TL;DR

• Linked API (linkedapi.io) and Curviate run the same model: you pay per connected LinkedIn account, one account per seat, and each account gets its own cloud browser.
• Curviate is cheaper on every plan: EUR 20 per account a month, EUR 16 billed annually. Linked API Core is USD/EUR 69 (49 annually), Plus is 99 (74 annually). Sales Navigator needs Plus there; Curviate includes it, and Recruiter too (beta, licence required).
• Company page inboxes, groups, notifications, job postings, Sales Navigator lists and Recruiter are in Curviate's API and missing from Linked API's action list.
• With Curviate, your own UI collects your users' LinkedIn login and calls the API. With Linked API, your user logs in on its hosted browser page, which you can embed.
• Curviate is one OpenAPI 3.1 contract behind REST, CLI, MCP and SDK, and answers repeat profile reads from a 12-hour store. I found no OpenAPI document for Linked API; every action there is a workflow you fetch afterwards, and caching is documented for conversations only.

Linked API and Curviate are the two closest products in this market. Both sell LinkedIn as an API for AI agents, price per connected account, put every account in its own cloud browser, and ship an API, a CLI, an MCP server and agent skills. I build Curviate, a LinkedIn API, CLI, MCP server and TypeScript SDK for agents. For this comparison I went through Linked API's public pricing, docs and terms on October 2, 2026.

Should you choose Linked API or Curviate?

For most agent builders I would pick Curviate. It costs less per account, covers more LinkedIn categories and gives you one typed contract.

Linked API makes sense if you build in n8n or Make today, if your stack is Python and you want an official Python SDK, or if you would rather not handle your users' LinkedIn sign-ins yourself.

Curviate is the better fit if you need job postings, a company page inbox, Sales Navigator lists or Recruiter. Same if you want to build the sign-in screen yourself, or want an OpenAPI 3.1 contract (I found none for Linked API). The price gap grows with every account you add. And repeat profile reads come from a store, so they spend none of the account's LinkedIn budget.

How do Curviate and Linked API compare at a glance?

Same per-account model, different prices and coverage. Everything here is from each vendor's public pages on October 2, 2026.

How much does Linked API cost compared to Curviate?

Curviate costs EUR 20 per account a month, or EUR 16 billed annually. Linked API Core is USD/EUR 69 (49 billed annually) and Plus is 99 (74 billed annually). On both, one connected account is one seat and no action is metered (Linked API pricing, Curviate pricing). Your bill is seats times rate, plus whatever LinkedIn licence you buy.

Curviate's prices are excl. VAT. Linked API's pricing page does not say whether its prices include VAT. If you need Sales Navigator, compare against Plus, since Curviate includes it in its one price. At 20 accounts on annual billing that is EUR 3,840 a year against USD/EUR 11,760 on Core and 17,760 on Plus. I did not convert currencies.

Linked API's page showed me a euro sign, while its structured data declares USD with the same numbers. The symbol seems to switch by country.

Which LinkedIn actions does each API cover?

Both cover search, profiles, connections, messaging, posts and Sales Navigator. Curviate's API adds notifications, groups, company page inboxes, job postings, Sales Navigator lists and Recruiter. Linked API has one category Curviate's API lacks: company decision makers.

Totals don't compare well because the two count in different units. Linked API's llms.txt lists 62 workflow action types, 50 standard and 12 for Sales Navigator. Curviate's OpenAPI document has 159 operations, 120 stable and 39 beta. Categories tell you more.

Linked API's retrieveCompanyDMs returns decision makers, despite sounding like a page inbox. And Curviate's job postings sit outside Recruiter, in the stable part of the API.

The LinkedIn licence is yours to buy on both. Curviate does not put Sales Navigator behind a higher plan.

How do you connect your users' LinkedIn accounts?

With Curviate, your own UI collects the login and your backend passes it to the API. With Linked API, your user signs in on its hosted browser page, which you can embed.

Curviate's custom authentication guide walks through it. Your backend calls POST /v1/auth/intent with auth_method set to credentials (email and password) or cookie. If LinkedIn asks for a code, an app approval or a choice of method, your UI shows that step and your backend answers it through the API: submit the code, request a new one, or poll. Each account carries your external_id, and an account-status webhook tells you when one needs reconnecting. Curviate encrypts credentials at rest and never logs them.

Linked API's connection sessions work the other way round. The admin API's accounts.createConnectionSession returns a short-lived connectionLink to a browser page Linked API hosts. Your end user logs in to LinkedIn there, and you poll accounts.getConnectionSession for the result. Per its docs you can embed that page in your product, with successUrl and failureUrl redirects and a custom completion button. Its docs describe no route around the hosted page.

How do the API, SDKs, CLI and MCP compare?

Both offer all four. Linked API adds a Python SDK and runs every action as a workflow.

On Linked API you post an action to https://api.linkedapi.io/workflows, get a workflow id back, then fetch the result (handling results). Workflows can chain actions up to 5 levels deep. Curviate's REST API is account-scoped REST, described by an OpenAPI 3.1 document. For Linked API I tried four likely OpenAPI paths, and all four returned 404.

Linked API's SDKs are @linkedapi/node and the Python package linkedapi. Curviate has an open-source TypeScript SDK whose types are generated from the same OpenAPI 3.1 document as the API.

Both have a CLI: @linkedapi/linkedin-cli, and Curviate's, which prints JSON and takes --preview on writes.

Linked API's MCP comes as a hosted URL that carries two tokens in the query string, or as a local server via npx -y @linkedapi/mcp. It lists 62 tools, 17 of them admin tools (tools list). Curviate's MCP server is hosted at https://app.curviate.com/mcp and takes OAuth or an API key.

Webhooks exist on both. Linked API registers one endpoint for workflow, account, inbox and network events. Its docs say "A client may hold one active webhook at a time", retries use exponential backoff for up to 8 attempts, and delivery order is best-effort (webhooks). Curviate signs its webhooks with HMAC-SHA256, gives each webhook its own source (messaging, user or account status) and URL, and delivers 19 event types.

Which one has more adoption and integrations?

On npm, Curviate's CLI and SDK are ahead. In the week of September 24 to 30, 2026, @curviate/cli had 766 downloads and @curviate/sdk 504. Linked API's CLI had 285 and @linkedapi/node 481. Linked API is stronger in no-code: it has a native n8n node and Make modules, and its integrations page also lists Zapier and several CRMs.

How do they handle account safety?

The architecture is the same: each account runs in its own cloud browser on both (Linked API safety, Curviate safety).

Both let you cap each action type. Linked API's docs: "When a limit is hit, the system stops and returns an error." Curviate defaults to warn, so a crossed cap comes back as a warning. Set the account to enforce and the call fails with 429 BUDGET_EXHAUSTED.

Repeat reads are the bigger difference. When your agent reads a person's profile again inside Curviate's 12-hour default, the answer comes from a store in your workspace. Stored chats and messages are served at any age and refreshed when a message event says they changed. None of that touches LinkedIn or spends the account's action budget (caching guide). Those reads take mode (including cache_only) and max_age, and report observed_at and source.

Linked API documents caching for conversations only ("Subsequent calls use cached data", CLI messages). Profile and company views are counted limit categories (stPersonProfileViews, stCompanyPageViews), and its docs mention no caching for them. Both cache conversations. Only Curviate caches profile reads.

Neither of us claims zero risk. Linked API's Terms: "What the Flutter does not have any special permission from LinkedIn; using Linked API does not exempt you from LinkedIn's enforcement actions." Curviate's Terms: "That design lowers the risk; it does not remove it, and we have no special permission from LinkedIn that exempts you from its enforcement."

Who is behind each product, and where?

Linked API is operated by What the Flutter OÜ, an Estonian private limited company, according to its Terms of Use (last updated September 8, 2026), which give a postal address in Tallinn.

Curviate is operated by Redmer Holding GmbH in Bornheim, Germany (Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 29957), and I manage it. Curviate's infrastructure runs in the EU.

Which API suits the agent you are building?

Linked API answers with workflows you post and then fetch. Curviate gives you one typed contract behind the API, CLI, MCP and SDK, more LinkedIn categories for one price, and a sign-in screen you build yourself. If that is what your agent needs, the CLI gets you to a first call in two commands.

# Install the CLI, then run guided setup
npm install -g @curviate/cli
curviate setup --json

Not affiliated with LinkedIn Corporation. Linked API is a product of What the Flutter OÜ; prices and features above are as published on its pages on October 2, 2026.