PhantomBuster
Automates LinkedIn/sales prospecting: scrapes, extracts, and enriches contact and company data, then exports lead lists.
RecommendedLast reviewed July 17, 2026
What PhantomBuster actually is.
PhantomBuster automates prospecting work that would otherwise mean manually copying data off LinkedIn and other sites. Pre-built automations called Phantoms handle one task each, like scraping a profile list or finding an email address, and you chain several into a Workflow for a longer sequence.
PhantomBuster works through your own logged-in account, pulling only data that account can already see. That keeps it inside LinkedIn's rules, but it also means you're not buying a ready-made database. Every list still starts as an empty search you have to define and run yourself.
What it does
- Phantoms are single-purpose automations; Workflows chain several together.
- Extracts live data from 15+ sites, not just LinkedIn.
- Lets you filter leads by industry, title, or any of 1,000+ data points.
- Runs in the cloud, so it keeps working after you close the browser.
- Its AI writer drafts personalized LinkedIn messages from the data it collects.
- Connects to HubSpot directly, and to more tools via Zapier, Make, or n8n.
- Also runs from Claude or ChatGPT through its MCP server.
Where it sits in the pipeline.
- AI & Intelligence
- Data & Enrichment
- Scraping & Custom Data
- Email Infrastructure & Deliverability
- Outreach & Sending
- LinkedIn & Multichannel
- Signals & Intent
- Calls & Meetings
- CRM & Pipeline Ops
Runs well with
The tools we'd run next to PhantomBuster, and what each pairing covers.
Pricing, without the fiction.
From the PhantomBuster pricing page · verified July 17, 2026
- 30 minutes execution time
- 1 phantom slot
- Downloads and API output capped at 10 rows
- 0 email/AI/URL-finder credits
- 20 hours execution time
- 5 phantom slots
- 500 email credits
- 10,000 AI credits
- 1,000 URL finder credits
- 80 hours execution time
- 15 phantom slots
- 2,500 email credits
- 30,000 AI credits
- 10,000 URL finder credits
- 300 hours execution time
- 50 phantom slots
- 10,000 email credits
- 90,000 AI credits
- 20,000 URL finder credits
Entry cost is the Start plan at $69/month, or $56/month billed annually, for 20 execution hours and 5 phantom slots. There's no per-seat fee: price is set by workspace capacity, not headcount, so a 2-person and 10-person team on Start pay the same and share the same hours. What forces an upgrade is volume, not seats: running out of execution hours, slots, or the separate email/AI/URL-finder credit pools means waiting for the monthly reset or moving to Grow ($159/month) or Scale ($439/month). All paid plans include unlimited exports and full API access, and PhantomBuster documents no overage charges. The free plan (2 hours, 5 slots, 10-row output cap) is a taste test, not usable capacity; a separate 14-day trial needs no credit card.
Choose it, or skip it.
Choose it if
- Agencies running repeatable LinkedIn/sales prospecting for multiple clients, since Phantoms are pre-built and reusable per account.
- Small teams that need a lead list out fast without hiring an engineer to build a scraper.
- Teams that want full API access and unlimited exports on every paid plan, with no per-seat pricing to negotiate.
- Anyone willing to spend a week or two tuning run cadence to avoid LinkedIn rate limits and detection.
Skip it if
- Teams that need it working reliably on day one; avoiding LinkedIn detection takes real tuning time first.
- High-volume operations that will blow through even Scale's 300 execution hours and 50 slots every month.
- Anyone expecting a usable free tier: the free plan caps at 2 hours of runtime and 10 rows of output.
If not PhantomBuster, then what.
- ApifyFree tier ($5/mo usage credit) then paid plans from $29/mo (Starter), usage-based overage billing
Pick this instead for scraping beyond LinkedIn/sales data, with more engineering control over each scraper.
- HeyReachfrom $79/mo per LinkedIn seat (Growth plan); Agency $999/mo for 25 senders, expandable to 50; free trial is 14 days on Growth (no card required, 3 LinkedIn accounts) or 30 days upon request on Agency/Unlimited, per HeyReach's own pricing page
Pick this instead for LinkedIn-only outreach with per-seat multi-account management built for agencies.
- Expandifrom $99/mo per LinkedIn account (~$79/mo billed annually); 7-day free trial; enterprise/team custom pricing for 10+ seats
Pick this instead if LinkedIn automation safety and cloud-based account warm-up matter more than broader scraping.
Asked in real client work.
What's the difference between execution hours and phantom slots?
Execution hours are the total runtime your automations use each month, resetting on your billing date. Slots control how many automations (Phantoms) can be active at once, i.e. parallelism, not runtime. A multi-step Workflow can use more than one slot. Running out of either means waiting for the monthly reset or upgrading plans; PhantomBuster does not charge overage fees.
Is there a free plan?
There's a free tier, but it's closer to a trial: 2 hours of execution time, 5 phantom slots, and output capped at 10 rows on downloads and API calls. The paid entry point is the Start plan at $69/month ($56/month billed annually) with 20 hours and 5 slots. A separate 14-day free trial requires no credit card.
Does the price go up per seat added to the team?
No seat-based fee is documented. Pricing is built around workspace capacity, execution hours, phantom slots, and separate credit pools for email, AI, and URL-finder lookups, not headcount. That means a small team and a larger team on the same plan pay the same price, but they compete for the same shared hours and slots.
What happens when credits or execution hours run out mid-month?
Email, AI, and URL-finder credits draw from separate pools that consume on attempt regardless of whether the lookup succeeds. Once execution hours, slots, or a credit pool are exhausted, runs stop until the monthly reset on your billing date or an upgrade to a higher plan (Grow at $159/month, Scale at $439/month).