How many InMails can you send per day, and what really stops you?

01 The one daily InMail limit LinkedIn writes down

LinkedIn's help pages give a daily number for one product family: Recruiter. Its Recruiter help page says "Recruiter users can send up to 1,000 InMails per day, per seat" ¹.

A new seat starts lower. The same page sets a limit of 200 InMails in the first week for each newly created seat, and says that going past it disables sending until the end of that week ¹. If a seat goes past 1,000 in a day, it cannot send InMail again until the next calendar day, counted in UTC ¹.

Recruiter Lite has the same daily figure of 1,000 per seat in the table on that page, and a much smaller monthly credit allowance of 30 ¹. Both are built for hiring, not for sales outreach, but they are where the daily number people search for comes from.

• Recruiter: up to 1,000 a day per seat, 200 in a new seat's first week, 150 credits with each license, more can be bought ¹.
• Recruiter Lite: 1,000 a day per seat in LinkedIn's table, with 30 credits a month ¹.
• Between colleagues: LinkedIn says that once anyone on a Recruiter or Recruiter Lite license sends an InMail to a candidate, "all admins assigned to that license must wait 24 hours before sending another, unless they respond sooner" ¹.

02 Premium and Sales Navigator: your credits are the limit

For the plans most salespeople use, LinkedIn describes InMail in credits. Each month you get a new allowance, and every InMail you send uses one.

The pages read for this guide give no daily cap for these plans. In practice the balance is the limit you meet first, and on most plans it is small.

• Premium Career: 5 credits a month, and you can build up to 15 ².
• Premium Business: 15 a month, and up to 45 ².
• Sales Navigator Core: 50 a month, and up to 150 ².
• No plan is unlimited. LinkedIn says "We currently don't offer a subscription plan with unlimited InMail message credits" ².
• No top-ups on Sales Navigator. Its help page says that at this time you can't purchase additional InMail credits ³.

03 How credits come back, and why that changes your day

A credit is not always gone for good. LinkedIn says every InMail that is accepted, declined or answered within 90 days of being sent is credited back ². A message that just sits there unanswered keeps its credit spent.

There is also a rule that slows follow-up. LinkedIn's help page says you can't send another InMail to a member until they respond to the first one ². So you cannot plan a sequence of InMails to the same person the way you would with email.

Put together, a day of InMail is really a few careful messages to people likely to answer. Writing to the right people is what keeps credits coming back. Writing to everyone burns the month in a morning.

04 Open Profile messages sit outside your credits

Some Premium members turn on Open Profile, which lets anyone message them without an InMail credit. LinkedIn's help page says the setting lets other members message them "for free, without using InMail messages" ⁴.

These messages have their own limits. LinkedIn notes that members with basic accounts can only send a limited number of Open Profile messages each month ⁴. On Recruiter, Open Profile messaging is capped at 350 a month per seat, and after that further Open Profile messages use standard credits ¹.

If part of your list has Open Profiles, writing to them first stretches a month of credits further. It is still one message per person, so the same care applies.

05 How to plan a day of InMail by hand

With a monthly allowance this small, a simple plan beats sending in bursts.

• Divide the month. Spread your credits over the working days, so you always have some left for a good lead who appears late in the month.
• Check for Open Profiles first. Message those without a credit and keep credits for people who need one.
• Write one strong message per person. You cannot follow up by InMail until they answer, so the first message has to carry the reason for writing now.
• Track who answers. Answered and declined InMails return their credit, so a better list literally gives you more messages.
• Move non-responders to another channel. A connection request, a comment on their post or an email can follow, since another InMail cannot.

06 When a month of credits is not enough

Most people who search for a daily limit are really asking how to reach more people. These are the realistic ways, each with a trade-off.

• More seats or plans. Each one brings its own credits. The cost grows with every seat, and each still has a monthly ceiling.
• Recruiter. Its help page says additional credits can be purchased ¹. It is a hiring product, so it fits sales outreach poorly.
• Connection requests. No credit needed, but one account sends about 100 a week, as the weekly invite limit page explains.
• Email follow-up. Reaches people who never open LinkedIn messages, if you can find a working address.
• An SDR or an agency. Someone else does the sending. You still need the LinkedIn capacity behind it.
• Having it run for you at a set monthly volume. The capacity comes with the service, and you give up some day-to-day control.

07 Where LinkedNav fits

LinkedNav is a done-for-you LinkedIn outreach service. You buy a monthly prospect volume, and the team builds the list, writes the sequences, runs the outreach and handles the replies.

InMail is one of the channels used to reach that volume. It goes out from your own LinkedIn account, under your name, thousands a month where the volume calls for it. The InMail credits are topped up by LinkedNav and the Sales Navigator membership is covered, so you buy neither. You read and approve the wording before anything goes out.

How this works for InMail at volume is on the bulk LinkedIn InMail page, and the cost is on the pricing page.

08 Who this fits, and who it does not

It fits a team that keeps running out of credits halfway through the month and wants a steady number of people reached every month without managing balances or seats. How it works covers the rest of the service.

It does not fit someone who sends a few InMails a week to hand-picked people. A Premium or Sales Navigator allowance, used carefully, covers that, and the guide to InMail credits per month explains how far it goes.

FAQ Frequently asked questions