Best lead scraping tools
Apify, PhantomBuster and Bright Data price scraping by usage, not by seat. What each actually costs and what it is built to extract, checked on their own pricing pages.
Apify wins for a team that wants a general-purpose scraping platform with a real free tier and usage-based pricing that starts cheap. Bright Data wins at volume, where its per-request pricing with no monthly minimum beats a flat plan once you are scraping tens of thousands of records a month.
The short answer
- Apify's paid plans start at $29/mo (Starter) plus usage-based compute units on top; a free tier includes $5/mo of credit.
- Bright Data's Web Scraper API starts at $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests with no monthly minimum, or a flat-rate option at $1.50 per 1,000 records with 5,000 free records a month.
- None of these vendors state a clear position on scraping LinkedIn specifically in their own pricing or docs pages; LinkedIn's terms restrict automated collection regardless of which tool is used.
How we compared these
We pulled pricing directly from Apify's and Bright Data's own pricing pages, September 2026. PhantomBuster is a well-known name in this category, but its current pricing page did not return a verifiable figure on this pass, so it is left out of the table rather than quoted from memory.
We did not evaluate legal risk of scraping any specific site. That depends on the site's own terms and your jurisdiction, not on which tool you use to do it.
Lead scraping pricing
| Tool | Starting price | Pricing model | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apify | $29/mo (Starter) + usage-based compute units | Subscription plus consumption | $5/mo credit |
| Bright Data | $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests | Pure usage, no minimum; flat-rate option at $1.50/1,000 records | 5,000 free records/mo on the flat-rate option |
Apify and Bright Data figures checked on their own pricing pages, September 2026. PhantomBuster is omitted; its current pricing page did not return a verifiable figure on this pass.
The field, ranked
1. Apify
A general-purpose scraping and automation platform with a large library of pre-built scrapers, plus the ability to write custom ones. Starts cheap and scales with usage. Best for: a team that wants flexibility across many source sites, not only one. Not for: anyone wanting a single fixed monthly price with no usage variance.
2. Bright Data
Pure usage-based pricing with no monthly minimum on its per-request tier, which makes it cheap to test and predictable to scale. Best for: high-volume scraping where cost per record matters more than a flat fee. Not for: a low-volume user who wants a simple flat monthly plan instead of tracking per-request cost.
3. PhantomBuster
Built specifically around social platform automation, including LinkedIn-adjacent workflows, with pre-built 'phantoms' for common scraping tasks. Its current pricing did not return a verifiable figure on this pass, so check its own pricing page directly before comparing cost. Best for: a non-technical user who wants a point-and-click scraper rather than building one. Not for: anyone needing a general web scraper outside its supported platform list.
When none of these is the answer
If the list you need is small, under a few hundred contacts, or comes from a site that explicitly prohibits scraping in its terms, a scraper is the wrong tool regardless of price. A lead database with licensed data, or manual research, avoids both the compliance question and the engineering overhead of building and maintaining a scraper for a one-time job.
Questions
- Is web scraping for leads legal?
- It depends on the source site's terms of service, what data is collected, and where you and the site operate. This page reports what each vendor's platform does, not a legal opinion on scraping any specific site. Check the target site's own terms and your applicable laws before scraping it. This is not legal advice.
- Can these tools scrape LinkedIn safely?
- None of the vendor pricing or documentation pages we checked state a clear position on LinkedIn scraping specifically. LinkedIn's own terms restrict automated data collection, and accounts used for scraping risk suspension. Treat any LinkedIn scraping as a real account and legal risk, not a solved problem, regardless of which tool runs it.
- What is the difference between a scraper and a lead database?
- A lead database like Apollo or ZoomInfo maintains a pre-built dataset you query. A scraper extracts data live from a page or site you point it at, which is more flexible but requires you to build or configure the extraction logic yourself.
- How is pricing usually structured?
- Most of these tools charge by usage, compute time or successful requests, rather than a flat monthly seat fee. That means cost scales with how much you scrape, which can be cheaper at low volume and more expensive at high volume than a flat-fee tool.