What is InMail on LinkedIn? Who can send it, credits per plan and how to write one

What InMail is and who can send it

LinkedIn calls InMail a Premium feature: a message to a member you are not connected to. The rules that matter:

• Senders need a paid plan. A basic account has to upgrade to send InMail. Premium Career, Business and All-in-One, Sales Navigator and Recruiter all include credits and Premium credits cannot be spent in Sales Navigator or Recruiter.
• Anyone can receive one, unless they have switched InMail off. Members turn it off in Settings & Privacy, under Data privacy, then Messages under Who can reach you, by answering No to Allow others to send you InMail?
• It has length limits. The subject line is optional and runs to 200 characters; the message runs to 2,000.
• It shows you no read receipt. LinkedIn never shows read receipts or typing indicators to the sender of an InMail.

To send one on desktop, open the person's profile, click More in the introduction section, choose Message with their name, add a subject if you want one, write and click Send. In the app, tap Message on their profile.

The missing read receipt changes how you judge an InMail: a reply is the only result you will ever see. Does LinkedIn have read receipts? covers the rest of what LinkedIn does and does not show a sender.

LinkedIn InMail credits per plan

Each plan gets a fixed number of new credits a month and unused ones build up to a cap of roughly three months' worth.

• When they arrive. Premium credits renew on the first day of your billing cycle; Sales Navigator credits on the first day of each month.
• How long they last. LinkedIn's InMail FAQ says credits expire after 90 days and Sales Navigator's help says rolled-over credits must be used within 90 days.
• No top-ups on Premium. You cannot buy InMail credits beyond a Premium plan's monthly allowance.
• Cancelling empties the balance. When a Premium subscription is cancelled, its InMail balance goes to zero and credits do not move with you when you change plans.

What each of those plans costs, monthly and yearly, is in LinkedIn Premium cost and Sales Navigator's tiers in detail are in Sales Navigator pricing.

When LinkedIn gives an InMail credit back

On Premium, a credit comes back when the person accepts, declines or responds to your InMail within 90 days; a Quick Reply counts and a message still pending does not. On Sales Navigator, a credit comes back for every InMail that gets a response within 90 days of sending, auto replies included. An InMail nobody answers stays spent and deleting it does not return the credit.

The practical reading, on Premium: a quick "no thanks" costs you nothing, while silence costs a credit. So the InMails that drain your balance are the ones that never gave the reader a reason to answer either way. A short, specific message that is easy to decline is cheaper than a long one that is easy to ignore.

InMail vs a connection request vs a message

Five ways to write to someone on LinkedIn, by LinkedIn's rules:

On the note's length, LinkedIn's help on personalizing invitations gives 200 characters, while its older page comparing InMail and invitations gives Premium members 300. Premium also lifts the cap on notes, though LinkedIn says invitation limits still apply.

Check a note against both figures with the LinkedIn connection note checker and see how many invitations a week an account can safely send in LinkedIn connection limits.

Open Profile: messages that need no credit

A Premium member can switch on Open Profile and then any LinkedIn member can message them at no cost, connected or not. Basic accounts can send only a limited number of these a month. To switch it on, open your profile, click the edit icon in the intro section, open the dropdown next to your Premium badge, turn on Open Profile and save.

For a seller, open profiles are the one group outside your network you can write to without spending anything. If you are on Premium yourself, turning yours on lets buyers who find you write without a credit.

How long an InMail should be and what goes in the subject

LinkedIn publishes its own guidance, from two angles.

• Subject lines get cut short. LinkedIn's Sales Solutions guide to InMail templates says phones truncate subject lines at 30 to 40 characters, so lead with the information that matters. Among its templates, a mutual connection's name in the subject drove the most opens.
• Aim for 50 to 75 words. The same guide says shorter messages get more responses because many InMails are read on phones.
• Under 400 characters did best. In LinkedIn's study of tens of millions of recruiter InMails (May 2021 to April 2022), messages under 400 characters drew responses 22% above the average and those over 1,200 characters 11% below it.
• One at a time beats bulk. In the same study, InMails sent individually drew about 15% more responses than bulk sends and Saturday was the weakest day, 8% below average.

The study covers recruiters writing to candidates, not sellers writing to buyers, but the lesson carries: short, written for one person, with the point in the first line. Here is one under all of those limits, with the subject at 28 characters and the message at 50 words:

When InMail is worth a credit in outbound

Credits are scarce: even Sales Navigator's 50 a month comes to about two a working day. So spend them where nothing cheaper works.

• Use InMail for a handful of people who matter a lot, are outside your network and have a fresh reason to hear from you this week: a new role, a raise, a post on the problem you solve.
• Use a connection request with a note for everyone else. It costs nothing and once accepted you can message freely.
• Check for Open Profile first. If they have it on, write without a credit.
• Follow up on replies, not on silence. With no read receipt, a second InMail into silence costs another credit for no new information.

Whatever the door, the first line decides it. LinkedIn buying signals shows the moments worth writing about and what each first line should build on.

Where FOUND fits

FOUND is an AI SDR for LinkedIn built around the door that costs nothing. It watches buying signals every day, checks each person against your buyer twice and sends a connection invitation from your own account, with a note written from what that person did on a Premium account. On our founder's own account, notes that named something the person wrote were accepted 69% of the time, against 29% for generic notes and 23% with no note.

Once someone accepts, it writes the messages from the same signal and it can send email from your own mailbox, with each lead's verified work email found for you. Review mode holds every invitation, message and email until you approve it and a reply stops everything queued for that person. It costs $69 a month for two agents, one LinkedIn account, one mailbox and 100 credits; seats and extra agents are on the pricing page. You see your first real leads before you pay.

Sources

Every LinkedIn fact on this page comes from LinkedIn's own pages, read on 25 Oct 2026:

• LinkedIn Help: InMail message credits and renewal process, InMail messages FAQ and Send an InMail message
• LinkedIn Help: Understand InMail credits in Sales Navigator and Differences between the Recruiter plans
• LinkedIn Help: Opt out of receiving InMail messages and Delivery and typing indicators
• LinkedIn Help: Personalize invitations to connect, Differences between InMail messages and personalized invitations and Message requests
• LinkedIn Help: Open Profile and messages and Manage your Open Profile settings
• LinkedIn Sales Solutions: 6 InMail templates that can help you break through; LinkedIn Talent Blog: How to improve your InMail response rate, according to LinkedIn data (19 May 2022)

FOUND's numbers come from our own product and our founder's own account. If one of these LinkedIn pages has changed since, write to hello@foundtofind.com and we will correct this guide.

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