Build lead lists from supported websites, enrich and qualify records, and connect prospecting steps in cloud workflows with shared usage limits.
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PhantomBuster is a cloud-based sales prospecting automation platform for lead generation, data enrichment and outreach across LinkedIn and other supported sources. Its building blocks are individual automations called Phantoms and ready-made chains called Workflows.
Live sourcing is central to its positioning: PhantomBuster says it does not sell, resell or provide pre-built databases. Users build their own lists from fresh, publicly available data using their own sources.
Data enrichment can add business emails when available, job titles, company information and social profiles. The vendor also describes using public activity signals, cleaning contact data and updating CRM records from LinkedIn data.
AI Phantoms can clean values such as job titles, score leads and segment them using criteria including industry, location and role.
The AI writing functions are described as drafting personalized connection requests, message templates for different segments and follow-up sequences based on response patterns.
A Phantom's setup separates the data it receives, the amount it processes and the conditions under which it runs.
One vendor-documented workflow starts with publicly listed employees on a company's LinkedIn page, filters them by job title, department or seniority, enriches their profiles and organizes them by role in the buying process. Personalized sequences can then be associated with stakeholder types. The result is an account-centered prospecting structure rather than a list grouped only by when records were collected.
Another documented example collects LinkedIn event-attendee profiles, adds company information and recent activity, and ties connection requests and later resources to the event and its topics. Engaged prospects can move toward a discovery conversation. The event provides a specific context for the workflow, rather than being used merely as a source of unrelated contacts.
These are vendor-described use cases, not measured outcomes from an independent test.
Phantoms and Workflows run in the cloud and continue after the browser is closed. This runtime model does not remove the task's connection to the external service it uses.
The API consists of HTTPS endpoints returning JSON. Its documented capabilities include launching and aborting agents, reading console output and status, obtaining account, agent and script records, and creating or updating scripts. This provides programmatic account control in addition to the visual workflow interface.
The annual-billing display captured on November 2, 2026 lists the following effective monthly prices, retaining the displayed dollar symbol. These prices apply to annual billing; monthly billing is a separate option.
| Annual plan | Effective monthly price | Execution time per month | Automation slots | Email credits per month | AI credits per month | URL Finder credits per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | $56 | 20 hours | 5 | 500 | 10,000 | 1,000 |
| Grow | $128 | 80 hours | 15 | 2,500 | 30,000 | 10,000 |
| Scale | $352 | 300 hours | 50 | 10,000 | 90,000 | 20,000 |
Plans are priced per workspace rather than per user. All workspace members draw from the same pool of execution hours, slots and credits. Execution time measures how long automations run during a billing cycle. Slots cover active automations, and some multi-step Workflows consume more than one slot. Credit pools meter particular step types, including email discovery, AI, URL finding and CAPTCHA handling.
Displayed subscription prices exclude any taxes or duties applicable to the customer. The plan amounts therefore do not establish the final tax-inclusive charge.
The fourteen-day trial requires no credit card. It includes two total execution hours, five slots, 50 email credits, 1,000 AI credits and 100 URL Finder credits.
The ongoing Free plan is separate from that trial. It includes thirty minutes of execution time per month, one slot and 50 MB of storage, with no monthly AI, email discovery, URL Finder or CAPTCHA credit allocation.
Moving to a paid plan during Trial ends the trial and starts billing. After a downgrade, automations and data remain in the workspace, but a setup exceeding the new slot allowance cannot create new automations until usage is reduced. Changing plans affects capacity without deleting the existing setup.
The separate credit pools reset monthly and do not roll over. When a credit type is exhausted, a workflow needing it fails at that step; the vendor describes add-on credit packs or a plan upgrade as the available capacity routes. Execution time and slots do not have mid-cycle top-ups.
Running out of execution time pauses automations until the allowance resets or the plan is upgraded. Automatic overage charges are not applied.
Subscriptions renew automatically for the selected term unless canceled or downgraded before the current term expires. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current subscription period, rather than immediately removing the remaining paid term.
Refund eligibility depends on both the billing cycle and resource use:
The refund process is separate from cancellation. The published policy requires canceling the subscription first and then contacting the Customer Care Team; a refund is not automatic.
Apollo presents a workspace for prospecting, outreach and dialing, connected to CRM and other first-party data, its proprietary data and third-party signals. Its emphasis is a connected sales workspace around data and execution. That is a different starting point from PhantomBuster's own-source, live-extraction model, even where both products support prospecting and downstream outreach.
Clay presents centralized first- and third-party data, waterfall enrichment combining multiple providers, and workflow orchestration. Its stated emphasis is assembling and operating a data system across providers. That makes enrichment orchestration the relevant comparison with PhantomBuster's source-specific Phantoms and ready-made automation chains.
PhantomBuster's own guidance acknowledges that LinkedIn's User Agreement restricts automated access and automated collection.
There is also a difference in the vendor's marketing language. The current pricing FAQ says the service does not use fake accounts or methods designed to bypass platform safeguards and works within platform constraints. A separate official blog describes its LinkedIn Profile Scraper as mimicking natural user behavior and extracting controlled batches “to avoid detection.”
The DPA defines the user as controller and The Phantom Company as processor for the covered service processing. The privacy policy separately says necessary support access to a LinkedIn session cookie requires prior explicit consent.
Workspace sharing is a concrete access boundary: collected data, dashboard information, session cookies and connected service accounts are accessible to workspace members. Undeleted data shared in that workspace remains available to the remaining members after someone leaves.
The privacy policy retains professional account identification and contact data for the service duration plus applicable legal limitation periods, generally five years. It says platform personal data is hosted exclusively in the EU, while technical tools outside the EU may be used with safeguards. The DPA also authorizes service-related transfers outside the EU or EEA, including through subprocessors, subject to the specified transfer mechanisms. The hosting statement does not describe every provider's processing location.
For AI features, the terms say providers do not use user data to train or improve their own models. They also allow PhantomBuster to process anonymized, aggregated usage data for internal research and service improvement.
The terms prohibit claiming ownership over AI output, recognizing that it may not qualify for intellectual-property protection. This is the product's contractual position; it is not a conclusion that every generated message has the same legal status in every jurisdiction.
No. The terms describe AI output as suggestive and automated, potentially inaccurate or biased, and requiring independent human verification.
A workspace API key can be used to launch agents. It is shown only once when created, and the documentation discourages putting it in a query string because it can appear in logs or caches.
Deletion removes the associated personal-workspace data and access to the service, but does not remove data left in shared workspaces. The terms place responsibility for exporting and backing up retained data on the user before account or workspace deletion.
