LinkedIn API alternative: someone else's profile, from its URL
LinkedIn's own API gives every developer three permissions: the name, headline, photo and email of the member who signs in to your app, and posting on their behalf. “Most permissions and partner programs require explicit approval from LinkedIn,” its docs say, and another member's profile is one of them.
Datacircle takes a LinkedIn profile URL and answers the profile as JSON: current and past jobs, schools, skills, certifications. No app review, no partner program. $1.25 per 1,000 through Up2Data (a profile it can't find is free), $3.70 per 1,000 through HarvestAPI. You send the provider's own request to api.datacircle.dev, with your Datacircle key. That's the only change.
What LinkedIn's API gives without approval
The open permissions, “the only permissions that are available to all developers without special approval”, added from the Products tab of your app in LinkedIn's Developer Portal (Getting Access to LinkedIn APIs, October 2026):
| Product | Permission | What it gives |
|---|---|---|
| Sign in with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect | profile | Retrieve authenticated member's name, headline, and photo. |
| Sign in with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect | Retrieve authenticated member's primary email address. | |
| Share on LinkedIn | w_member_social | Post, comment and like posts on behalf of an authenticated member. |
Each is about the member who signed in, with their consent. Sign In with LinkedIn's userinfo endpoint answers their name, first and last name, picture URL, locale and, when there is one, their primary email. No jobs, no schools, no skills, and nothing about anyone else.
What needs LinkedIn's approval
Everything else in the same docs:
| API or program | What it takes |
|---|---|
| Profile API, another member's profile | Restricted to developers approved by LinkedIn; the Person ID it needs comes only from limited-access APIs |
| Advertising API (Marketing) | Approval, applied for in the Developer Portal |
| Sales Navigator Application Platform (Sales) | Approval as a SNAP partner |
| Recruiter System Connect, Apply Connect, Apply with LinkedIn (Talent) | A partner application |
| Compliance | Closed: "may not be requested" |
The Profile API page says it plainly: “The use of this API is restricted to those developers approved by LinkedIn.” To read another member's profile you need their Person ID, “available only via certain limited access APIs,” each ID works in your app only, and “You may never store data returned from the Profile API for members other than the authenticated member.”
A profile from its URL, one call
You send the provider's own request to api.datacircle.dev, with your Datacircle key. That's the only change. Your Datacircle key goes in the Authorization header, and the X-Data-Provider header names the provider. With Up2Data, at $1.25 per 1,000:
curl -X POST "https://api.datacircle.dev/v1/profiles/enrich" \
-H "Authorization: Token $DATACIRCLE_API_KEY" \
-H "X-Data-Provider: up2data" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates"}'Or HarvestAPI's, at $3.70 per 1,000:
curl "https://api.datacircle.dev/linkedin/profile?url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates" \
-H "Authorization: Token $DATACIRCLE_API_KEY" \
-H "X-Data-Provider: harvestapi"The answer is the provider's own JSON, plus datacircle_meta: which provider answered, what the call cost, your balance after it. At the same price, Up2Data adds followers and connections (with_followers_and_connections) or every skill with its endorsements (with_full_skills_and_endorsements). Every field: LinkedIn Profile API in the docs. The same call for a whole CSV: get LinkedIn profile data with Python. From Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor: the LinkedIn MCP server.
What LinkedIn's API does that Datacircle doesn't
- Sign in with LinkedIn, and the signed-in member's own email address, with their consent.
- Posting, commenting and liking on a member's behalf (Share on LinkedIn).
- Ads and audiences (the Advertising API), Sales Navigator inside a CRM, and the Talent integrations, for approved partners.
If you build those, LinkedIn's API is the way. Datacircle passes on only the profile call: you send LinkedIn URLs from your own code and get each profile as it is today, at the provider's own price.
What's different
Live. Each request goes to the provider and gets the profile as it is today. A call that fails is not charged, and every answer says what it cost. Sign up at datacircle.dev with your work email: a $5 credit, that's 4,000 LinkedIn profiles at $1.25 per 1,000.
Free: 10M+ U.S. B2B leads, as a flat file. Download it at datacircle.dev. Add $50 to your account: you get $50 of API PLUS the flat file. Or invite 3 people who sign up. What's in it: the B2B data co-op. Every LinkedIn profile API's price: LinkedIn profile API pricing compared.
Questions
Can LinkedIn's official API get someone else's profile?
Not without LinkedIn's approval. Its open permissions, the only ones available to every developer, return the name, headline, photo and email of the member who signs in to your app. Another member's profile goes through the Profile API, restricted to developers LinkedIn approves, and LinkedIn's docs say you may never store it.
Is there an alternative to LinkedIn's API for profile data?
Through Datacircle, you send a LinkedIn profile URL and get the profile back as JSON: jobs, schools, skills, certifications. $1.25 per 1,000 through Up2Data (a profile it can't find is free), $3.70 per 1,000 through HarvestAPI.
Which APIs?
Right now we have 2 live LinkedIn profile APIs that we trust: Up2Data and HarvestAPI.
Is each request live, or cached?
Live. Each request goes to the provider and gets the profile as it is today.
Is there a subscription?
No. You add funds to your balance and pay per call; funds never expire.
Sign up at datacircle.dev with your work email: a $5 credit, that's 4,000 LinkedIn profiles at $1.25 per 1,000. Free: 10M+ U.S. B2B leads, as a flat file. Download it at datacircle.dev.
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