# A Unipile alternative an agent can buy itself.

> A Unipile alternative for public LinkedIn data: no connected accounts, no per-account fee. Profiles $0.004, pay as you go from $5.

Canonical: https://apiforagents.dev/alternatives/unipile · Updated 2026-10-22

Unipile bills per connected LinkedIn account and works through each user's own account. That suits messaging and inbox products. For looking up public profiles, companies and jobs, you do not need an account at all.

- Profiles from: $0.004
- To start: $5
- Free trial: $0.10
- Facts checked: October 2026

> **The short answer** Pick Unipile to send messages or sync inboxes on your users' accounts. Pick this API to read public LinkedIn data without connecting anyone's account.

## API for Agents and Unipile, side by side

Their side is from their own pages, linked below, as seen on 16 October 2026. Prices change: check the source before you decide.

|  | API for Agents | Unipile |
|---|---|---|
| Billing | Per record, pay as you go | Per connected account, monthly |
| To start paying | $5 top-up, no plan | Minimum €49 a month |
| Agent signs itself up | Yes: one POST, a person claims it later | No |
| Your own LinkedIn account | Not needed | Yes: each user connects theirs |

## When Unipile is the better pick

- Your product sends LinkedIn messages or invitations for its users.
- You need a user's own inbox or network.

## When API for Agents is the better pick

- You read public data about people and companies.
- You do not want to manage connected accounts or their limits.

## What you get with API for Agents, whichever you pick

- One key for 26 platforms: social, commerce, jobs, places, search and contacts, with one request shape and one response shape.
- A free quote before any spend: add "estimateOnly": true to any call and see the most it can cost.
- Pay per record in US dollars. No subscription, nothing expires, top-ups from $5.
- $0.10 free to try, no card. An AI agent can sign itself up in one request; a person claims it later.
- Measured, not estimated: every answer says when each row was measured, whether it was fresh or a recent capture, and how sure to be of each field.
- Partial success is success: anything that could not be fetched is named with a reason, and the charge settles to what came back, never above the quote.
- Typed fields that keep their names whichever source answered, and a details object last with everything else the source sent, under our own field names.
- Try any endpoint in the playground and download the answer as CSV or JSON.

## Try it before you move anything

quote a profile, free:

```bash
curl -s -X POST https://apiforagents.dev/agent/identity -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"type":"anonymous"}'
# exchange identity_assertion at /oauth2/token, then:
curl -s -X POST https://apiforagents.dev/v1/linkedin -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFA_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"op":"profiles","subjects":["satyanadella"],"estimateOnly":true}'
```

## Sources

1. [Unipile API pricing](https://www.unipile.com/pricing-api/), seen 16 October 2026

## Why API for Agents

- One key for 26 platforms: social, commerce, jobs, places, search and contacts, with one request shape and one response shape.
- A free quote before any spend: add "estimateOnly": true to any call and see the most it can cost.
- Pay per record in US dollars. No subscription, nothing expires, top-ups from $5.
- $0.10 free to try, no card. An AI agent can sign itself up in one request; a person claims it later.
- Measured, not estimated: every answer says when each row was measured, whether it was fresh or a recent capture, and how sure to be of each field.
- Partial success is success: anything that could not be fetched is named with a reason, and the charge settles to what came back, never above the quote.
- Typed fields that keep their names whichever source answered, and a details object last with everything else the source sent, under our own field names.
- Try any endpoint in the playground and download the answer as CSV or JSON.

## Start

The playground runs any endpoint by hand: pick a platform and what you want from it, fill a short form named in plain words (or press Use sample input), see the free quote on the Run button, run it, then read the answer as a table or JSON and download it as CSV or JSON. The same call is written out as cURL, Python and Node while you type. Open it at https://apiforagents.dev/dashboard/run (sign in first).

Agents register at https://apiforagents.dev/auth.md (one POST, $0.10 free). People: https://apiforagents.dev/docs#start. Prices: https://apiforagents.dev/pricing.md