Introduction
If you sell into B2B on LinkedIn, you've hit the wall: 30–50 InMail credits per month from Sales Navigator, exhausted by the second week, and a $10/credit price tag if you want more. Meanwhile, your team is supposed to hit pipeline.
Did you know? A meaningful share of LinkedIn Premium users have a setting called Open Profile turned on — and you can message them as many times as you want, for free, with no credit deduction.
This guide shows you exactly how to do it — manually, and at scale.
The Standard InMail Math
LinkedIn plan allowances by month:
- Premium Career: 5 credits
- Premium Business: 15 credits
- Sales Navigator Core / Advanced: 50 credits
- Recruiter Lite: 30 credits
- Recruiter Pro / Corporate: 100–150 credits
For a 5-person SDR team on Sales Nav Core, that's 250 InMails/month — enough for less than a week of real outreach. Buying overage to do 1,000 InMails costs $7,500/month.
The Open Profile Loophole Fully Explained
LinkedIn's Open Profile setting makes any Premium user receivable by anyone, for free, without needing InMail credits or a prior connection. When you message an Open Profile:
- No credit is deducted
- No connection request is required
- The message lands in the primary inbox, not "Other"
- You can send follow-ups for free
- LinkedIn does not cap how many Open Profile messages you send per month
Step-by-Step: Send Free InMails to Open Profiles (Manual)
- Build a Sales Navigator lead list — filter by your normal criteria (industry, title, seniority, geography).
- Apply the Open Profile Spotlight filter — Spotlight → Open Profile. The result set narrows to only leads whose profiles accept free direct messages.
- Save the list as "Open Profile - [ICP name]" for repeat outreach.
- Open a profile, click Message — you'll see a "Free Message" prompt instead of the standard InMail credit warning.
- Send your personalized message with subject line + body. Open Profile users get a lot of messages — don't blast a template.
- Track replies separately by tagging Open Profile leads in your CRM.
How to Send Unlimited Open Profile InMails at Scale
The manual approach breaks at scale for three reasons:
- Open Profile status isn't sticky — it changes weekly.
- Checking every profile manually costs ~8 hours per 1,000 prospects.
- You can't run sequences. Manual sends are one-and-done.
Quicklead's Open Profile InMail feature changes the math. Drop a Sales Navigator URL in, and Quicklead imports every lead, auto-detects which prospects are Open Profiles (live check), automatically sends a personalized free message to each Open Profile (no credit deduction), and routes non-Open prospects through the normal connection request + message sequence.
If your campaign has 1,000 leads and 20% are Open Profiles, that's 200 free InMails sent, 200 InMail credits saved — at $10/credit, $2,000 of LinkedIn spend saved per 1,000-lead campaign.
Stop Budgeting Credits — Start Sending Unlimited
No other LinkedIn automation tool currently does this auto-detection + auto-send loop. Quicklead is the first.
Book a 20-minute demo — we'll show you how Quicklead finds and messages every Open Profile in your list automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How many free InMails can I send to Open Profiles per month?
There is no published LinkedIn cap on Open Profile messages. Reasonable practical ceilings are ~500–800/month to stay safely within normal usage patterns.
Q: Does Open Profile messaging require Sales Navigator?
No. Sales Navigator's filter just makes finding them easier. Any LinkedIn account can send messages to Open Profiles.
Q: Will LinkedIn penalize my account for sending many Open Profile messages?
Open Profile is a LinkedIn-sanctioned feature. As long as messages are not spammy, accounts aren't penalized.
Q: What's the difference between Open InMail and regular InMail?
Open InMail is the message you send to someone with Open Profile enabled — it costs nothing. Regular InMail consumes credits.
Q: Can I follow up if an Open Profile user doesn't reply?
Yes. Follow-ups are also free if the recipient still has Open Profile on.