LinkedIn Company Headcount Tracker — Employee Growth Alerts

What does it do?

LinkedIn Company Headcount Tracker reads the public LinkedIn company page for each company you list and returns its employee count, size range, follower count, industry, headquarters and website. It also remembers every check. On each new run it adds the change since the previous check: employee delta, growth %, monthly-normalised growth, follower delta, a trend label and an alert flag.

Run it on a schedule (weekly is typical) and you get a headcount time series for any set of companies, without logging in to LinkedIn.

Who is it for / use cases

• Sales and account teams: spot target accounts that are growing fast (new budgets) or shrinking (layoffs, churn risk).
• Investors and analysts: track headcount of portfolio or watch-list companies over time.
• Competitive intelligence: compare hiring pace across competitors.
• Recruiters and agencies: find companies that are scaling up.

Features

• Accepts company URLs or bare slugs, duplicates removed.
• Stores history in a named key-value store of your account; reuse the same name on every scheduled run to get deltas.
• Growth since previous check, since first check, and normalised per 30 days.
• alert=true when the change reaches your threshold (default 5 %).
• Optional history array (date, employee count, followers) on each row.
• Only successful rows (status: ok) are charged. Invalid or unreachable entries produce a free error row.
• Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML from the Apify dataset.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
companies (required)	array of strings	prefilled with 2 examples	Company page URLs (https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/) or slugs (apify). Other URL types give an error row.
historyStoreName	string	linkedin-headcount-history	Named key-value store holding past checks. Change it to start a separate tracking list.
alertThresholdPct	number	5	Percent change since previous check at which alert becomes true.
includeHistory	boolean	false	Add the stored history array to each row.
maxHistoryPoints	integer (2–1000)	104	Checks kept per company; oldest dropped.
maxResults	integer (1–100000)	100	Maximum companies processed per run (also caps spending).
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Residential	LinkedIn blocks most direct and datacenter traffic; residential is recommended.

Output

Real output of a first check (no earlier history exists yet, so the change fields are null and trend is first_check):

{
  "companySlug": "apify",
  "companyUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/",
  "inputValue": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/",
  "status": "ok",
  "companyName": "Apify",
  "employeeCount": 272,
  "companySizeRange": "201-500 employees",
  "followerCount": 39861,
  "industry": "Technology, Information and Internet",
  "headquarters": "Prague",
  "website": "https://apify.com/",
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:16:20.084Z",
  "previousEmployeeCount": null,
  "previousCheckedAt": null,
  "daysSincePrevious": null,
  "employeeDelta": null,
  "employeeGrowthPct": null,
  "employeeGrowthPctMonthly": null,
  "followerDelta": null,
  "firstCheckedAt": null,
  "employeeGrowthPctSinceFirst": null,
  "trend": "first_check",
  "alert": false,
  "historyPoints": 1,
  "error": null
}

Output fields & fill rates

Measured on one production run that returned 36 result rows (one row per company, all first checks, so no stored history existed yet):

Field	Fill rate	Notes
companySlug, companyUrl, inputValue, status, checkedAt	100 %
companyName, employeeCount, companySizeRange, followerCount	100 %
industry, headquarters, website	100 %
trend, alert, historyPoints	100 %	trend is one of first_check, growing, shrinking, stable (growth between -1 % and +1 %)
history	100 % in that run	Only filled when includeHistory is true
previousEmployeeCount, previousCheckedAt, daysSincePrevious, employeeDelta, employeeGrowthPct, employeeGrowthPctMonthly, followerDelta, firstCheckedAt, employeeGrowthPctSinceFirst	0 % on a first check	Filled from the second run on the same historyStoreName; this run had no earlier history, so the change fields were not exercised
error	0 %	Set only on error rows

Public pages show the employee count LinkedIn displays; it is the platform's own figure, not an audited headcount.

How to use via API

Replace YOUR_TOKEN with your Apify API token.

curl

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~linkedin-company-headcount-tracker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"companies":["https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/","microsoft"],"alertThresholdPct":5}'

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/linkedin-company-headcount-tracker').call({
    companies: ['https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/', 'microsoft'],
    historyStoreName: 'linkedin-headcount-history',
    alertThresholdPct: 5,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.filter((i) => i.alert));

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/linkedin-company-headcount-tracker").call(run_input={
    "companies": ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/apify/", "microsoft"],
    "historyStoreName": "linkedin-headcount-history",
    "alertThresholdPct": 5,
    "includeHistory": False,
})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print([i for i in items if i["alert"]])

To track growth, create an Apify Schedule (for example weekly) that runs the Actor with the same input and the same historyStoreName.

Pricing

Pay per result: only rows with status: ok are charged. Price per 1,000 results depends on your Apify plan:

Plan	Per 1,000 results
Free	$1.50
Bronze	$1.30
Silver	$1.15
Gold and above	$1.00

Platform usage is billed separately by Apify. With the default residential proxy, we estimated about 48 MB of traffic per 1,000 companies, roughly $0.39 per 1,000 at $8/GB (an estimate, not a guarantee). Error rows are free. Use maxResults to cap a run.

Troubleshooting

• Error row for an entry: check that it is a company page URL (/company/<slug>/) or a slug. Profile, job and search URLs are not supported.
• Blocked or empty results: keep the default residential proxy; datacenter and direct traffic are mostly blocked by LinkedIn.
• All change fields are null: this is the first check for that company in that historyStoreName. Run again later with the same store name.
• Company missing a value: some pages may not show every field; those fields come back null.
• Deltas look wrong after editing the list: a different historyStoreName starts a separate history.

FAQ

Does it need a LinkedIn login or cookies? No. It reads only the public, logged-out company page.

Where is the history kept? In a named key-value store in your own Apify account, under the name you set.

How often should I run it? Weekly or monthly suits headcount; the monthly-normalised growth field makes uneven gaps comparable.

Is it legal? It collects publicly visible company information, not personal profiles. LinkedIn's terms restrict automated access, so assess your own use and compliance obligations.

Can I get employee lists or profiles? No, this Actor returns company-level data only.

Keywords

linkedin company headcount tracker, linkedin employee count, linkedin headcount growth, company headcount monitoring, linkedin company scraper, employee growth tracker, linkedin follower count, hiring growth tracker, headcount alerts, linkedin company size

Hashtags

#linkedin #headcount #employeegrowth #companydata #leadgeneration #competitiveintelligence #salesintelligence #scraping #apify #hiringtrends