Most recruiting-tool comparisons rank by feature count. This one looks at something I found more predictive of whether a tool gets your Recruiter seat restricted: where the LinkedIn session actually executes — your machine, or a vendor's cloud.
I tested three tools side by side on a throwaway account, checked the IP each one exits from, and mapped what candidate surfaces each one can actually reach. The results weren't what the marketing pages promised.
| Linked Helper | HeyReach | We-Connect | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Desktop app — session on your machine/VPS | Cloud — session uploaded to vendor servers | Cloud — session on vendor's US servers |
| How you connect | LinkedIn password (stored on LH servers by default; local storage opt-in) | Login-password handover preferred; also cookie | Full LinkedIn email + password entered into platform |
| IP test result | Not tested (desktop — uses your own IP) | Datacenter /24, IPQS fraud 100, all 3 test IPs | Datacenter IPs: IPQS 94 (HostRoyale) and 87 (M247) |
| Recruiter sourcing | Recruiter projects + search, Sales Nav, groups, events, company pages — 20+ sources | Search-URL, CSV, post reactors (10k cap); no group/event extraction | Recruiter, Sales Nav, search, groups, events, post engagers |
| Cost per seat | $15/mo ($8.25 annual); teammates free | $79/sender Growth (→$59 at 10+); teammates free | $69/mo ($49 annual, upfront); managers free |
| What's missing | No ATS integration, no unified inbox | No groups/events; "Unlimited" capped at 300 seats | No native email finder; Agency tier is "book a demo" |
LinkedIn Automation Tools Comparison
Linked Helper
Desktop app, not a Chrome extension and not a cloud service. The LinkedIn session stays on the recruiter's machine or a VPS — the cookie, the IP, the browser fingerprint are all under the recruiter's control. LinkedIn sees a residential IP, not a vendor datacenter.
Sourcing is the broadest of the three: Recruiter projects, Recruiter search, Sales Navigator, standard search, groups, events, company pages, post commenters — 20+ surfaces. An AI ICP-scoring action filters profiles before they enter a campaign. Pricing is $15/mo ($8.25 annual), teammates join free through Workspaces, and bulk discounts stack to 50%.
Safety controls — daily limit of 150 profiles per every 24 hours, randomized pacing, auto-pause on suspicious failures — ship on both tiers, not behind an upsell. The password is stored on LH's servers by default (local storage is opt-in), and there's no native ATS integration or unified inbox.
HeyReach
Agency-native engine built for desks running many client LinkedIn accounts. Sender rotation, a unified inbox, isolated client workspaces — the multi-account machinery is real, and agency pricing is public (Micro Agency $999/25 senders, Agency $1,399/50) rather than hidden behind "talk to sales."
The connection method is direct: the vendor's preferred way in is a login-password handover — "This is the preferred way to connect your LinkedIn accounts, as it allows us to auto-relogin when the session ends." Full credentials in a cloud you don't control.
The flagship safety claim — "dedicated static residential proxy" that "never shares that IP between two accounts" — didn't survive testing. All three exit IPs scored IPQS fraud 100, sat in one datacenter /24 block (Altinea SAS), and carried proxy, VPN, and recent-abuse flags. That's the direct opposite of residential.
Sourcing was narrower than expected. Post imports capture reactors only (not commenters) and cap at 10,000 per import per sender. Group-member and event-attendee extraction aren't in the product — a real ceiling for recruiters whose candidates cluster in niche groups. Connecting a Recruiter seat also collides with LinkedIn's one-session rule: "If you connect your account to HeyReach, you'll be logged out of your Recruiter session."
Pricing: Growth starts at $79/sender, dropping to $59 from the tenth seat. Teammates and clients are free. The "Unlimited" plan is capped at 300 seats in the vendor's own documentation. Reliability is the #1 complaint in reviews, and in March 2026 LinkedIn banned HeyReach's own company page and founder profile.
We-Connect
Pure cloud, no extension — campaigns run 24/7. You connect by entering your full LinkedIn email and password (not a session cookie) into the platform, and its DPA places customer data in "data centres in the United States."
Sourcing is genuinely broad for a cloud tool: LinkedIn Recruiter is a supported account type, imports span search, groups, events, post engagers, newsletter subscribers, CSV, and a unified inbox merges Recruiter and standard threads — a feature neither Linked Helper nor HeyReach offers.
Safety controls are real: auto-pause on a detected restriction with auto-resume after a week, active on the cheapest tier. That's the strongest reactive safety mechanism here. But the marketed "Real Residential IPs" didn't hold up: two test accounts returned datacenter addresses at IPQS 94 and 87, with proxy and VPN flags on both.
Pricing: $69/mo per LinkedIn account ($49 annual, billed upfront for the year). Managers who don't use a LinkedIn seat are free. There's no native email finder — the vendor calls it "upcoming" — and the Agency tier is a "book a demo" custom quote.
What to check before choosing
The exit IP is the quickest reality check — run it through IPQS or similar on your own connected account. Then map which LinkedIn surfaces the tool can actually scrape versus what the marketing page claims, and compute the real per-seat cost including any VAT, proxy, or VPS costs.
Session custody turned out to be the axis that mattered most for me. A cloud tool that exits from a datacenter IP at fraud 94–100 is introducing a risk variable a desktop session on your own IP doesn't have. That's not a feature-list argument — it's an infrastructure one.
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