LinkedIn API Pricing in 2026: Access, Tiers and Limits
LinkedIn API pricing for posting: what is free, what needs Community Management approval, the published rate limits per tier and the token rules that cost time.
By André LugLinkedIn publishes no price list for its APIs, and its developer docs list no per-call fee. What you pay for is access. The self-serve Share on LinkedIn product lets a member post to their own profile, capped at 150 requests per member per day. Company Page posting needs the Community Management API, which starts in a restricted Development tier.
LinkedIn API pricing has a short answer: there is no fee to pay. LinkedIn does not sell API calls, and none of the posting products in its developer documentation carries a price. The real cost is access. Posting to your own profile is self-serve and works the same day. Posting to a Company Page, reading analytics or managing comments goes through an application, a capped trial tier and a recorded review before it works at production volume.
This guide covers the publishing side: which LinkedIn product you need for each kind of post, the scopes each one grants, the published rate limits per tier, and the token and versioning rules that turn into engineering time. LinkedIn is one of twelve networks with a documented posting API, and our overview of every platform with a posting API compares its access model with the rest.
PostGate handles OAuth, publishing and delivery evidence for every network through one API. Start free or read the docs.
Is the LinkedIn API free?
For posting, yes, in the sense that no invoice arrives. You create an app in the LinkedIn Developer Portal, add products to it, and LinkedIn grants the OAuth scopes that come with each product. Some products are self-serve and get added instantly. Others are vetted: you apply, LinkedIn reviews the use case, and it can say no.
So when people search for LinkedIn API cost, the honest answer has three parts. Personal profile posting costs nothing and takes minutes. Company Page posting costs nothing in fees but needs an approved application and a review to leave the trial tier. And some permissions are not on offer at all: LinkedIn currently lists r_member_social, the scope for reading a member's own posts, as closed to new requests.
Which LinkedIn API product do you need to post?
The product you add decides the scopes you can request. Match your use case to a row before you write any OAuth code, because requesting a scope your app was not granted fails at the authorization step.
| You want to | Product | Scope | How you get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post to a member's own profile | Share on LinkedIn | w_member_social | Self-serve: add it on the app's Products tab. |
| Identify the member (person URN) | Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect | openid, profile | Self-serve. |
| Post to a Company Page | Community Management API | w_organization_social | Vetted: Development tier first, then a Standard tier review. |
| Read page and post analytics, manage comments | Community Management API | r_organization_social, w_organization_social_feed and others | Same application as Company Page posting. |
| Read a member's own posts | Member Post Management | r_member_social | Closed: LinkedIn is not accepting requests. |
Two details catch teams out. For Company Page posts, the scope is not enough on its own: the authenticated member also needs the ADMINISTRATOR, CONTENT_ADMIN or DIRECT_SPONSORED_CONTENT_POSTER role on that page, according to the Posts API documentation. And if the consent screen succeeds but posting still returns 403, the token usually lacks the scope you think it has; our guide to the w_member_social scope not granted error walks through that check.
How do you get LinkedIn API access for Company Pages?
Company Page access runs through the Community Management API, which LinkedIn describes as a vetted product with two tiers. The access tier documentation spells out what the first tier allows:
- 500 API calls per app and 100 calls per member, per 24 hours, across all APIs.
- No calls to any API that uses BATCH_GET.
- Push notifications for social actions (the webhook) disabled.
- Twelve months to build and test your core use cases after the tier is provisioned.
The Standard tier has no restrictions, but you have to apply for it separately and attach a screencast that demonstrates every use case listed on your request form. LinkedIn also states it can decline an upgrade even when a partner meets the minimum requirements.
A practical sequence that matches the documented process:
- Create a new developer app tied to your company's LinkedIn Page. The Community Management request option is only available on apps that have no other API products, so do not reuse the app that already has Share on LinkedIn.
- Request the Development tier for that app and wait for approval.
- Build each use case end to end inside the 500/100 daily budget, using single GET calls instead of batch reads.
- Record a screencast that walks through each use case exactly as you described it in the form.
- Submit the Standard tier request and keep testing in Development while you wait.
Budget calendar time for this. LinkedIn does not publish a review timeline, and every week your app stays in Development is a week you cannot onboard real customers at volume.
What are the LinkedIn API rate limits for posting?
LinkedIn counts calls per day, per app and per member, and resets the counters at midnight UTC. Going over returns HTTP 429. The published numbers for the posting products are:
| Product and tier | Per member, per day | Per app, per day |
|---|---|---|
| Share on LinkedIn | 150 requests | 100,000 requests |
| Community Management, Development | 100 calls | 500 calls |
| Community Management, Standard | Not published | Not published |
For Standard tier and most other endpoints, the rate limit page says the limits are not in the documentation. You read them in the Developer Portal, on your app's Analytics tab, and an endpoint only shows up there after you have called it at least once that day. Developer admins get an email when the app passes 75% of a quota, with a delay of one to two hours, so do not treat that alert as real-time protection. If you post for many users, compare these numbers with other networks in our social media API rate limits reference.
How do you publish a post with the LinkedIn Posts API?
New integrations should use the Posts API at /rest/posts, which replaces the older ugcPosts endpoint that some Share on LinkedIn examples still show. Every request needs two headers besides the bearer token: X-Restli-Protocol-Version: 2.0.0 and LinkedIn-Version with a month in YYYYMM format. A successful call returns 201, and the post ID comes back in the x-restli-id response header, not in the body.
For a member post, the author is the person URN (urn:li:person:...) you get from the OpenID Connect sign-in. For a page post it is the organization URN. Media is a two-step flow: upload the image, video or document first through its own API, then reference the returned URN in the post. Article posts do not scrape the link for you; you must send the title, description and an uploaded thumbnail yourself.
curl -X POST 'https://api.linkedin.com/rest/posts' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
-H 'X-Restli-Protocol-Version: 2.0.0' \
-H 'LinkedIn-Version: 202610' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"author": "urn:li:person:{PERSON_ID}",
"commentary": "Shipping notes for this week",
"visibility": "PUBLIC",
"distribution": {
"feedDistribution": "MAIN_FEED",
"targetEntities": [],
"thirdPartyDistributionChannels": []
},
"lifecycleState": "PUBLISHED",
"isReshareDisabledByAuthor": false
}'What does LinkedIn API access cost you in practice?
With no usage fee, the bill shows up as maintenance. Start with token lifetime: every access token LinkedIn issues lasts 60 days. Programmatic refresh tokens, valid for 365 days from the first authorization, are documented for approved Marketing Developer Platform partners. If your app only has the self-serve products, plan for members to reconnect when the token expires, and build the reminder flow before they notice posts failing.
Then versioning. LinkedIn ships a new API version every month and supports each one for at least a year. The versioning page lists 202610 as the latest and warns that 202511 sunsets on November 16, 2026. A hard-coded version header turns into an outage about a year after you ship. Company Page access adds its own overhead on top: a second app, a trial tier, a screencast and a wait with no published end date.
If personal profile posting is what your users need and you would rather not maintain that plumbing, PostGate already does it: users connect LinkedIn through PostGate's hosted OAuth flow, which requests w_member_social, and your app publishes with the same POST /api/posts call it uses for every other network, with options.linkedin.visibility for the audience. The platform capability matrix lists what each LinkedIn target reports back after delivery. For how LinkedIn's approval gate compares with Meta, TikTok and YouTube, see which social APIs require approval before you can go public.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the LinkedIn API cost?
LinkedIn does not publish a price for its posting APIs, and its developer docs list no per-call fee. Personal profile posting through Share on LinkedIn is self-serve. Company Page posting is also fee-free but requires an approved Community Management API application, so the cost is review time and engineering, not an invoice.
Can I post to a LinkedIn Company Page with the free API?
Not with the self-serve products. Company Page posting needs the w_organization_social scope, which comes with the Community Management API (or the Advertising API). You apply for the Development tier first, then request Standard tier with a screencast, and the posting member must hold an admin or content role on the page.
How many posts can I publish per day with the LinkedIn API?
Share on LinkedIn allows 150 requests per member and 100,000 per app per day, reset at midnight UTC. The Community Management Development tier allows 100 calls per member and 500 per app across all APIs. Standard tier limits are not published; you see them on your app's Analytics tab in the Developer Portal.
How long does a LinkedIn API access token last?
60 days. Approved Marketing Developer Platform partners can use programmatic refresh tokens, which last 365 days from the original authorization; after that the member has to authorize your app again. Apps with only self-serve products should expect members to reconnect when the access token expires.
