InMail vs Connection Request: What's the Difference?

InMail is a paid, direct message sent to someone outside your network without needing them to accept a connection first. It's included with a Sales Navigator or Premium subscription as a limited monthly credit, can carry a subject line, and can be sent cold.

A connection request is a free request to link with someone, capped at a short note of a few hundred characters, that has to be accepted before any further direct messaging becomes possible.

Connection requests are effectively unlimited, up to LinkedIn's own volume caps, but message length is heavily restricted at send time and acceptance is never guaranteed. InMail is limited by monthly credits but arrives in the inbox immediately, with room for a full message, without waiting on anyone to accept anything. Many B2B outbound sequences use both together - a short connection request as a low-friction first touch, InMail reserved for higher-priority accounts where reaching the inbox right away is worth spending a credit on.