_private/qwestly-docs/Engineering/LinkedIn-Profile-API.md
Table of Contents
LinkedIn Profile API
We use the FreshData Web Scraping API from RapidAPI to scrape LinkedIn profile data. This is the backend service that powers profile lookups.
Current Plan
Pro — $45/mo (active subscription)
| Metric | Limit |
|---|---|
| Credits | 4,500/mo |
| Requests | 6,000/mo (hard limit) |
| Rate limit | 30 req/min |
Available Plans
Pro — $45/mo
- 4,500 credits/mo
- 6,000 requests/mo (hard limit)
- 30 requests/min
Ultra — $250/mo
- 32,000 credits/mo
- 40,000 requests/mo (hard limit)
- 60 requests/min
Mega — $1,000/mo
- 200,000 credits/mo
- 240,000 requests/mo (hard limit)
- 150 requests/min
Profile Credit Pricing
New Pricing (effective June 20, 2026)
FreshData announced pricing changes to LinkedIn profile endpoints. The new costs:
| Request | Credits |
|---|---|
| Basic profile (no includes) | 2 |
| Each additional include | +1 per include |
Examples: basic + 3 includes = 5 credits, basic only = 2 credits.
No maximum cap was mentioned — unlike the old pricing which capped at 3 credits.
Old Pricing (until June 20, 2026)
| Request | Credits |
|---|---|
| Basic profile | 1 |
| Each include | +0.5 (rounded down, max 3 credits) |
Impact Comparison
| Scenario | Old | New | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic profile only | 1 | 2 | +100% |
| Basic + 1 include | 1* | 3 | +200% |
| Basic + 2 includes | 2 | 4 | +100% |
| Basic + 3 includes | 3 | 5 | +67% |
| Basic + 5 includes | 3 (capped) | 7 | +133% |
* The old pricing rounded down from 1.5, so the first include was effectively free.
Our Usage
We enable one include (include_skills=true) for a total of 3 credits per profile request (2 base + 1 for skills). All other includes remain false.
Skills are returned as a pipe-delimited string (e.g., "Leadership|Strategy|Product Management").
Code: candidate/src/services/data/linkedin-rapidapi.ts
Plan Capacity at Our Usage (3 credits/request)
| Plan | Credits/mo | Max profile requests/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Pro ($45) | 4,500 | 1,500 |
| Ultra ($250) | 32,000 | 10,666 |
| Mega ($1,000) | 200,000 | 66,666 |
Plan Capacity at Max Includes (for reference)
Assuming basic profile + all includes (no cap):
| Plan | Credits/mo | Max profile requests/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Pro ($45) | 4,500 | ~409 |
| Ultra ($250) | 32,000 | ~2,909 |
| Mega ($1,000) | 200,000 | ~18,181 |
Other profile endpoints (posts search, activity detection, etc.) remain at their existing credit rates beyond the personal profile endpoint changes.
Integration
This API is called from our backend services to fetch LinkedIn profile data. Results are processed and stored in the Qwestly candidate database.
- RapidAPI endpoint:
freshdata-freshdata-default/api/web-scraping-api2 - Auth: RapidAPI key required