Edges vs Captain Data
The same people and company data — plus everything else on LinkedIn.
Who this comparison is for
You're building an AI agent or a B2B product that needs LinkedIn people and company records over an API. Captain Data does that well. The question is whether records are all you'll ever need, or whether you'll also want to message, engage, monitor and search from the same integration.
At a glance
The axes that matter when you’re picking between us.
| Topic | Edges | Captain Data |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Anything LinkedIn — read the record, then act on it: search, message, engage, monitor. | People and company data: search, enrich, find company. |
| People & company data | Fetched live per call, 38 fields on People and 41 on Companies. | Comparable coverage on people and companies — the core of the product. |
| Sales Navigator | Saved searches, lead lists, account lists and smart links — on our seats, no licence needed. | Not a Sales Navigator surface. |
| Engagement & messaging | Post reactions and comments, connection requests, InMails, conversation threads. | Out of scope. |
| Signals | Schedule extracts, diff live reads, deliver via callbacks — timing you build, not a packaged feed. | Out of scope. |
| Identity model | Managed access by default; connect your own seats when a call needs a named identity. | Managed access — no seats to connect. |
| Integration | Plain HTTP, no SDK to install, OpenAPI spec published. | REST API and MCP server. |
| Pricing shape | Per-action credits shared across every LinkedIn action. | Per-call pricing on data endpoints. |
Pick the right one
Choose Edges when
You want one API for the whole LinkedIn surface, not just the record. Profiles and companies, yes — but also Sales Navigator searches on our seats, post engagement, connection requests and InMails, and timing patterns (job changes, hiring) you build with scheduled Actions. If any part of your roadmap touches LinkedIn beyond enrichment, that's one integration instead of two.
Consider Captain Data when
People and company records are the entire job and always will be. Captain Data is focused there, has been at it longer, and carries a large fresh index behind a clean API. If you need enrichment and nothing else, it's a strong pick and we'd say so.
Migration
Map your current Captain Data calls or automations to Edges actions using the Library and the documentation. Ask support for the OpenAPI spec and it drops straight into Postman, Hoppscotch, or any code generator. Share your integration outline and we can suggest parity endpoints and credit estimates.
FAQ
Is the people and company data better?
Not meaningfully different, and we'd rather you test than take our word for it. Both fetch from the source instead of reselling a cached crawl. Run a few hundred profiles from your own ICP through both and compare fill rate on the fields you actually use. Where we'd expect to differ is the long tail and how each behaves when a profile is partially private.
So why switch?
Scope. If your only requirement is enrichment, there's no strong reason to move. The case for Edges is that most products which start at enrichment don't stop there — the next ask is usually "can we message them", "can we watch for a job change", or "can we run this Sales Navigator search". Those are separate vendors on top of a data API, and one action on ours.
Can we use both?
Yes. Some teams keep Captain Data for bulk enrichment and add Edges for the action surface — Sales Navigator, messaging, schedule-mode timing. It works, it's just two contracts and two schemas to reconcile.
What's the migration like?
Field-for-field on the data side. Both are HTTP, both return JSON people and company objects; map their response shape to ours once and the rest is a base URL and an API key. Our People and Companies schemas are published in full so you can diff before writing any code.
Build on Edges
Credits-based pricing, SOC 2 Type II, and a growing catalog of LinkedIn actions — see Pricing and Enterprise for scale.
// other comparisons
Edges is not related to LinkedIn and is not an official LinkedIn product.