InMail credits are the tokens LinkedIn gives paid subscribers that let them send direct messages to people they’re not connected with. Every time you message someone outside your network using InMail, one credit is deducted from your balance. Free LinkedIn accounts don’t get any InMail credits, so this is strictly a premium feature.
How InMail Credits Work
On a free LinkedIn account, you can only message people you’re already connected with. InMail removes that barrier. Each credit lets you send one message to any LinkedIn member, even if you have no mutual connections and have never interacted before. This makes InMail the primary tool for cold outreach on the platform, whether you’re a job seeker reaching out to a hiring manager, a salesperson contacting a prospect, or a recruiter approaching a candidate.
Credits refresh on a monthly cycle tied to your subscription billing date. If your Premium subscription renews on the 10th of each month, that’s when fresh credits land in your account. You don’t need to do anything to claim them.
Credits by Subscription Tier
The number of monthly credits you receive depends on which LinkedIn plan you’re paying for:
- Premium Career: 5 per month
- Premium Business: 15 per month
- Recruiter Lite: 30 per month
- Sales Navigator Core: 50 per month
Premium Career is the entry-level paid plan most individual users subscribe to, so five credits per month is what most people start with. Sales Navigator, designed for B2B sales teams, offers the largest allotment because high-volume outreach is central to how those users work.
Rollover Limits and Expiration
Unused credits don’t vanish at the end of each month. They roll over, but only up to a cap. Each plan limits total accumulation to roughly three months’ worth of credits:
- Premium Career: 15 maximum
- Premium Business: 45 maximum
- Recruiter Lite: 120 maximum
- Sales Navigator: 150 maximum
Once you hit the cap, any new monthly credits that would push your total above it simply expire. For example, if you have a Premium Career account sitting at 15 accumulated credits, the five new credits on your next billing date won’t be added. They’re lost. This means hoarding credits indefinitely isn’t an option. LinkedIn wants you to use them regularly rather than stockpile a massive balance.
If you cancel your premium subscription, your remaining credits disappear immediately. They don’t carry over to a future subscription if you re-subscribe later.
Earning Credits Back Through Replies
LinkedIn has a built-in incentive for sending thoughtful, relevant messages. If the person you InMail responds to your message (whether positively or negatively), the credit you spent on that message gets returned to your account. A response within 90 days of your original message triggers the refund. This effectively makes successful outreach free and only penalizes messages that get ignored.
The practical takeaway: a personalized, well-targeted InMail that gets a reply costs you nothing. A generic blast that goes unanswered burns through your monthly allotment fast. This is why response rates matter so much. If you’re getting replies on even half your messages, your effective credit supply nearly doubles.
Buying Additional Credits
For Recruiter Lite accounts, LinkedIn offers the option to purchase extra InMail credits in packs of 10, up to a maximum of 70 additional credits per seat. The account’s purchasing administrator handles this through the Recruiter settings. LinkedIn doesn’t publicly list a fixed per-credit price on its help pages, and pricing can vary, so you’ll see the cost during the checkout flow.
For individual Premium Career and Premium Business subscribers, there’s no straightforward option to buy extra credits à la carte. If you consistently run out, upgrading to a higher-tier plan is the main path to a larger monthly allotment.
Making Your Credits Count
With as few as five credits per month on the most common plan, each message matters. A few practical ways to stretch your balance:
- Personalize every message. Reference something specific about the recipient’s profile, role, or recent activity. Generic templates get ignored, and ignored messages are wasted credits.
- Use connection requests first. If your goal is simply to start a conversation, a free connection request with a short note can accomplish the same thing without spending a credit. Save InMail for people who are unlikely to accept a connection request from a stranger.
- Check for Open Profiles. Some LinkedIn members enable “Open Profile,” which lets anyone message them for free, no credit required. You’ll see this indicated on their profile.
- Target carefully. Spend a few minutes confirming the person is actually relevant to your goal before sending. One well-placed InMail to the right person beats five scattered messages.
Because credits are returned when recipients reply, your real constraint isn’t the number of credits you have. It’s the quality of the messages you send.