Two French tools, two jobs: extraction across 15+ platforms, sequences on LinkedIn
PhantomBuster
The Phantom Company, Paris, since 2016. A catalogue of 100+ automations: export a LinkedIn or Sales Navigator search, scrape profiles, Google Maps, Instagram and more, find emails, send invitations. You assemble the pieces; the price depends on how long they run.
Waalaxy
WAAPI SAS, Montpellier; the company dates from 2018, the brand from 2021 (it was called ProspectIn). One job: LinkedIn prospecting campaigns built from 99+ ready-made sequences, with cold email on its Business plan. Waalaxy now runs entirely in the cloud and no longer needs its Chrome extension, which has been withdrawn from the Chrome Web Store (announcement dated July 1, 2026). Campaigns run even when your computer is off.
Scraping toolbox, prospecting app, or both: what each one does and how it bills
Comparing their prices per LinkedIn account would mislead: PhantomBuster is bought mostly to extract data, Waalaxy to run LinkedIn sequences. Here is what each one does and how it bills, with Emelia, which scrapes LinkedIn and runs LinkedIn and email sequences in one plan.
Built for
Billing
LinkedIn and Sales Navigator scraping
Google Maps, Instagram, other platforms
LinkedIn sequences
Cold email sending
Email finder
Free trial
Excluding VAT. PhantomBuster and Emelia show the same figures in euros and dollars; Waalaxy has a euro grid and a dollar grid. What it costs to scrape LinkedIn leads and find their emails, PhantomBuster against Emelia: PhantomBuster pricing.
Invitations: about 100 a week recommended at PhantomBuster, 300 or 800 a month at Waalaxy
PhantomBuster: recommended, not enforced
The Outreach Workflow sends 20 invitations a day by default and suggests 10-15 to warm up an account. Its help centre recommends 50-80 a week on a new account and up to 100 on Premium or Sales Navigator, to halve when the Phantom also looks for emails. These figures are "recommended, not enforced": nothing stops you from going over.
Waalaxy: a quota per plan
Waalaxy sells invitations as a quota: about 300 a month on Pro, 800 on Advanced and Business, within 200 a week at most. According to Waalaxy, the tool spaces actions by 2 to 3 minutes, draws each day's volume between 80% and 100% of your limit and pauses campaigns for 48 hours when it detects unusual activity.
Email: Waalaxy Business sends it, PhantomBuster only finds it
Sending: Waalaxy's Business plan (€139 a month per account) adds cold email sequences of up to 5 emails. PhantomBuster sends no email at all: its leads go to lemlist, a CRM or Zapier, Make or n8n.
Finding: the units differ, so we do not compare a price. PhantomBuster spends a credit per attempt, found or not (500 a month on Start); Waalaxy spends one per email found (25 a month on Pro and Advanced, 500 on Business).
Emelia sends cold email and LinkedIn steps from its first plan (3 mailboxes on Start, €37 a month), and its finder also charges only for emails found.
14 days each: what the two trials let you test
PhantomBuster trial
14 days without a card, 2 execution hours in total, 50 email credits, exports limited to 10 rows. Then a permanent Free plan (30 minutes a month, 1 slot).
Waalaxy trial
14 days. Waalaxy's own sources disagree on how the trial works: its help center (updated in July 2026) describes a trial started with a credit card, which becomes a paid subscription at the end; its blog (updated in September 2026) describes a trial with no card that stops by itself. Check the signup screen before entering a card. Its free plan left the pricing page in April 2026.
Ratings
Trustpilot: PhantomBuster 3.3 (113 reviews), Waalaxy 4.8 (1,299). Capterra: PhantomBuster 4.5 (64), Waalaxy 4.4 (253).
PhantomBuster or Waalaxy: which one to choose for scraping, for LinkedIn, for email?
- For scraping: PhantomBuster for Google Maps, Instagram and the other platforms. For LinkedIn and Sales Navigator searches, Emelia includes unlimited scraping from €37 a month (PhantomBuster Start: €69); Waalaxy imports LinkedIn and Sales Navigator searches to feed its campaigns.
- For LinkedIn prospecting: Waalaxy is the more direct tool, with ready-made sequences; PhantomBuster runs one fixed sequence per account through its Outreach workflow.
- For LinkedIn and email together: Waalaxy Business or Emelia; PhantomBuster needs a second tool to send.
Sequences on one side, scrapers on the other: what each tool cannot do
Yes, with its LinkedIn Outreach Workflow: an invitation, then up to 3 follow-up messages to people who accept. It is one ready-made sequence per LinkedIn account, where Waalaxy offers 99+ templates.
No. Waalaxy works on LinkedIn (searches and Sales Navigator) and email. For Google Maps, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, GitHub, Reddit and Slack, PhantomBuster has dedicated Phantoms.
Emelia is a PhantomBuster competitor. We have tried to stay fair: every figure about PhantomBuster comes from its own website or public review sites.
