Is There a Free LinkedIn Connector for Claude and ChatGPT?

“Connector” is the word you actually see in the app. In Claude it sits under Settings, then Connectors. In ChatGPT it lives behind Developer Mode. Either way it means the same thing: a small piece of plumbing that lets the assistant you are already chatting with reach an outside service — in this case, your LinkedIn account.

So “is there a free one?” is a fair question, and the honest answer has more than one part. Free can mean free of charge, free of a subscription, free of a card, or free of the work of running it yourself. Those are four different things, and the tools in this market sit in different combinations of them.

What does a LinkedIn connector actually do?

Underneath, most connectors are MCP servers. MCP is the Model Context Protocol — an open standard for plugging AI assistants into outside tools. The assistant discovers a list of actions the server offers, then calls them when you ask. A LinkedIn connector’s actions are things like “write a draft”, “publish this post”, “schedule it for Tuesday morning”.

That matters for the price question, because a connector is not an app you install once. It is a server that has to run somewhere. Someone is paying for that server to be awake when you ask for something. When a connector is free, it is worth knowing which of the two possible answers applies: either the operator is absorbing that cost, or you are, because the server is on your own machine.

Why does “free” split into three very different things?

Search for a free LinkedIn connector and you get three groups of results that have almost nothing in common except the word.

The first group dominates the search results, so it is worth being precise about what you get there.

Is a free connector still free if you have to run it yourself?

Not really, and the gap is wider than most people expect before they try it.

A self-hosted connector arrives as source code. You clone it, install its dependencies, supply credentials, and keep a process running somewhere the assistant can reach. On a laptop that means the connector stops working every time you close the lid. On a small rented server it means a monthly bill and the job of applying updates whenever the project changes. None of this is hard for a developer, but it is not nothing, and it never stops.

Then there is the part that matters more than the setup. The most popular open-source LinkedIn MCP project, stickerdaniel/linkedin-mcp-server, is a scraper: it drives a browser session rather than calling LinkedIn’s API. Its own README is straightforward about two things. It states that it “does not publish or create posts on your behalf”, and it warns that accounts “can be restricted or banned”. That is the author’s own wording, not a rival’s characterisation.

Read those together and the picture is clear enough. If your goal is to publish posts from chat, the top free result cannot do it at all. And where a self-hosted scraper does carry risk, that risk sits with you, because there is no operator standing between you and LinkedIn.

Apify and Bright Data also publish LinkedIn MCP endpoints, and they are worth knowing about — but they are built for data extraction, not for posting. Zapier’s LinkedIn MCP exposes only about two actions. LinkedIn itself publishes no official MCP server or connector of its own.

Do you need a paid Claude or ChatGPT plan to use a connector?

This is the part people miss when they compare prices, because the connector can be free while the app around it is not.

• Claude: the free plan is enough. Custom connectors work on Claude’s free tier. You add the URL under Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Nothing else to buy.
• ChatGPT: you need a paid plan. Connectors like this go in through Developer Mode, which is on the paid plans only — Plus, Pro, Team, Enterprise or Edu — and on the web only. You add it under Developer Mode, then Plugins, then the plus button, then New Plugin, with Auth set to OAuth. You also have to switch it on per conversation from the tools menu, which catches people out on their second chat.
• Codex is separate. Connecting inside ChatGPT on the web does not carry across to Codex. Each app connects and signs in on its own.

So a free LinkedIn connector is completely free in Claude, and free-except-for-your-existing-subscription in ChatGPT. Neither of those costs goes to the connector.

What are the real limits on the free version?

A free tool with limits it does not publish is a trial wearing a disguise. Here are Kalovio’s caps in full. There is no higher tier being held back, because there is no higher tier.

• 3000 characters per post. That is LinkedIn’s own ceiling, not a plan limit. No tool gets past it.
• 20 MB per file. Applies to each image and to PDF, PPT and DOC uploads.
• 100 files in your library. That is per user, and the library is private to you.
• 30-day retention on uploads. Library files are cleared after 30 days. Anything already published stays on LinkedIn — the window applies to the upload library, not to your posts.
• 2 to 9 images in a swipeable carousel, and up to 30 posts in one queue call.
• Scheduling up to a year ahead.

Inside those caps you get the whole tool: publish now or schedule for later, a weekly posting queue, drafts, single-image posts, multi-image carousels, PDF document carousels, mentions, a voice profile so posts sound like you, and link-click tracking through short links. Captions are optional when a file is attached, so an image-only post is a normal post.

How do you tell whether a free connector is safe?

Price tells you nothing about safety. The sign-in method tells you almost everything. Five checks, none of which need you to read any code:

• Does setup send you to linkedin.com? If it asks you to paste a session cookie, your password, or install a browser extension that reads your session, it is not using OAuth. A session cookie is not limited to posting — it carries your whole account, and you cannot switch off one tool without signing out everywhere.
• Can it name its permission? A tool posting through the official API will say w_member_social without hesitating. Vague phrases like “official integration” with no named scope are just an assertion.
• Can it name its endpoint? Posting happens at POST /v2/ugcPosts, or LinkedIn’s newer versioned /rest/posts for multi-image and document posts.
• Does the connection show up in your LinkedIn settings? An OAuth grant is listed under permitted services, and you can revoke it there in one click. A copied cookie appears nowhere.
• Does it claim to read your old posts? The permission for that, r_member_social, is closed to self-serve apps. Anything reading your full history is getting it some other way.

Kalovio takes the OAuth route on both sides. Your LinkedIn access token is encrypted before it is stored, never leaves the backend, and is never shown to the assistant you are chatting with. Publishing, scheduling, queueing and deleting are two-step: the first call returns a preview plus a signed token covering the exact content, and nothing happens until you confirm. That gate is what stops a hidden instruction inside a web page from posting on your behalf.

What does free not buy you?

Some limits come from LinkedIn and apply to every self-serve tool, free or paid.

• You cannot read posts the connector did not create. r_member_social is closed to self-serve apps.
• Access expires in about 60 days. Self-serve apps get no refresh token, so you reconnect from time to time.
• No engagement analytics. Impressions and follower stats need LinkedIn’s partner-gated Community Management API. Link-click tracking is a different measurement and should not be mistaken for it.
• Multi-image and PDF posts use LinkedIn’s versioned interface, which may be product-gated for a self-serve app. A refusal is reported clearly rather than failing silently — try it on your own account rather than assuming it works for everyone.
• Document posts cannot be scheduled yet. They publish immediately.
• No DMs, no connection requests, no lead scraping. That is the design, not a plan restriction.

How do you try it without paying?

Add https://kalovio.com/mcp as a custom connector in Claude, or as a new plugin in ChatGPT’s Developer Mode with Auth set to OAuth. Sign in with LinkedIn once, on LinkedIn’s own consent screen. Then ask for a post. No card, no trial clock, and no upgrade prompt waiting at the end of the week.

If you want the same question answered in the MCP vocabulary rather than the connector one, the companion piece is free LinkedIn MCP server: what free actually means.