How many LinkedIn invites can I send? 6 outreach questions

For financial advisers, wealth managers and founders who send their own LinkedIn invitations and messages. Every rule below links to the LinkedIn page it comes from.

How many connection requests can I send on LinkedIn per week?

LinkedIn does not publish a weekly number. Its help pages say every account, free or Premium, has an invitation limit. Sending many invitations in a short time, or having many ignored, left pending or marked as spam, can get you restricted. Treat any exact figure you read online as a guess.

Here is what LinkedIn does say, on its Types of restrictions for sending invitations and Invitation limit reached pages:

• All members, Basic and Premium, are subject to invitation limits. You can’t buy more invitations.
• Most restrictions lift on their own within a week. Support can’t remove them early or tell you the reason.
• If you’re restricted for having too many outstanding invitations, LinkedIn says to wait up to a month.
• After you withdraw an invitation, you can’t invite that person again for up to three weeks.
• Your network is capped at 30,000 first-degree connections.

The figure you’ll often see online is about 100 a week, as in this member article on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s own help pages don’t state it.

So invite people who have a clear reason to accept, and keep your pending list short. Withdrawing old invitations won’t lift a restriction once it has started. But a long pending list is one of the reasons LinkedIn gives for restricting you in the first place.

What should I put in the message when I send a LinkedIn connection request?

Say how you came across the person and why you want to connect now, in one or two sentences. LinkedIn’s own guidance asks for just that: how you found them or what you have in common, why you’d like to connect now, and a polite tone. Leave out the pitch. Free accounts get only a few notes a month.

LinkedIn’s help pages disagree on the limits. The current Personalize invitations to connect page says free accounts can add a note to three connection requests a month, each up to 200 characters. Two older pages, Differences between InMail Messages and personalized invitations and Invitation limit reached, say five a month. Premium members can add a note to every request. The older page puts the Premium note limit at 300 characters.

A note that fits inside 200 characters:

Hi Sarah, your post on selling a small accountancy practice was useful. I advise owners in Leeds going through the same thing and would like to follow your posts. Happy to connect?

It names where you saw them, says who you are in one line and asks for nothing else. LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies are direct about the rest. “Do not use our invitation feature to send promotional messages to people you don’t know or to otherwise spam people.” So keep offers, links and booking pages out of the note.

Our free LinkedIn connect-and-follow-up prompt drafts a note under 200 characters, the first message after they accept and one follow-up.

Can you automate actions on LinkedIn without getting banned?

Not within LinkedIn’s rules. Section 8.2 of the User Agreement bans bots and other unauthorised automated methods that add contacts, send messages, or create, comment on, like or share posts. LinkedIn says members who use such tools risk having their accounts restricted or shut down. No vendor can promise you won’t be caught.

The ban sits in section 8.2 of the User Agreement. You agree not to “Use bots or other unauthorized automated methods to access the Services, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages”. That line also covers creating, commenting on, liking and sharing posts. Section 8.2 separately bans software, browser plugins and add-ons that scrape profiles.

LinkedIn’s Prohibited software and extensions page goes further. It says LinkedIn doesn’t permit “any third party software, including ‘crawlers’, bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions that scrape, modify the appearance of, or automate activity on LinkedIn’s website”.

What happens if LinkedIn spots it, according to its restrictions page:

• If you send an excessive number of invitations and LinkedIn suspects an automation tool, it may suspend or restrict your account.
• Repeated suspensions may lead to a permanent restriction.
• LinkedIn asks you to disable any third-party app or browser extension that automates activity in breach of the User Agreement.

Built-in features are a different matter. Scheduling a post inside LinkedIn is not third-party automation. A vendor calling its tool “safe” or “compliant” is making its own claim, not LinkedIn’s. Our Gojiberry review covers this risk for a tool that acts through your LinkedIn account. OwnDesk sends all LinkedIn outreach by hand, with no automation tools.

Should I send an InMail or a connection request?

LinkedIn’s advice is to send connection requests only to people you know and trust, and to use InMail or Groups to reach people you don’t. InMail needs a paid plan and uses a credit per message, which you get back if they respond within 90 days. A connection request is free, but ignored ones count against you.

The guidance to use InMail and Groups for people you don’t know is on LinkedIn’s restrictions page. Monthly InMail credits, from the InMail message credits page:

• Premium Career: 5
• Premium Business: 15
• Sales Navigator Core: 50

A credit comes back for any InMail that is accepted, declined or answered within 90 days. A member can switch InMail off in their message settings, and then you can’t reach them that way (source). A free account can only message people it is already connected to.

An InMail has room to say more than a 200-character note. LinkedIn’s InMail tips still say to “be brief and to the point” and to design the message “as a conversation starter”.

So pick by context. If you share something real with the person, such as an event, a mutual client or a post they wrote, a connection request with a note fits LinkedIn’s guidance. If you share nothing, InMail is the route LinkedIn points you to.

Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator worth it?

It is worth it if you will search for and message a defined group of prospects every week. LinkedIn lists Sales Navigator Core at £94.99 a month, or £959.88 a year, and says prices may exclude VAT. You get 50+ search filters and 50 InMail credits a month. For occasional outreach, it’s hard to justify.

The details, from LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator plans page (updated 1 August 2026) and its help page on InMail credits in Sales Navigator:

• Unused InMail credits roll over, up to 150 in total.
• A credit comes back when an InMail gets a response within 90 days.
• Premium InMail credits can’t be used in Sales Navigator (source).
• Core, Advanced and Advanced Plus all get the same 50 credits a month. Advanced starts at £130.00 a month.
• Free trials are open to members who aren’t on a paid LinkedIn plan and haven’t had a LinkedIn free trial in the past 365 days.

It won’t buy you more connection requests. LinkedIn says all members are subject to invitation limits and that you can’t buy more invitations (source).

A fair test is the trial month. Build saved searches for your real list, such as company directors in your region, then count how many you would message in a month. If the answer is a handful, the free plan will cover it.

How do I follow up after someone accepts my LinkedIn connection request without sounding transactional?

Send one short message within a few days that picks up the reason you connected and asks one easy question. Leave out the pitch, the link and the booking page. If there’s no reply, send one more with something useful, then stop. LinkedIn’s rules ban “gratuitously repetitive” messages, and a third nudge starts to look like one.

The wording comes from LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies. Alongside untargeted and unwanted messages, LinkedIn says it doesn’t allow “gratuitously repetitive messages or similar content”.

A first message to someone more senior who doesn’t know you:

Thanks for connecting, Mark. Your comment on the pension changes stuck with me. How are your clients reacting to them so far?

It refers to something they said, and they can answer it in one line. LinkedIn’s InMail tips apply here too: mention what on their profile prompted you, show interest in their goals, and keep it short. Save the offer until they’ve replied and the conversation gives you a reason to make it.

Our free LinkedIn connect-and-follow-up prompt drafts the note, the first message after they accept and a second follow-up five days later if they don’t reply.

Sources

• LinkedIn Help: Types of restrictions for sending invitations
• LinkedIn Help: Invitation limit reached
• LinkedIn Help: Withdraw an invitation
• LinkedIn Help: Personalize invitations to connect
• LinkedIn Help: Differences between InMail Messages and personalized invitations
• LinkedIn Help: InMail message credits and renewal process
• LinkedIn Help: Prohibited software and extensions
• LinkedIn User Agreement, section 8.2 “Don’ts”
• LinkedIn Professional Community Policies
• Sales Navigator Help: Understand InMail credits in Sales Navigator
• Sales Navigator Help: Tips for writing InMail messages to increase response rates
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator plans and pricing

If you’d rather have your LinkedIn outreach done by hand, see our lead generation.