Derrick alternatives (2026): LinkedIn post engager tools compared by fit check, research and who sends
Derrick alternatives for LinkedIn post engagers, compared by ICP check, research, approval and who sends: traxy, Tealde, Clay, Embers, Valley, B2B Signals.
TL;DR: If Derrick gives you a sheet of the people who liked or commented on a LinkedIn post and you want each one checked against your ICP, researched and contacted, the best Derrick alternatives in 2026 are traxy, Tealde, Clay, Embers, Valley and B2B Signals. traxy turns any LinkedIn post you paste into the engagers with a 50%+ ICP match, shows the post, comment or like behind each lead, researches each lead for the facts you ask for, and runs LinkedIn and email outreach from your own connected accounts after you test the campaign and approve the launch, with the option to approve every message. If a spreadsheet of names, profile URLs, emails and phone numbers is all you need, Derrick is still a good pick.
traxy wrote this guide and lists itself first. Every competitor detail comes from that vendor's own site, help center or blog, linked in its entry and checked November 2026. Prices are left out; see each vendor's pricing page, and traxy pricing.
Already comparing tools that qualify engagers? Embers alternatives compares them by who sends the outreach, and PhantomBuster alternatives for post engagers covers scrapers and exports. This page is for teams that start from Derrick's post engager import and want more than the sheet.
What does Derrick do, and when should you stay with it?
Derrick is a B2B data enrichment platform. It runs in its own web app, in Google Sheets, through a REST API and through an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT (derrick-app.com). On the pages we checked in November 2026, it offers:
Post engagers: paste one or many LinkedIn post URLs, yours or anyone's, and get everyone who reacted or commented, one person per row, with name, profile URL, whether they reacted or commented, the reaction type and the post ID. Derrick says it reads past the 100 people LinkedIn shows (Derrick: import post likes and comments).
Contact data: an email finder for verified work emails, a phone finder for mobile numbers, and email verification (Derrick features).
Enrichment and signals: LinkedIn profile and company enrichment, tech stack, a website crawler, recent company news, and job change, fundraising, hiring and company move signals.
AI on each row: Ask Claude or Ask OpenAI reads each row and writes the answer back, for example to score a lead, sort a list or summarise a page.
Sending: Derrick pushes leads into La Growth Machine, lemlist, Instantly and other sending tools. The pages we checked don't describe Derrick sending LinkedIn messages or emails itself.
Stay with Derrick if you want the engagers in a spreadsheet with emails and phone numbers on every row, you are happy to write your own scoring prompt, and you already have a sending tool you like. Switching makes more sense when you want the fit check, the research, the approval and the sending in one place, with the post behind each person kept on the lead.
What does Derrick's LinkedIn post export return, and where does traxy differ?
Derrick's Import LinkedIn Post Likes & Comments action returns five fields for each person who liked or commented on a post: whether they reacted or commented, their full name, their LinkedIn profile URL, the reaction type (blank for comments) and the post ID (Derrick: import post likes and comments, checked November 2026). traxy starts from the same post but keeps only the engagers with a 50%+ ICP match, shows the like or comment behind each lead, and runs LinkedIn and email outreach to them from your connected accounts after you approve the launch.
What Derrick's own pages say, checked November 2026:
Where the data lands: in Google Sheets, the add-on writes name, profile URL and reaction type to a Post Engagers tab, one person per row. The same action runs in Derrick's web app, from Claude through its MCP server, and through its REST API (Derrick: import post likes and comments).
No comment text: the five output fields Derrick lists don't include the words of the comment, so to see what someone wrote you go back to the post.
Emails are a separate action: the post import doesn't return emails. Derrick's Email Finder is its own action: you give it a column of LinkedIn profile URLs, or a first name, last name and company, and it returns an email and a verification status, using a multi-source lookup and SMTP verification before it writes back (Derrick: Email Finder).
No fit check in the export: everyone who reacted or commented comes back. Deciding who fits your ICP is a step you add afterwards.
Where traxy differs: traxy runs your entire LinkedIn GTM end to end, from finding high intent leads from social intent to enriching and researching each one, to running relevant, personalized LinkedIn and email outreach to them on autopilot. For a post's engagers, that means:
An ICP match on each engager: paste the post under Targeting > Posts or into trax, and only the people with a 50%+ ICP match become leads, labelled Warm, Related, Activity or ICP match (qualification).
The source like or comment on each lead: each lead shows the post, comment, like or repost that put them on your list. Open the lead's Signals tab to check the source and date before you use it in a message.
Outreach from your connected accounts: a campaign researches each lead for the facts you ask for, groups leads by signal and prepares a personalized LinkedIn and email sequence. You test it on sample leads with nothing sent and approve the launch; then the campaign runs on its own, or you approve every message in a review queue. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop the sequence. You can also run campaigns from Claude or ChatGPT through the traxy MCP, which asks for your yes in chat before anything sends.
A real example: Vamo turned the engagement on 64 posts it had already published into 14 replies and 11 meetings, with traxy flagging the engagers who fit its ICP (Vamo case study).
Derrick fits better when you want every engager on the post in a sheet, fits and non-fits alike, or a count of reactions by type across many posts. If you are comparing pure export tools, see PhantomBuster alternatives for LinkedIn post engagers.
Why do teams look for Derrick alternatives?
Usually because the sheet is the start of the job. Three gaps come up:
Who fits. Derrick's post import returns everyone who reacted or commented. Deciding who fits your ICP is a step you build yourself, for example an Ask Claude column with your own prompt.
Why to reach out. Research means adding more columns, such as a website crawl, company news or a hiring check, and then writing a message from them.
Who approves and who sends. Derrick hands the list to a sending tool, so the review step and the sequence live in a second product.
If your reason is price, compare plans on each vendor's site. This guide compares where engagers come from and what happens before anyone is contacted.
How we picked and compared
We started from the tools that AI answers named in November 2026 for Derrick alternatives that check engagers against an ICP, research them and prepare outreach (Clay, Tealde, Embers, Valley and B2B Signals). We kept a tool only if its own pages describe those steps, and compared six things:
Where engagers come from: a post URL you paste, profiles or company pages you track, or a search the tool runs for you.
ICP check with evidence: whether each person is checked against your ICP before outreach, and whether you can see why and which post or comment brought them in.
Research on each lead: whether the tool researches each person before a message is prepared.
Who approves the message: a test with nothing sent, a launch review, approval of each message, or an autopilot setting.
Who sends: the tool itself, from your LinkedIn account and mailbox, or another tool you push leads to.
Who it fits: the team and the job where each tool is the better pick, including over traxy.
Also checked, not ranked: some answers still pair Trigify with Clay for post engagers. Trigify is winding down its standalone platform, and for most customers access ended at 11:59pm BST on October 22, 2026 (trigify.io). See what to use now that Trigify has shut down.
The 6 best Derrick alternatives
1. traxy
traxy finds high intent leads from LinkedIn activity, including the engagers on any post you paste, checks each one against your ICP, and runs LinkedIn and email outreach to them from your own connected accounts once you approve the launch. traxy is the vendor writing this guide.
Where engagers come from: paste any LinkedIn post, yours, a competitor's or an influencer's, under Targeting > Posts or into trax, the traxy agent, and get the engagers who fit your ICP. You can also track profiles and company pages, so the people who engage with their posts are checked too (Tracking). Other sources are people who post, comment on or like posts about the problem you solve (Signals), a plain-English search of 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments (social intent search), and your profile views.
ICP check with evidence: a person becomes a lead only at a 50% or higher ICP match (qualification). Every lead shows the post, comment or like behind it and a signal label (Warm, Related, Activity or ICP match) for how strong the evidence is. You can mark a lead Good fit or Bad fit with a reason.
Research on each lead: a campaign researches each lead for the facts you ask for before any message is prepared, or runs research only (create a campaign). Leads are grouped by signal, and each group gets its own message variant, personalized with the evidence on each lead. traxy can also look up a work email or phone number for a lead (contact details) and export the columns you pick as a CSV.
Who approves the message: a test on sample leads prepares research and previews with nothing sent. The launch review shows who joins, who is skipped because another unfinished campaign holds them or a past campaign contacted them, the sender, the steps and the delivery mode. Then you approve each message in a review queue or let the approved campaign send (review and launch).
Who sends: traxy, from the LinkedIn accounts and mailboxes you connect as sender accounts, each with limits, active hours and ramp-up that a campaign doesn't bypass (sender accounts). Connection requests, LinkedIn messages and email steps run in one sequence, a wait can depend on connection acceptance, and replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop it (sequences). The inbox keeps one conversation per lead across both channels.
Fits better than Derrick when: you want the people who engaged checked, researched and contacted in one tool, with the post behind each lead and a person approving before anything sends.
Derrick fits better when: you want the raw engager list in Google Sheets, company data and tech stack on every row, or you already send from another tool and only need the list.
2. Tealde
Tealde is an AI prospecting copilot for sales reps. You describe who you sell to, it finds the people on LinkedIn, ranks them by fit and recent activity, and drafts the first note for you to approve.
Where engagers come from: you describe who you sell to in one sentence, and Tealde finds the people on LinkedIn and can look again every night for new ones. It ranks them by recent LinkedIn activity, such as posts, comments and reactions, and by profile changes like a new job (tealde.ai). The pages we checked don't describe pasting a post URL to pull its engagers.
ICP check with evidence: each lead is checked against your criteria, with the source for every answer. Tealde's own guide says it ranks leads and shows why, and leaves the decision to you (Tealde: connect with ICPs by reading post engagement).
Research on each lead: every first note starts from what Tealde read about the lead.
Who approves the message: you edit each draft, and nothing is sent without your OK, message by message or once when you schedule an agent.
Who sends: Tealde sends requests and messages on LinkedIn only after you approve them (Tealde product summary). The pages we checked don't describe email steps.
Fits better than traxy when: you are one rep who wants a chat that starts from a one-sentence description of your buyer and hands you a short ranked list when you log in.
3. Clay
Clay is a data and enrichment platform where you build the workflow yourself: a table pulls the engagers, Claygents research and score each row, and the rows go on to a sequencer.
Where engagers come from: a Clay template scrapes the comments on viral posts and imports the people who commented into a Clay table (Clay template). Clay workflows can also run Apify actors from your own Apify account (Clay and Apify).
ICP check with evidence: the same template enriches and qualifies people on your criteria. Claygents score and qualify leads on criteria unique to your business, for example ranking a lead from 1 to 10, and every Claygent decision comes with a full reasoning trace (Claygent).
Research on each lead: Claygents research companies and people and return structured data, such as buying triggers or org changes, in the columns you design.
Who approves the message: you design the gate. When someone replies, Clay's Sequencer drafts the follow-up and posts it in Slack for reps to approve or edit before sending (Clay Sequencer). The pages we checked don't describe approving each first message.
Who sends: Sequencer runs cold email from inboxes and domains you can buy inside Clay, with lead-specific copy from its agents. The post engager template hands the leads to a separate LinkedIn sending tool.
Fits better than traxy when: you have someone to build and maintain the table, you want many data providers and custom columns, or you send cold email at volume from inboxes bought in Clay. See Clay alternatives.
4. Embers
Embers turns public LinkedIn activity into a ranked queue of ICP matches with drafts, and leaves the sending to you or to a tool you connect.
Where engagers come from: paste any public LinkedIn post, anyone's, and Embers reads up to 500 reactions and 500 comments, skipping the author, you, your colleagues and companies on your blocklist (Embers Help: qualify a post). It also watches your own posts, the replies and reactions to comments you leave, public profiles you add and keywords (useembers.com).
ICP check with evidence: everyone is matched against your ICP, enriched and scored, and comments are classified for intent. Results show the lead, title, ICP, signal and why, starting with ICP matches only.
Research on each lead: each qualified lead keeps the evidence that surfaced them, a priority explanation and a suggested next action (Embers product summary). The pages we checked don't describe research on each lead beyond that.
Who approves the message: suggested messages stay drafts that you review.
Who sends: you, by hand, or a tool you connect. Embers never sends connection requests or messages on LinkedIn and never emails a lead. It pushes leads to sending tools such as Instantly, Smartlead or Emelia, or to a CRM such as HubSpot or Salesforce.
Fits better than traxy when: you want a ranked list with drafts and prefer to send yourself or from a sending tool you already run. See Embers alternatives.
5. Valley
Valley captures the people who engage with LinkedIn posts, filters them for your ICP, researches each one and sends LinkedIn and email outreach in your writing style.
Where engagers come from: your own posts, captured continuously, and competitors' posts on up to five monitored profiles (Valley: post engagers). You add the influencers' or competitors' profile URLs as a warm list (Valley Help: post engagers). Its playbook library also lists a play to paste any LinkedIn posts, yours or anyone's, and message the best fits (Valley playbooks).
ICP check with evidence: each engager is scored High, Medium or Low fit against the product you choose, and only the ones that fit get researched and written to.
Research on each lead: research agents pull company info, role details and recent news for personalization, up to five per campaign.
Who approves the message: Autopilot is a per-campaign setting. With it on, Valley sends messages after generating them; with it off, every message waits in Approvals for you (Valley Help: approvals).
Who sends: Valley, with connection requests and InMail from the same campaign, and messages across LinkedIn and email.
Fits better than traxy when: you want InMail steps, or drafts trained on a writing style you set up in Valley. See Valley alternatives.
6. B2B Signals
B2B Signals sells signal-based outbound as software or as a service. It watches an audience you give it, surfaces people with a reason to reach out, and sends from your LinkedIn account after you approve every word.
Where engagers come from: a post scanner on its site pulls the people who liked or commented on one post, works out where they work and what they do, and marks the ones who look like your customers, with no account needed. The software covers engagers on competitors' and category voices' posts every day, filtered to your ICP (B2B Signals: post engagers to a lead list). You can also give it your website, a list or a CRM export to build the audience it watches (b2bsignals.ai).
ICP check with evidence: engagers are filtered to your ICP, and each person reaches your feed with the reason spelled out, such as a hiring post, a job change or something they wrote.
Research on each lead: B2B Signals says it does the research and drafting that SDRs would otherwise do, and that every first line quotes something the person did.
Who approves the message: you approve every word, one key each, and every message is approved by a person before it leaves.
Who sends: B2B Signals sends from your LinkedIn account within LinkedIn's daily limits, at human pace, and replies land in your inbox. Its done-for-you plans add email and have its team answer replies. It reads LinkedIn data through its own accounts, not yours.
Fits better than traxy when: you want a team to run the outreach and answer replies for you, or a one-off look at a single post before you sign up for anything.
Comparison table
Competitor rows summarize each vendor's own pages, checked November 2026. Derrick is included for reference.
Tool | Where engagers come from | ICP check and evidence | Research on each lead | Who approves the message | Who sends | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
traxy | Any post URL you paste, tracked profiles and company pages, Signals, social intent search | 50%+ ICP match, with the post, comment or like on each lead | For the facts you ask for, in each campaign | You: test with nothing sent, launch review, optional approval of every message | traxy, from your connected LinkedIn and email accounts | Engagers checked, researched and contacted in one tool |
Derrick | One or many post URLs you paste | A column you build, for example Ask Claude with your prompt | Columns you add: website, news, hiring | In the sending tool you push to | Another tool, such as La Growth Machine, lemlist or Instantly | Engager lists with emails and phones in a sheet |
Tealde | People it finds from a one-sentence description, ranked by recent activity | Checked against your criteria, with the source for every answer | Drafts start from what it read about the lead | You, message by message or once per scheduled agent | Tealde, on LinkedIn; email not described | One rep's short ranked list |
Clay | A template that scrapes viral post comments; Apify actors | Claygent scoring on criteria you write, with a reasoning trace | Claygents, in columns you design | You design it; reply drafts approved in Slack | Sequencer for email; LinkedIn through another tool | Teams that build their own workflow |
Embers | Any public post you paste; your posts, watched profiles, keywords | ICP match with the signal and why | Evidence and a priority explanation | You review the drafts | You, or a tool you connect; Embers never sends | Ranked leads you send yourself |
Valley | Your posts, up to five monitored profiles, a paste-any-post play | High, Medium or Low fit; only fits are researched | Research agents: company, role, news | Autopilot, or every message in Approvals | Valley, on LinkedIn and email | Engager plays in your writing style |
B2B Signals | A one-post scanner; competitors' and category voices' posts; your website, list or CRM | ICP filter, with the reason spelled out | Research and drafting done for you | You approve every word | B2B Signals, from your LinkedIn; email in done-for-you plans | Software, or a team that runs it for you |
Which Derrick alternative checks each engager against my ICP and researches them before outreach?
traxy, Valley, Embers, Tealde and B2B Signals check fit before outreach, and Clay does it when you build that step. They differ on what happens next, so ask two questions on any demo: does a poor fit stay out of the sequence, and what exactly do you approve?
traxy: only people with a 50%+ ICP match become leads, and each shows the post, comment or like behind it. A campaign researches each lead for the facts you ask for, a test on sample leads sends nothing, you always approve the launch, and you can approve every message in a review queue.
Valley: engagers are scored first, and only the ones that fit are researched and written to. With Autopilot off, every message waits for your approval.
Embers: engagers are matched, ranked with a reason and given a draft, and you or a connected tool send.
Tealde: leads are checked against your criteria with sources, and nothing sends without your OK.
B2B Signals: people come with the reason spelled out, and you approve every word.
An ICP match says a person fits your criteria, not that they will buy. See ICP match score vs signal strength and how to message LinkedIn post engagers.
When is Derrick still the right pick?
When the output you want is a list. Derrick fits if you work in Google Sheets, want emails, mobile numbers, company data and tech stack on every row, are happy to write your own scoring prompt, and already have a sending tool such as La Growth Machine, lemlist or Instantly. It also fits when you want to pull many posts at once, since you can paste one or many post URLs in a column. If your team lives in sheets and you also use traxy, export the leads you pick from traxy as a CSV with the columns you choose. For a wider look at tools that go from one post URL to qualified engagers with work emails, see how to choose a post URL to qualified engagers tool.
How do you test Derrick alternatives on the same post?
Run one test in every tool on your shortlist, Derrick included, with the same post and the same ICP:
Pick one recent LinkedIn post your buyers engaged with, ideally a competitor's or a category voice's, with real comments.
Write your ICP once: roles, seniority, company size, industry, locations and exclusions. Use the same words in each tool.
Run the post through each tool and note how many engagers it read, how many it kept, and the reason it gives for a few keeps and a few drops.
Open five people it kept and check the evidence: the comment or like, its date, and whether the person fits.
Ask for research on the same five and check each fact against its source.
Prepare a first message for each and stop before sending. Note who approves it and which account it would go from.
Count the steps you had to do by hand, or in another tool, between the post and the first message.
In traxy, that means Targeting > Posts > Track post, each lead's Signals tab, and a campaign tested on a few leads before launch. See how to test an outbound campaign on a few leads.
How to move from Derrick to traxy
Export the people you have already contacted from your Derrick sheets or your sending tool and add them to traxy's Do not contact list. It takes single entries or a CSV of emails and LinkedIn profiles (Do not contact).
Add your customers' company domains to the Blocklist so traxy leaves them out of lead discovery.
Write your lead criteria from your best customers, and describe the problems your buyers post about in Signals.
Paste the posts you used to pull into Derrick under Targeting > Posts, and track the profiles and company pages that keep producing those posts.
Connect your LinkedIn account and mailbox under one sender name, since a sequence that uses both channels needs both (sender accounts).
Save the leads you want to reach as a shared view, build one campaign with the research you need, test it on sample leads, and read the drafts before you launch (outbound from qualified signals).
FAQ
What are the best Derrick alternatives?
For LinkedIn post engagers checked against your ICP, researched and prepared for outreach: traxy, Tealde, Clay, Embers, Valley and B2B Signals. traxy also runs the LinkedIn and email outreach to them from your own connected accounts after you approve. If you only want a spreadsheet of engagers with emails and phone numbers, Derrick remains a good fit.
Is there a Derrick alternative that checks LinkedIn post engagers against my ICP?
Yes. Paste a post into traxy and only the engagers with a 50%+ ICP match become leads, each with the post, comment or like behind them. Embers and Valley also check engagers against your ICP, and B2B Signals filters them to your ICP. In Clay you build the check yourself with a Claygent.
Which Derrick alternatives also send the LinkedIn messages and emails?
traxy and Valley send on LinkedIn and email from your accounts. Tealde sends on LinkedIn after you approve, and the pages we checked don't describe email. B2B Signals sends from your LinkedIn, with email in its done-for-you plans. Clay's Sequencer sends email, and LinkedIn goes through another tool. Embers and Derrick push leads to a separate sending tool. See LinkedIn outbound with traxy.
Does traxy send anything without my approval?
No. traxy prepares the messages, a test on sample leads sends nothing, and nothing sends until you confirm the launch after reviewing the audience, sender, steps and delivery mode. You then approve every message in a review queue or let the approved campaign send, and you can pause it at any time.
Can traxy find emails for post engagers like Derrick does?
Yes, for the engagers who become leads. Open a lead and choose the email or phone lookup, or turn on Auto-Enrich for newly qualified leads (contact details). A lookup may find nothing, so check the result before you use it. Derrick looks up emails and mobiles for any row in your sheet.
Does Derrick's post export include comment text or emails?
No to both, on the pages we checked in November 2026. Derrick's post import returns reacted or commented, full name, profile URL, reaction type and post ID, and emails come from its separate Email Finder action (Derrick: import post likes and comments). In traxy, each lead keeps the post, comment or like behind it, and you can look up a work email or phone for the leads that fit (contact details).
Is Trigify still an option for LinkedIn post engagers?
No. Trigify's team is joining HubSpot and its standalone platform is winding down; for most customers, access ended at 11:59pm BST on October 22, 2026 (trigify.io). See what to use now that Trigify has shut down.
Will LinkedIn restrict my account?
It can, with any tool that sends from your LinkedIn account, traxy included, and no tool can promise it won't. Keep volume low, send to people with a clear reason to hear from you, and review messages before they go out. In traxy, each sender's limits, active hours and ramp-up apply to every campaign. See LinkedIn account restrictions and LinkedIn limits.
Related reading
See how LinkedIn and email outreach works in traxy.
Keep reading
All traxy vs Alternatives guides
traxy Alternatives & Comparisons (2026)
Every traxy comparison in one place: traxy vs Trigify, Sales Navigator, Taplio, Expandi, Common Room and more, plus tool roundups and stack pairings.
Best LinkedIn post engagement scrapers (2026): export the likers and commenters, or qualify them
The best LinkedIn post engagement scrapers in 2026, from PhantomBuster and Apify to Derrick and Waalaxy, and when to qualify engagers instead of exporting.
Embers alternatives (2026): LinkedIn engager tools compared by fit, research and who sends the outreach
Embers alternatives compared by lead source, ICP fit with a reason, research on each lead and who sends: traxy, Valley, Signado, Gojiberry, Saava and more.