linkedin-limits-and-safety

LinkedIn limits and safety

Every number below is per LinkedIn account per day, whatever tool sends the action. They were tuned against real LinkedIn throttling and against the ceiling most automation providers allow (roughly 80 to 100 invites a day), and they are deliberately lower than that.

The caps

Action	Per account, per day	Why this number
Connection requests	20	LinkedIn's public guidance is about 100 a week; 20 a day on weekdays lands at 100 with no spikes
Direct messages	40	replies count; a conversation is many messages
Profile visits	40	the warm-up step; visits are the least sensitive action
Reactions	30	second warm-up step
Comments	15	comments are public and attributable; keep them rare and good

Sum: 145 actions a day. Treat it as the ceiling for one account across every tool that touches it. The reason to lower it is a new or thin account, never a crowded one.

Other rules that cost more than the caps when broken:

• Invitation notes are 200 characters on a free seat, 300 on Premium. LinkedIn does not negotiate: a 242-character note from a free seat is rejected and the invite is never sent. Write for 200 unless the seat is known Premium.
• Weekdays only. A connection request on a Sunday morning is what gets you reported. Working hours matter less (a message read at 08:00 bothers nobody).
• Warm up before inviting. Visit the profile on day 0, react or comment on a post two days later, then invite. Skip posts older than 10 days; engaging with a two-month-old post looks like what it is.
• Withdraw stale pending invites. Over 3 weeks pending, withdraw. A pile of ignored requests is the strongest "this is automation" signal LinkedIn has.
• Acceptance rate under 30 percent means stop and fix targeting, not send more.
• Never search-and-invite from a fresh account. Under 3 months old or under 200 connections: half the caps for the first month.

Warning signs, in order

1. "You've reached the weekly invitation limit" earlier in the week than usual.
2. Search results that stop paging ("commercial use limit").
3. A CAPTCHA or a "verify your identity" prompt at login.
4. Invitation notes silently dropped (the invite arrives without the text).
5. A temporary restriction. Stop everything for a week, withdraw pending invites, log in from the usual device only.

At sign 1 or 2: halve the invite cap for two weeks. At sign 3: pause every tool that touches the account for 72 hours. At sign 5: do not appeal with "I use a tool".

Weekly health check

Run every Monday. One line per question, yes or no:

• Invites sent last week under 100? Acceptance rate above 30 percent?
• Pending invites older than 3 weeks withdrawn?
• Any action sent on a weekend?
• Any note over 200 characters on a free seat?
• Any day with visits, reactions or comments at the cap? (Cap days are fine occasionally; five in a row is a pattern.)
• Replies to messages within 24 hours? A conversation that is opened by a tool and abandoned by a human is the thing that earns the "I'm not interested in your bot" screenshot.

The report

Write the answer in plain English, one screen, no table dump:

Account: <name>, <free | Premium>. Today <used>/<cap> actions.
Invites 12/20, messages 8/40, visits 31/40, reactions 14/30, comments 3/15.
Last 7 days: <invited> invited, <accepted> accepted (<rate>%). <verdict>.
Weekdays, <start> to <end> <tz>. Cap: <fine | lower it because ...>.
Tools touching this account: <names>. Pending invites over 3 weeks: <n>, withdrawn.
Next check: Monday.

Verdict rules: acceptance under 30 percent, say "fix targeting before sending more"; any action at cap for 5 days running, say "pattern, lower the cap"; any warning sign from the list above, say "pause, then halve the cap for two weeks".

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If the account runs on GTM Otto, the GTM Otto plugin's linkedin-safety-check skill reads the seat and today's usage and writes this report for you. It needs a GTM Otto account.