outreach Workflow sends a connection request, then up to 3 follow-up messages to the people who accept. It occupies 2 slots and works with one LinkedIn account: each account needs its own Outreach Workflow.

• Leads in: a LinkedIn Leads list, a profile URL, a Google Sheet, a CSV file (paid plans only), the results of another Phantom or a HubSpot list.
• LinkedIn account: connected through the browser extension or a session cookie; since July 2026, the help centre also documents a connection with the account's email and password.
• The invitation: with or without a note. A free LinkedIn account is limited to 200 characters and 5 personalised invitations a month; Premium allows 300 characters.
• Follow-ups: up to 3, each after a delay of up to 15 days, sent only if the lead accepted and has not replied.
• Pace: 20 invitations a day by default, 10-15 to warm up a new account, during office hours or at random times. PhantomBuster reminds you that LinkedIn allows "up to 100 invites a week", depending on the account.
• Other Phantoms: LinkedIn Auto Connect, LinkedIn Message Sender, Sales Navigator Message Sender and LinkedIn Auto Liker. Auto Connect alone sends invitations without follow-ups and takes 1 slot.

What is PhantomBuster? Phantoms, Workflows and your own LinkedIn session

What is PhantomBuster? A no-code automation platform in the cloud. Each Phantom does one job (export a LinkedIn search, scrape profiles, send invitations, find an email); a Workflow chains several Phantoms towards one goal. They run on PhantomBuster's servers, with the session of the accounts you connect, so your computer can be off. The vendor counts "100+ automations & workflows" across "15+ platforms".

The PhantomBuster Chrome extension: one-click sessions and a lead panel on LinkedIn profiles

The extension is free, and PhantomBuster calls it optional but recommended. Its first job is plumbing: when you launch a Phantom, it detects the session already open in your browser on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X or Slack and saves it for that automation, so nobody has to copy a cookie by hand. It installs on Chrome or Firefox, Chrome being the browser PhantomBuster recommends; Safari is not supported.

On Chrome, it also adds a side panel to standard LinkedIn profiles, opened from the toolbar icon. Get info looks up the person's email and phone number, which can take up to 2 minutes, and draws on the same email credits as an enrichment Phantom. From there, the lead can be saved to a list in your workspace, pushed to HubSpot (the only CRM the panel offers) or added to an outreach campaign, which then occupies slots like any automation.

The panel has clear edges. It does not open on Sales Navigator pages, Firefox users get the session connection without it, it reads only what the profile already shows you, and the history of your lookups can be viewed but not exported. Every action is manual, on the profile in front of you. Emelia's Chrome extension works on the search rather than the profile: in Sales Navigator, its Export with Emelia button sends the whole search to Emelia, which extracts the leads for a CSV export, an email search paid in credits or a campaign (guide).

PhantomBuster API and documentation: launching Phantoms and reading results from code

Every request carries an API key in a header, and only workspace admins can create one. The endpoints are grouped by what they act on: Agents to create, launch and update Phantoms, Containers for the logs and results of each launch, Storage for the LinkedIn Leads base, lead lists and the lead and company objects behind them. The documentation is an interactive reference at hub.phantombuster.com/reference, where a request can be tried with your own key before you paste it into a script.

Which accounts get it is less tidy. The API article says "all paid plans"; the article listing what each plan includes also ticks it for the 14-day trial and the Free plan, capped at 10 rows per call. PhantomBuster publishes no rate limit for its API, only the daily limits of each platform.

Two things stay out of reach. A Workflow cannot be launched through the API, so a multi-step process means chaining single Phantoms and launching each one in turn; and result files can only be deleted from the dashboard. For no-code set-ups, the help centre sends people to Clay, n8n, Make or Zapier rather than to the API.

Google Sheets, HubSpot, Make, Clay: PhantomBuster's integrations and MCP server

• Native: HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive (Salesforce from its Enterprise edition), lemlist, Clay and Google Sheets. A Google Sheet can feed a Phantom its list of leads.
• Automation: Zapier, Make and n8n, plus webhooks and the API.
• MCP server: from Claude or ChatGPT, you can launch, schedule and stop Phantoms, download results and manage leads.
• AI: AI credits are included (10,000, 30,000 or 90,000 a month) for the Phantoms that write messages or enrich profiles. With GPT-3.5, 1 credit covers about 100 tokens; GPT-4o costs 10 credits and GPT-4 30 for the same. Your own OpenAI key only works with the Advanced AI Enricher.

Is PhantomBuster safe? Limits it recommends but does not enforce

PhantomBuster publishes limits per type of account and calls them "recommended, not enforced": the tool will not stop you from going over. The help centre adds two rules: halve these figures when the Phantom also looks for emails (it opens two pages per profile), and divide them by the number of Phantoms running on the same account.

PhantomBuster sends no email: where the leads go next

The help centre says it plainly: "PhantomBuster does not send emails directly". It finds professional emails, then hands the leads over: Phantoms that push LinkedIn searches or profiles into a lemlist campaign, a HubSpot contact sender, Zapier, Make and n8n for everything else. So a PhantomBuster set-up that ends with cold email means a second subscription, priced by that other tool.

Emelia covers both channels in one plan: LinkedIn sequences and cold email from 3 mailboxes on Start, 50 on Grow and unlimited on Scale, with warm-up, sender rotation and a unified inbox. It also scrapes Sales Navigator and LinkedIn searches; what it does not do is extract Google Maps, Instagram or the other platforms PhantomBuster covers.

Hours and credits or unlimited scraping: PhantomBuster and Emelia for the same leads

PhantomBuster is first a scraping tool, so this is the comparison that matters: extracting leads from LinkedIn or Sales Navigator searches, then finding their emails. PhantomBuster sells it in execution hours (about 12 minutes per 1,000 leads, so about 100,000 leads on Start in theory; LinkedIn's limit, about 1,000 search results a day on a standard account, comes first) and in email credits spent per attempt. Emelia has no scraping quota on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator from Start and charges only the emails it finds. On this job, Emelia costs less at every volume below.

LinkedIn and Sales Navigator scraping, billed monthly

10,000 leads a month, no emails

PhantomBuster$69 (Start)

Emelia$37 (Start)

1,667 leads a month, ≈ 1,000 emails found

PhantomBuster$159 (Grow)

Emelia$56 (Start + 1,000 credits)

8,334 leads a month, ≈ 5,000 emails found

PhantomBuster$439 (Scale)

Emelia$86 (Start + 5,000 credits)

Excluding VAT, same figures in euros and dollars on both sides; emails found at the 60% rate PhantomBuster considers good. Emelia's credits given once at signup are left out. Emelia stays on Start in every row: it exports your Sales Navigator searches with no cap on the number of exports, from $37/month. What PhantomBuster adds beyond LinkedIn: scraping Google Maps, Instagram and the other platforms; one extraction spread over up to 4 LinkedIn accounts; a 14-day trial without a card, then a Free plan; AI credits included (10,000 to 90,000 a month). Every plan and a calculator: PhantomBuster pricing.

What PhantomBuster costs: a workspace, not a seat

Start $69, Grow $159, Scale $439 a month, excluding VAT, or $56, $128 and $352 a month billed yearly. PhantomBuster charges the same figure in euros and dollars. The plans differ only by their resources: 20 to 300 execution hours, 5 to 50 slots, 500 to 10,000 email credits a month.

When the hours run out, automations stop until the next billing date: nothing is charged on top, and neither hours nor credits can be bought separately. The full breakdown, the old $59 grid and the trial: PhantomBuster pricing 2026.

Before choosing PhantomBuster: ratings, competitors and the Waalaxy comparison

PhantomBuster is rated 4.5/5 on Capterra (64 reviews) but 3.3/5 on Trustpilot (113 reviews), where 34% of reviews give one star. The tools people compare it with depend on what they used it for: scraping, LinkedIn outreach or finding emails.

To go further: the alternatives to PhantomBuster and the PhantomBuster reviews.