# Exa vs Linked API

Exa records 1,062,574 monthly visits with +16.8% month-over-month growth and Freemium, Contact for Pricing pricing. Linked API records 38,687 monthly visits with -8.1% growth and Paid pricing.

| Metric | [Exa](https://openaitools.app/tool/exa-ai) | [Linked API](https://openaitools.app/tool/linked-api) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://exa.ai | https://linkedapi.io |
| Categories | AI API, AI Search Engine, AI Research Tool, Large Language Models (LLMs) | AI Lead Generation, AI Digital Marketing, AI Email Marketing, AI Marketing |
| Pricing Model | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | Paid |
| Monthly Visits | 1,062,574 | 38,687 |
| MoM Growth Rate | +16.8% | -8.1% |
| Primary Market | United States | Belarus |
| Direct Visits | 602,538 | 20,672 |
| Review Score | 4.5 | 4.2 |
| Saved Count | 0 | 0 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Exa

Exa started from the idea that search engines built for humans are a poor fit for AI systems that need precise, token-efficient context. Its core product is a search API with a large independent index, where queries can be semantic, keyword-based or configured for latency versus depth, and results come back with clean text, highlights and grounded citations rather than noisy page markup.

On top of search, Exa offers a contents endpoint for extracting page content, an agent endpoint and websets for finding sets of entities that match a description, along with monitors and integrations such as an MCP server. Search runs in tiers (roughly fast, balanced and deep) so developers can trade latency against research quality, and the same API supports verticals like code, finance, companies, people and news.

Exa markets itself to teams building AI assistants, coding agents, GTM and sales tooling, recruiting and finance research, and reports very large indexed document volumes and heavy token savings from its highlight-based content extraction. The company emphasises enterprise readiness with SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA-aligned controls and zero data retention options.

**Pricing & Plans:** Freemium: free API usage to start plus usage-based pricing, with custom enterprise plans available. Confirm current rates on the pricing page.

- **Semantic and keyword search API:** Run natural-language or keyword queries against a large independent web index with filters for domain, date and category.
- **Token-efficient contents:** Return cleaned page text and AI-extracted highlights so agents receive the most relevant excerpts instead of entire pages.
- **Agent and deep research endpoints:** Choose fast, balanced or deep search modes so an assistant can answer instantly or run longer grounded research.
- **Structured enrichment:** Extract structured outputs such as company details, people and other entities for list building and data pipelines.
- **Crawling and integrations:** Crawl URLs, track changes with monitors, and connect Exa to agents and IDEs through an MCP server and SDKs.

**Strengths:** Purpose-built for AI agents, not retrofitted from consumer search; Token-efficient highlights reduce context cost meaningfully for LLM applications; Structured enrichment plus search in one platform covers many pipelines; Strong compliance posture including SOC 2 Type II and zero data retention options

**Limitations:** Pricing is usage-based and requires monitoring to control spend at scale; Requires developer effort since it is primarily an API rather than a point-and-click app; Access to the deepest research modes costs more than fast lookups

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/exa-ai.md)

## Linked API

Linked API is built for teams that need programmatic control over LinkedIn activity but cannot rely on LinkedIn's own restricted partner APIs. Every action runs inside a dedicated cloud browser instance matched to a single LinkedIn account, using human-like pacing and typing rather than headless scripts or raw HTTP requests. That architecture is the core of its positioning: you get structured JSON results back while the actual interaction happens in a real browser session tied to your own login.

On top of the raw actions sits a workflow layer. Calls can be chained with conditional branches up to several levels deep, which makes multi-step pipelines practical — search companies, filter by size and industry, extract employees, qualify by position, then export or push into a CRM. The same action set is exposed across REST, an official Node.js SDK, a CLI tool, an MCP server and agent skills, so agents built on Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf or similar environments can call LinkedIn operations as native tools.

Commercial terms are per-seat: one seat equals one LinkedIn account. A 7-day free trial leads into monthly or annual plans with unlimited workflow execution, and a higher tier adds Sales Navigator actions. The company is explicit in its documentation that increasing account safety depends on human-like pacing and user-configured rate limits, and that most account issues stem from spam-like behavior.

**Pricing & Plans:** Per-seat subscription with a 7-day free trial. Core is about $49 per seat/month for individuals and small teams; Plus is about $74 per seat/month and adds Sales Navigator actions. Annual billing saves roughly 29%. One seat equals one LinkedIn account, with unlimited workflow execution and volume discounts available on request.

- **50+ LinkedIn actions:** Send messages, connection requests, reactions and comments, and run people or company searches — chained into conditional workflows up to five levels deep.
- **Structured data extraction:** Search companies and people with advanced filters, pull employee lists, enrich profiles and return clean JSON for your CRM or data warehouse.
- **Dedicated cloud browser:** Each account runs in its own cloud browser with a matching device profile, human-like timing and custom mouse/typing behaviour.
- **Built for AI agents:** An MCP server, agent skills, CLI and official Node.js SDK let assistants in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and similar tools call LinkedIn operations directly.
- **No-code and dev integrations:** Native connectors for n8n and Make plus plain HTTP endpoints mean the same workflows are reachable from any language or automation stack.

**Strengths:** Structured REST API plus official Node.js SDK, CLI, MCP server and agent skills; Dedicated cloud browser per account instead of shared or headless infrastructure; Unlimited workflow execution on both paid tiers, with no usage caps on actions; Native n8n and Make integrations for teams that prefer no-code

**Limitations:** It is an independent, unofficial tool — LinkedIn does not authorize this kind of account automation; Per-seat pricing tied to LinkedIn accounts can get costly across large teams; Sales Navigator actions require the more expensive Plus tier

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/linked-api.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Exa and Linked API compare in monthly traffic?

Exa has 1,062,574 monthly visits, while Linked API has 38,687. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Exa has a month-over-month growth rate of +16.8%; Linked API has -8.1%.

### How does pricing compare?

Exa: Freemium, Contact for Pricing. Freemium: free API usage to start plus usage-based pricing, with custom enterprise plans available. Confirm current rates on the pricing page. Linked API: Paid. Per-seat subscription with a 7-day free trial. Core is about $49 per seat/month for individuals and small teams; Plus is about $74 per seat/month and adds Sales Navigator actions. Annual billing saves roughly 29%. One seat equals one LinkedIn account, with unlimited workflow execution and volume discounts available on request.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [Instantly](https://openaitools.app/tool/instantly) | 2,336,279 | +6% | Paid, Contact for Pricing | Sales engagement platform with AI agents for lead finding, outreach and deliverability | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/instantly.md) |
| 2 | [Firecrawl](https://openaitools.app/tool/firecrawl-dev) | 1,828,239 | -1.9% | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | Web data API that turns any site into clean, AI-ready content | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/firecrawl-dev.md) |
| 3 | [TinyFish](https://openaitools.app/tool/tinyfish) | 1,124,952 | +199.7% | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | One API key for agent-grade web search, fetch, browsing and automation | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/tinyfish.md) |
| 4 | [Tavily](https://openaitools.app/tool/gpt-researcher) | 989,998 | -0.8% | Contact for Pricing | The real-time web access layer for AI agents and deep research | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/gpt-researcher.md) |
| 5 | [Smartlead](https://openaitools.app/tool/smartlead-ai) | 952,377 | +4.3% | Free Trial, Paid | AI-native cold email platform for scaling outbound without limits | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/smartlead-ai.md) |
| 6 | [You.com](https://openaitools.app/tool/you) | 948,349 | +7% | Freemium | Search and inference APIs that give AI models real-time web data | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/you.md) |
| 7 | [Bright Data](https://openaitools.app/tool/bright-data) | 802,752 | -5.9% | Free Trial, Paid | Web data infrastructure for scraping, proxies, and AI-ready datasets | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/bright-data.md) |
| 8 | [Algolia](https://openaitools.app/tool/algolia) | 689,970 | -11% | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | AI search and retrieval platform for modern apps and commerce | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/algolia.md) |
| 9 | [Success.ai](https://openaitools.app/tool/success-ai) | 547,073 | +6.3% | Freemium, Free Trial | AI sales platform for unlimited B2B leads and outreach | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/success-ai.md) |
| 10 | [Jina AI](https://openaitools.app/tool/jina-ai) | 280,782 | -16.5% | Freemium, Paid | Search foundation built from embeddings, rerankers, and reader APIs | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/jina-ai.md) |

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Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/exa-ai-vs-linked-api

More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)
