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The short answer
Sales Navigator Core gives you 50 InMail credits per month, which can accumulate up to 150. Any InMail that gets a response within 90 days is credited back. When your subscription is cancelled, your remaining balance drops to zero.
Key takeaways
- Sales Navigator Core includes 50 InMail credits per month, accumulating up to 150, according to LinkedIn's help center.
- Credits are refunded when a message is accepted, declined, or replied to within 90 days — Quick Replies count too.
- Cancelling your subscription wipes your credit balance; credits don't transfer when upgrading.
- Sales Navigator InMail credits are separate from Premium InMail credits and cannot be mixed.
- At least one vendor page cites a range of 20–50 credits for Sales Navigator, which conflicts with LinkedIn's published figure of 50.
- InMail messages are capped at a 200-character subject line and a 1,900-character body.
The Sales Navigator InMail limit is 50 credits per month per LinkedIn's help center, accumulating to a maximum of 150. Here is what LinkedIn publishes, what renews them, what kills them, and where a widely read vendor page gets the number wrong.
Monthly InMail credits by plan
LinkedIn lists the following monthly allocations and accumulation caps, according to its InMail credits help page:
| Plan | Monthly credits | Accumulation cap |
|---|---|---|
| Premium Career | 5 | 15 |
| Premium Business | 15 | 45 |
| Sales Navigator Core | 50 | 150 |
| Recruiter Lite | 30 | 120 |
Unused credits carry over each month until you hit the cap. Once you reach 150 credits on Sales Navigator Core, new monthly credits stop adding until you spend some.
The vendor page that gets Sales Navigator wrong
Evaboot's blog states: "You only have between 20 and 50 InMail monthly credits with your Sales Navigator account." That range conflicts with LinkedIn's published figure of 50. LinkedIn does not publish a lower tier for Sales Navigator Core InMail credits. If Evaboot is describing a different Sales Navigator tier, that is not stated. When a vendor page and LinkedIn's own help center disagree, treat LinkedIn's page as authoritative.
This is the kind of discrepancy worth checking before you plan a campaign around an assumed monthly budget. The correct figure, per LinkedIn, is 50 — not "between 20 and 50."
How InMail credits renew
LinkedIn credits back any InMail that is accepted, declined, or replied to within 90 days of sending. Quick Replies also count as a response and trigger the refund. A pending InMail with no action taken does not earn a credit back. This is published at LinkedIn's InMail credits and renewal page. LinkedIn's help page does not specify a renewal date, so check your own billing cycle for when new credits arrive.
The practical implication: messaging people who are likely to respond, even negatively, makes your credits go further. A quick decline is worth the same as a reply.
What happens when you cancel or upgrade
LinkedIn is explicit on two points that trip people up. First, according to LinkedIn's credits and renewal help page, cancelling a Premium subscription zeroes out any remaining InMail balance. LinkedIn's published language covers Premium subscription cancellation specifically; whether the same applies on the same terms to a standalone Sales Navigator cancellation is not separately stated there. Second, InMail credits are not transferrable when you upgrade your account. If you move from one plan to another, don't expect your old balance to follow you.
Additionally, Premium InMail credits cannot be used to send InMail messages on Sales Navigator or LinkedIn Recruiter. The pools are completely separate. A Premium Business credit is useless on a Sales Navigator campaign.
InMail character limits
According to LinkedIn's help center, InMail messages are capped at 200 characters for the subject line and 1,900 characters for the body. These are hard limits, not soft recommendations. Plan your templates around them.
How InMail compares to connection notes
InMail and connection notes are separate mechanisms with different rules. Connection notes go with a connection request; InMail goes to anyone regardless of connection status, but costs a credit. For the connection note character limit and monthly caps, LinkedIn's own pages currently conflict with each other — one says three personalized notes per month for free members, another says five. That conflict is documented separately.
For invitation volume rules, see the LinkedIn invitation limit breakdown, which covers LinkedIn's published caps and what happens when you hit them.
Using credits efficiently
A few practical points follow from LinkedIn's rules:
- Send to people likely to respond. Even a decline within 90 days gets your credit back.
- Watch your accumulation cap. At 150, you stop gaining new credits until you spend some.
- Don't cancel your subscription expecting to keep your balance. Per LinkedIn, cancellation zeroes it out.
- Don't count on Premium credits to supplement Sales Navigator. They are separate systems.
Where automation fits
InMail has to be sent manually or through tools that surface the right targets. If you are running connection-based outreach alongside InMail campaigns on Sales Navigator, Vantera's LinkedIn automation for sales teams handles connection requests and follow-up messages within LinkedIn's published structures. Vantera caps invites at 20 per day and 100 per week — these are Vantera's own ceilings, not LinkedIn's published figures. Vantera is third-party automation, and no tool can guarantee LinkedIn will never act on an account. LinkedIn's User Agreement, section 8.2, prohibits unauthorized automated methods; see what LinkedIn's exact wording says about automation before deciding how to proceed.
Vantera drafts connection notes to fit the 200-character limit and never pitches in the note. Its scoring and filtering approach requires prospects to score 70 or higher before entering outreach. It costs $79 a month with a 7-day free trial, and a card is required to start.
Summary
Sales Navigator Core gives you 50 InMail credits per month, accumulating to 150. Credits refund when a message gets any response within 90 days. Cancellation wipes your balance. Sales Navigator credits and Premium credits are not interchangeable. At least one vendor page cites 20–50 as the range, which does not match LinkedIn's published number. When planning InMail volume, use LinkedIn's help center as the source rather than third-party summaries.
Sources
Written with AI and checked against the sources above. Vantera sells LinkedIn outreach software, so read our take with that in mind. How we write this blog.