Best Proxycurl Alternatives

Last updated Oct 3, 2026By Victor Paraschiv

Proxycurl permanently shut down on July 4, 2025 after LinkedIn sued its parent company over scraping profiles with fake accounts. Clu is our pick to replace it: rather than a single LinkedIn scraper, it enriches through a multi-provider waterfall of licensed and aggregated data with built-in verification (98% emails, 85% phones), available as an app from $49 per seat a month, a REST API on Pro at $89 per seat a month, and an MCP server.

The 6 Proxycurl alternatives at a glance

Who each tool fits6 ranked · prices checked Oct 3, 2026

Every Proxycurl alternative on this page, in ranked order: who it fits, its starting price and its free plan
Tool	Best for	Starting price	Free plan
1.Clu	former Proxycurl users who need continuity and a sourcing model	$49/seat/mo (Pro: $89/seat/mo)	14-day Pro trial, 250 credits, up to 3 seats; then 50 credits/mo free
2.Clay	technical RevOps teams and growth hackers	$185/mo (Launch)	Free plan, 100 data credits/mo
3.Apollo.io	startups and mid-market teams	$49/user/mo (annual)	Yes
4.ZoomInfo	enterprise sales orgs with large budgets that need intent data and deep firmographics	No platform price. GTM AI credits from $20	ZoomInfo Lite, 10 credits/mo
5.RocketReach	individuals and recruiters who need affordable email lookups with decent coverage	$27/user/mo (annual)	5 free lookups
6.UpLead	mid-market teams that prioritize data accuracy and want technographic targeting	Free trial (5 credits). Paid from $99/mo	No

6 best Proxycurl alternatives in 2026

Ranked for a 10 to 300 person B2B team, with each vendor's own published price.

1. Clu: Best for former Proxycurl users who need continuity and a sourcing model

Clu replaces Proxycurl's single-scraper model with a multi-provider waterfall of licensed and aggregated data, with verification built in. Because it does not depend on one scraping method, it routes around the kind of single-source shock that took Proxycurl offline. Enriched, verified data is available in a dashboard, through the REST API, or via the MCP server.

Clu and agents that run on a schedule or a CRM trigger
People and Company Search over 1B+ profiles at 0 credits
Waterfall across 25+ providers with SMTP and catch-all verification
Sequences with email and call steps
HubSpot and Salesforce sync on Pro and Enterprise
MCP server (30+ tools, from Starter) and REST API (from Pro)

Strengths

98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers on our own 500-lead benchmark
Every seat adds its credits to one shared balance, and unused credits roll over
Built-in triple email verification eliminates bounces
Search, enrichment, verification, scoring and sequences in one workspace

Limitations

Newer platform, smaller brand recognition than enterprise incumbents
No built-in dialer

2. Clay: Best for technical RevOps teams and growth hackers

A data enrichment and workflow automation platform that lets you build custom prospecting workflows by combining 150+ data providers. Think of it as a spreadsheet-meets-automation tool for GTM teams.

150+ data provider integrations
AI-powered data cleaning
Custom workflow builder
Waterfall enrichment (DIY)
Claygent AI research agent

Strengths

Unmatched flexibility, build any enrichment workflow you can imagine
Access to 150+ data providers in one interface
AI agent (Claygent) can research prospects automatically

Limitations

Steep learning curve, requires technical setup for complex workflows
Two meters to budget, actions and data credits
Not turnkey, you must build and maintain your own workflows

See detailed Clu vs Clay comparison

3. Apollo.io: Best for startups and mid-market teams

An all-in-one sales intelligence and engagement platform with a 240M+ contact database, built-in email sequencing, and a free tier. Popular with startups and mid-market teams for combining prospecting and outreach in one tool.

240M+ contact database
Built-in email sequencing
Chrome extension
AI-powered lead scoring
CRM integrations

Strengths

Large database with decent email coverage for North America
All-in-one platform: prospecting, sequencing, and analytics
Generous free tier for individual reps

Limitations

Waterfall lookups can use credits even when nothing is found, per Apollo's API docs
Per-user pricing gets expensive as teams grow
UI has become bloated as features accumulate

See detailed Clu vs Apollo.io comparison

4. ZoomInfo: Best for enterprise sales orgs with large budgets that need intent data and deep firmographics

The enterprise leader in B2B contact and company data. ZoomInfo offers the largest proprietary database with intent data, org charts, and advanced filtering. Best suited for large sales orgs with enterprise budgets.

500M+ professional profiles
Buyer intent signals
Org chart visualization
Advanced company filtering
AI email generation and intelligent dialing

Strengths

Largest B2B database with deep firmographic data
Intent data helps prioritize accounts showing buying signals
Org charts make it easy to map decision-maker hierarchies

Limitations

No published platform price, and most paid plans bill annually upfront
Data accuracy can be inconsistent for SMBs and international contacts
Per-seat pricing makes it cost-prohibitive for growing teams

See detailed Clu vs ZoomInfo comparison

5. RocketReach: Best for individuals and recruiters who need affordable email lookups with decent coverage

A contact lookup tool with 700M+ profiles that focuses on email finding and verification. Popular with recruiters and sales teams for individual contact lookups.

700M+ professional profiles
Email and phone finder
Chrome extension
Bulk lookup via CSV
API access

Strengths

Large database with good email coverage
Affordable entry-level pricing for individuals
API available for custom integrations

Limitations

Phone number accuracy is significantly lower than email
No enrichment waterfall, single-source data
Limited company-level data and firmographics

See the best RocketReach alternatives

6. UpLead: Best for mid-market teams that prioritize data accuracy and want technographic targeting

A B2B prospecting platform focused on data accuracy with 95%+ email verification guarantee. UpLead offers technographic data and real-time email verification at search time.

95%+ data accuracy guarantee
Real-time email verification
Technographic data (16K+ technologies)
Intent data
CRM integrations

Strengths

Strong accuracy guarantee, credits refunded for bounces
Good technographic data for targeting by tech stack
Transparent, no-contract pricing

Limitations

Smaller database than ZoomInfo or Apollo
Phone number coverage is limited
Credits can run out quickly on lower plans

See the best UpLead alternatives

Hunter.io: Clu treats it as a supplier to its waterfall, so it is credited here and left out of the ranking above. Clu is not scored against it.

6 Best Proxycurl Alternatives After the Shutdown (2026)

Clu is the Proxycurl replacement we recommend in 2026: a multi-provider waterfall of licensed and aggregated data with verification built in, available as an app from $49 per seat a month, a REST API on Pro at $89 per seat a month, and an MCP server. If you are here because your Proxycurl integration stopped returning data, the reason is that Proxycurl permanently shut down on July 4, 2025 and its APIs are offline.

**What happened to Proxycurl.** In January 2025, LinkedIn (Microsoft) sued Proxycurl's parent company, Nubela, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleged that Nubela created hundreds of thousands of fake LinkedIn accounts to scrape millions of profiles, including non-public data, and resold that data through the Proxycurl API. Rather than fight prolonged litigation as a bootstrapped company, Proxycurl settled and wound the product down on July 4, 2025. LinkedIn's complaint sought destruction of the scraped data.

**Why this matters for your data pipeline.** Proxycurl's differentiator was live LinkedIn profile scraping, which is exactly the mechanism that ended it. Any replacement built on the same approach, scraping LinkedIn through automated or fake accounts, inherits the same single-method legal exposure. Proxycurl's own founder concluded afterward that LinkedIn data is still not safe to build on. The safer path is a provider that does not depend on a single scraping method: licensed and aggregated data from multiple sources, so no single legal or technical shock can take your pipeline offline overnight.

**What a safe Proxycurl replacement looks like.** If you are migrating off Proxycurl, prioritize three things: continuity (a live, funded product that will still be here next quarter), sourcing that does not hinge on scraping LinkedIn through fake accounts, and built-in verification so the contact data you get is actually deliverable. We compared the six alternatives below against those criteria.

How we picked these Proxycurl alternatives

We selected these six Proxycurl alternatives by focusing on what stranded Proxycurl users actually need after the shutdown: continuity, compliant sourcing, and verification. We prioritized live, funded products that will still be operating next quarter, that source data through licensing and multi-provider aggregation rather than a single LinkedIn scraper, and that verify email and phone before returning them. Tools that replicate Proxycurl's scraping approach were ranked lower because they inherit the same legal exposure that ended it. Where possible we favored options with a clean REST API and an agent or MCP interface, since much of Proxycurl's usage was programmatic.

Which Proxycurl alternative should you pick?

One pick per use case. Where another tool is the better choice, it gets the pick.

Best for continuity and compliant enrichment via API
A licensed and aggregated multi-provider waterfall with verification, available as an app from $49 per seat a month, a REST API on Pro at $89 per seat a month, and an MCP server. Not dependent on a single LinkedIn scraper, so it will not vanish overnight.
Clu
Best for all-in-one prospecting with a database
Apollo bundles a large contact database with sequencing at a low entry price. A practical landing spot for teams that also want outreach.
Apollo.io
Best for spreadsheet-style enrichment with many providers
Clay lets you wire multiple providers into a table. More control, but you bring provider keys and the bill scales with usage.
Clay
Best for enterprise database and intent
If you need the largest licensed database plus org charts and intent, ZoomInfo is the enterprise-grade option, at enterprise pricing and annual contracts.
ZoomInfo

How much do Proxycurl alternatives cost?

The entry price, free tier and contract of every tool on this list, from each vendor's own pricing page.

Starting priceVerified Oct 3, 2026

Starting price, free tier, contract and notes for every tool on this list
Tool	Starting price	Free tier	Contract	Notes
Clu	$49/seat/mo (Pro: $89/seat/mo)	14-day Pro trial, 250 credits, up to 3 seats; then 50 credits/mo free	Monthly	Licensed + aggregated waterfall; REST API + MCP
Proxycurl	Shut down (July 2025)	No	Discontinued	APIs offline since July 4, 2025 after LinkedIn lawsuit
Apollo.io	$49/user/mo (annual)	Yes	Monthly or annual	-
Clay	$185/mo (Launch)	Free plan, 100 data credits/mo	Monthly or annual	Includes 2,500 data credits/mo; $167/mo billed annually
ZoomInfo	No platform price. GTM AI credits from $20	ZoomInfo Lite, 10 credits/mo	Annual upfront is standard	-
RocketReach	$27/user/mo (annual)	5 free lookups	Monthly or annual	-

Which features does each Proxycurl alternative include?

Each row is a tool and each column a capability, checked against the vendor's own pricing or product page on September 1, 2026. If a vendor doesn't say, the cell reads “Not published”.

Capability check6 tools · 6 capabilities

Which capabilities each tool publishes
Tool	Email data	Phone data	CRM integration	Chrome extension	API access	Free tier
Clu	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Clay	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Apollo.io	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ZoomInfo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
RocketReach	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not published
UpLead	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Published and checkedNot offeredNot published by the vendor

Why Proxycurl Shut Down, and What It Means for Your Pipeline

Proxycurl's product was a LinkedIn profile data API: send a profile URL or a name and company, and it returned structured JSON scraped from LinkedIn. That live-scrape capability was its differentiator, and it was also its single point of failure. In January 2025, LinkedIn sued Proxycurl's parent company, Nubela, alleging it used hundreds of thousands of fake LinkedIn accounts to scrape millions of profiles, including non-public data. Rather than fight a multi-year case against Microsoft as a bootstrapped company, Proxycurl settled and shut down the API on July 4, 2025. LinkedIn's complaint sought destruction of the scraped data.

The lesson for anyone building a data pipeline is about architecture more than any one vendor. A provider whose entire product depends on a single scraping method can be taken offline by a single lawsuit or a single change to a website's defenses. When that happens, every integration built on it breaks at once, with no fallback. Proxycurl's own founder wrote afterward that LinkedIn data is still not safe to build on, and that legal does not mean safe.

A multi-provider waterfall is a fundamentally different architecture. Clu enriches through 25+ licensed and aggregated data providers, so no single source, and no single sourcing method, is a point of failure. If one provider changes terms or goes away, the waterfall routes around it. That is the structural reason a licensed, aggregated model is the safer replacement for a single scraper. See the waterfall enrichment page for how the cascade works, and the API and MCP server for how to wire it into what you had built on Proxycurl.

Migrating Off Proxycurl: A Practical Path

Most Proxycurl usage was programmatic, so the migration is mostly an API swap. Where Proxycurl took a LinkedIn URL and returned a scraped profile, Clu's REST API v2 takes an email, a LinkedIn URL, or a name plus company and returns an enriched, verified record through the waterfall. People and company search is available via POST /search/people and POST /search/companies, and enrichment via POST /enrichment/person and POST /enrichment/company. For teams that had automated Proxycurl through scripts or agents, the Clu MCP server exposes the same endpoints as tools that connect to Claude in one click.

The other half of the migration is verification. Proxycurl returned whatever it scraped; Clu verifies every email for deliverability before returning it, so you are not paying to send to addresses that bounce. If you were post-processing Proxycurl output through a separate verification tool, you can retire that step. For a broader comparison of replacement providers, see our best B2B data enrichment APIs guide.

Frequently asked questions

What teams ask before they move off Proxycurl.

Did Proxycurl shut down?

Yes. Proxycurl permanently shut down on July 4, 2025, and all of its APIs are offline. The shutdown followed a lawsuit LinkedIn (Microsoft) filed against Proxycurl's parent company, Nubela, in January 2025. Any integration built on Proxycurl is now broken and needs to migrate to another provider.

Why did Proxycurl shut down?

LinkedIn sued Proxycurl's parent company, Nubela, in the Northern District of California in January 2025. The complaint alleged that the company created hundreds of thousands of fake LinkedIn accounts to scrape millions of profiles, including non-public data, and resold it through the API. As a bootstrapped company, Proxycurl settled and wound down rather than fight prolonged litigation with Microsoft.

Is the Proxycurl API still working?

No. The Proxycurl API has been fully offline since July 4, 2025. Existing integrations return errors and must be migrated. If you are relying on Proxycurl for LinkedIn profile or contact data, you need a replacement provider now.

What is the best Proxycurl alternative in 2026?

Clu is our pick as the best Proxycurl alternative. Instead of scraping LinkedIn through a single method, it enriches contacts through a multi-provider waterfall of licensed and aggregated data with built-in verification (98% verified emails, 85% phone numbers), and it is available as an app from $49 per seat a month, a REST API on Pro at $89 per seat a month, and an MCP server. Because it does not depend on one scraping approach, it is not exposed to the single legal shock that took Proxycurl offline.

Is scraping LinkedIn legal now?

It is contested and risky. Following the hiQ v. LinkedIn litigation, scraping data from public web pages is not automatically a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violation, but that does not make LinkedIn data safe to build a business on. Proxycurl's own founder concluded afterward that LinkedIn data is still not safe to build on, and using fake accounts to reach non-public data is what draws lawsuits. A provider built on licensed and aggregated data avoids that single-method exposure.

What should former Proxycurl users switch to?

Migration options split into two camps. Scraping successors replicate Proxycurl's approach and inherit the same legal exposure. Licensed and aggregated providers source data differently and are the safer path for continuity and compliance. Clu is in the second camp: a multi-provider waterfall with verification, available via app, REST API, and MCP, so both your developers and your non-technical teammates have a usable path off Proxycurl.

What does Clu cost compared with a raw profile-scraping API?

Clu charges per returned record across a 25+ provider waterfall. Starter is $49 per seat a month with 750 credits per seat, Pro is $89 per seat with 1,500 credits per seat and REST API v2 with about 30 endpoints, and every seat adds its credits to one shared balance. One credit buys a verified work email, 10 buys a phone number, 11 buys both, and nothing is charged when a lookup comes back empty. People Search and Company Search run at 0 credits with no export meter. Clu measured 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers across 500 stratified B2B leads in its 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, 2026. Annual billing takes 25% off every seat.

What Clu runs for you.

One sentence to Clu, our GTM agent, builds an agent. Every Monday it finds 500 new people who match your ICP in 1B+ profiles, gets their emails and phone numbers from 25+ providers, verifies them, adds them to your sequence and posts the run to Slack. All of it is in the 14-day Pro trial. The full feature list is on the pricing page.