Ploid: 'over 2 billion people indexed' for agents, 'for cents'

What’s actually true

• Ploid is a real, live people-search and enrichment API with a web app, CLI and MCP server, and public pricing. Y Combinator lists it in the F26 batch, founded 2025, team size 2, San Francisco.
• The '2 billion people' figure is self-reported; there's no published methodology or dedupe rate, so it can't be verified.
• 'For cents' only holds for bulk search rows (about 1 credit per 10 people returned). A full deep person profile costs 25 credits, about $3.75-$5.
• Privacy: it profiles private individuals, including personal emails and phone numbers from vendors such as FullEnrich. Its privacy policy relies on the GDPR Article 14 'disproportionate effort' exemption instead of notifying people, names no DPO, routes rights requests to a founder's email address (Kamran@ploid.co) and leaves compliance to the customer.
• Regulators have acted against scrapers before: the ICO fined Clearview AI £7.5m (the Upper Tribunal upheld UK jurisdiction in October 2025) and France's CNIL fined it €20m; Proxycurl shut down in July 2025 after LinkedIn's lawsuit.
• On 10 September 2026 @m9rcn posted that he was leaving Ploid, saying it had not been acting responsibly, and @ploid_ai replied 'ima doxx you'. He is still listed as co-founder and CEO on Ploid's company page and on Y Combinator, and he posted the 28 October launch.

Sources

• Launch post x.com
• Ploid ploid.com
• 10 Sept post by @m9rcn x.com
• Proxycurl shutdown notice nubela.co
• ICO on the Clearview Upper Tribunal judgment ico.org.uk
• EDPB: CNIL fines Clearview €20m edpb.europa.eu

Cost

Growth $200/month (1,000 credits, $0.20 each); Scale $600/month (4,000 credits, $0.15 each); custom plans by agreement. Search is about 1 credit per 10 people returned, a social profile 1 credit, a full deep person profile 25 credits.

Related AI tools

• Ploid

Related

• News, 30 October 2026: Ploid: people search for agents, with a big UK privacy question