1.Decide who owns the account
Set the account up in your own name, on your own card. The account, the data, and the billing stay yours. If a team member or assistant will run the outreach for you, they use your account rather than setting up their own, so the usage and the cost always sit with you, not with them.
2.Create your Apify account
Go to apify.com and sign up with your email and card. The account is free. You pay only for usage, and each actor has its own pricing.
Open apify.com →3.Open the Apify MCP and switch on what you need
While logged in, open mcp.apify.com in a new tab (one F, .com). This is the bridge between Apify and Claude.
Two things on this page: remove the RAG Web Browser that is switched on by default (click the small X on it, you do not need it), then tick the boxes to turn on Actor runs and Data storage. Keep this tab open, you come back to it in step 6.
Open mcp.apify.com →4.Install the Apify connector in Claude
In Claude, go to Connectors → Customize Connectors → Browse Connectors. Search Apify and click Install. It confirms "installed".
If the first result looks wrong, click the X, then the plus, then Browse Connectors again to retry.
Required5.Add your API key
Back in Apify, open API and integrations and copy your Default API token. Paste it into the connector setup in Claude. Do not hit save yet. You add the tools in the next step, before saving.
Required6.Load the four research actors, then save and enable
Instead of adding actors one by one, paste this shorthand string into the connector's enable-tools field. It loads the base tools plus all four LinkedIn actors in one go:
actors,docs,runs,storage,datadoping/linkedin-profile-posts-scraper,datadoping/linkedin-company-posts-scraper,anchor/linkedin-profile-enrichment,vulnv/linkedin-email-finder
Now click Save, then switch the connector from Disabled to Enabled. Apify is connected to Claude.
7.Check the pricing on each actor
Click into each actor in Apify to understand how it charges before you run it in anger. Some charge a flat monthly fee, others charge per use. The four below are the recipe, with their free-tier rates. The email finder only charges when it actually finds an email, so a no-result run costs almost nothing.
Prices drop on higher Apify plans. Search throws up dozens of near-identical actors, so match on the exact full name and author to land on the right one. If one stops working, swap it for another.
Turn the recipe into a Monday-morning agent.
Connecting the actors is the foundation. The real leverage comes from building a Skill so Claude knows which actor to run when you ask. From there it becomes an agent: every Monday it finds your target people, reads their content, and drafts personalised outreach, ready in your inbox to review or send.
That is the next build. Get the connection working first.
This is yours to own, no developer needed.
Every step here is point-and-click inside Apify and Claude. The account, the API key, and the data are yours. Once it is connected it stays connected, ready whenever you want it, and you only ever pay for what you actually scrape.