The Caps Are LinkedIn's, Not the Tool's
Every tool in the category stops at the same numbers, because they are LinkedIn's: 1,000 people per standard search and 2,500 per Sales Navigator search. A tool advertising more is splitting your search into several searches, which you can do yourself by narrowing the filters.
What the Category Actually Publishes
PhantomBuster documents about 12 seconds per search page, which works out at roughly 35 minutes for 2,500 profiles. Dux-Soup runs at about six pages a minute. Evaboot describes real-time extraction in a minute or two. HeyReach cites two to three minutes. Skylead's steps begin 15 to 30 minutes into a run. Dripify's own documentation says imports can take up to a few hours.
Roughly 10 to 12 Seconds a Page Is the Consensus Safe Rate
The published figures cluster there for a reason: it is fast enough to be useful and slow enough to look like reading. A tool going dramatically faster is taking a risk with your account; one taking hours is usually batching work into infrequent background jobs rather than being careful.
Page Reads Are Not Outreach Actions
Every major tool treats reading a search page as separate from invitations and messages, and several state it explicitly. This matters because it means importing a large audience does not consume any of your weekly invitation allowance — the import and the outreach draw on different budgets.
What a Good Import Shows You While It Runs
Most tools show nothing until the run finishes. That is the difference between an import you can trust and one you have to verify afterwards: a live count, and a record of who was excluded and why — already contacted, duplicate, missing a profile URL — rather than a final number you cannot reconcile.
