LinkedIn sales prompts — 14 in sequence, limits read 10 September 2026

14 LinkedIn sales prompts in the order the work happens, and the week all of them have to fit inside

One Sales Navigator search returns up to 2,500 people. Your account can invite about 100 of them a week, on every plan LinkedIn sells. That is about 25 weeks of work in one search, which is why the useful thing is not a bigger list of prompts but the right order and a cap at each step. Below are the 14 prompts of a LinkedIn sales motion, grouped into 5 stages: what each one takes, what it hands the next, when to skip it, and the ceiling that sizes the stage it belongs to. The prompt itself is on its own page, one click from its entry.

Ceilings read from
business.linkedin.com ↗
Last read
✓ Every prompt free, in full, on its own page✓ Nothing here connects to your LinkedIn account✓ Every ceiling dated and linked to its source✓ Each prompt says when to put it down
See the 5 stagesRun the numbers first
14 prompts, in one sequence
~100 invitations a week, every plan
25 weeks to work one full search
$2.40 per InMail on Sales Navigator Core
Do this before you pick a prompt

A prompt that plans 400 invitations has planned a month you cannot have

Almost every LinkedIn prompt published anywhere is written as though the platform had no ceilings. It does, they are the same on the cheap plan and the expensive one, and they decide the size of every step below. These are the four that bind a sales motion, and none of them is removed by moving up a tier.

Connection invitations: ~100 per week

Applies on every plan including Recruiter Corporate. LinkedIn adjusts it per account based on acceptance rate, so a low-acceptance account gets less, never more.

InMail credit expiry: 90 days

Unused credits expire. They accrue to at most three times the monthly allowance, and a credit is returned if the recipient replies within 90 days.

Commercial use limit: Monthly search cap

Free accounts hit a monthly ceiling on profile searches. Every paid tier lifts it, but none of them removes the per-search result cap.

Profiles per search: 1,000 / 2,500

Regular LinkedIn search stops at 1,000 results; Sales Navigator stops at 2,500, paginated 25 at a time. Both are per search, not per day.

PlanPer monthInMail creditsCost per creditResults per searchSaved searches
Premium Career$39.995$81,0003
Premium Business$69.9915$4.671,0003
Sales Navigator Core$119.9950$2.402,50015
Sales Navigator Advanced$159.9950$3.202,50015
Sales Navigator Advanced PlusQuote only50Quote only2,50015

US list prices, read from LinkedIn on 12 September 2026 for Sales Navigator and 10 September 2026 for Premium. Sales Navigator Advanced Plus carries no published figure — LinkedIn quotes it per seat block — so the price and the cost per credit read Quote only rather than a guess. US list prices in USD, excluding tax. LinkedIn bills in local currency in most markets and the converted figure is rarely a straight exchange-rate conversion, so treat this as the US baseline and confirm in your own billing page before committing to an annual term. The full tables are on every LinkedIn limit by plan and what an InMail credit actually costs.

The search is 25 weeks wide, not one week

2,500 results divided by about 100 invitations a week is roughly 25 weeks for one seat. Something has to choose which 100 go first, and if no prompt does it, the order ends up being whatever the export happened to sort by.

8 free invitations for every paid message on Sales Navigator Core

About 400 invitations a month against 50 InMail credits. On Premium Career the same arithmetic gives 80 to one, which is why the InMail prompt below starts by asking whether to spend the credit rather than how to word it.

A reply is worth more than a send

An InMail credit is returned if the recipient replies inside 90 days, and unused credits expire at 90 days. The allowance rewards reply rate, not volume — the opposite of the assumption behind a seven-touch sequence.

The ceiling moves down, never up

LinkedIn adjusts the weekly invitation limit per account based on acceptance rate. Poorly targeted invitations do not just fail — they reduce how many you are allowed to send next week. That is the real cost of a generic note.

The shape of the whole thing

5 stages, and what each one hands the next

These are not 14 independent prompts filed under one heading. Each step is written to consume the previous step's output, which is why running the outreach prompt without the research prompt means supplying by hand the exact thing it was built to be handed. Read the last column before the others: it is the number that decides how big each stage is allowed to be.

StageTakesProducesPromptsWhat caps it
DefineYour closed deals, won and lostFive attributes and one trigger, in words a LinkedIn filter acceptsICP BuilderNothing — this one happens before LinkedIn is opened
FindThe search-ready summary from the stage aboveA saved search per trigger, with an alert attached to eachSales Navigator Search Builder, Boolean Search Generator, Buying Signal Analyzer, Saved Search & Alert SystemA single search returns at most 2,500 results on Sales Navigator and 1,000 on regular LinkedIn, and the plan allows 15 saved searches against 3 on Premium.
ChooseThe export, and the accounts the alerts surfacedA ranked list capped at one week of capacity, and a brief per row worth researchingLead List Qualifier, Account Research Brief, LinkedIn Prospect ResearchRoughly 100 invitations a week per account, on every plan including the two LinkedIn quotes rather than prices. It is adjusted downwards for accounts whose invitations go unaccepted.
ReachOne researched prospect and one stated hypothesisA note, a first message, or a paid message with the verdict on whether to send itConnection Request Generator, LinkedIn Outreach Personalizer, InMail WriterThe connection note is a 300-character field on every plan. The paid channel is capped by the monthly InMail allowance — 5 on Premium Career, 50 on Sales Navigator Core — and unused credits expire at 90 days.
ContinueThe thread so far, with its datesA cadence with a stop rule, a read of the reply, and a brief for the callFollow-up Sequence Builder, Reply & Objection Handler, Meeting Prep BriefFour touches including the first is the practical ceiling, because invitations that go unaccepted reduce the ceiling LinkedIn applies to the account. A reply inside the 90 days returns the InMail credit, which is why reply rate rather than send volume is what the allowance rewards.

The full run through all 5 stages is a first-time setup rather than a daily routine. Once the ICP, the searches and the alerts exist, the daily part is the last two stages. The sales role hub covers the same sequence at the level of the decision — which stage needs a prompt, which needs a feature inside the seat, and which needs a tool — without reproducing the prompts themselves.

Stage 1 of 5 — Define

Everything downstream is sized by a definition you write before LinkedIn is open

Who is worth an invitation? Nothing on LinkedIn caps this stage, because it happens before LinkedIn is opened. Every number further down the page is derived from what it produces, so a weak answer here is not a slow start — it is a search you will not be able to debug later. See the rest of the prospecting prompts.

ICP Builder

An ICP written in the vocabulary LinkedIn search understands, derived from deals you actually closed rather than from who you wish would buy.

Where it sits

Step 1 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: Your last 10–20 closed deals, won and lost. Out: An ICP in LinkedIn’s own vocabulary, plus one observable trigger. 20 min, once a quarter. Nothing runs before it. Hands its output to Sales Navigator Search Builder.

Skip it when

You have fewer than ten closed deals. It still runs, but with nothing to contrast against it describes your customer base rather than your ideal one, and every confidence rating it prints should be read as low.

How it opens
You are a revenue operations analyst. Your job is to turn closed-deal evidence into a targeting definition that can be typed into LinkedIn Sales Navigator without further interpretation.

Another 519 words of it, the 3 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the ICP Builder page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Stage 2 of 5 — Find

A search that returns the full cap is a search that stopped filtering before it stopped matching

Where are they, and what week should I reach them? A single search returns at most 2,500 results on Sales Navigator and 1,000 on regular LinkedIn, and the plan allows 15 saved searches against 3 on Premium. See the rest of the Sales Navigator prompts.

Sales Navigator Search Builder

A filter-by-filter Sales Navigator search you can build in about three minutes, plus the Boolean strings for the fields that accept them.

Where it sits

Step 2 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: The ICP’s search-ready summary. Out: A filter set and Boolean strings returning 200–1,500 results. 10 min, then 3 min to build. Runs on the output of ICP Builder. Hands its output to Lead List Qualifier.

Skip it when

You are searching on a plan that is not Sales Navigator. The filter set it writes is the Sales Navigator one, and on Premium Career or a free account the result cap is 1,000 rather than 2,500 and most of those filters do not exist.

How it opens
You are a Sales Navigator operator. You know the product's filter set precisely and you never instruct someone to use a filter that does not exist or that their tier does not include.

Another 1119 words of it, the 4 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Sales Navigator Search Builder page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Boolean Search Generator

A copy-paste Boolean string built from real title variants, with the exclusions that remove the usual pollution.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of Sales Navigator Search Builder. Hands its output to Lead List Qualifier.

Skip it when

You are filling a dropdown. Boolean works in the job title, company and keywords fields only — industry, seniority, headcount and geography are pick-lists, and a string pasted into one of those matches nothing without warning you.

How it opens
You are a search specialist who writes Boolean strings for LinkedIn and Sales Navigator.
Write Boolean strings that find {{JOB_TITLE}} — and everyone who does that job under a different name — while excluding the roles that share vocabulary but not responsibility.

Another 400 words of it, the 4 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Boolean Search Generator page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Buying Signal Analyzer

A ranked signal list for your specific product, with the LinkedIn surface each one appears on and the window it stays actionable for.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of ICP Builder. Hands its output to Saved Search & Alert System.

Skip it when

You cannot yet say in one line what your product changes for the customer. It works backwards from that sentence, and a vague product description produces a vague signal list that reads well and predicts nothing.

How it opens
You are a demand analyst. You work backwards from what a product changes to the events that create the need for that change, and you are sceptical of signals that everyone already acts on.

Another 415 words of it, the 4 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Buying Signal Analyzer page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Saved Search & Alert System

A named set of saved searches inside your plan’s limit, each with a watch reason, a check cadence and the action its alert triggers.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of Buying Signal Analyzer. Hands its output to Lead List Qualifier.

Skip it when

You have not decided which signals matter. The allocation is by trigger rather than by territory, so with no signals to allocate against it produces a tidy set of searches nobody has a reason to open.

How it opens
You are a sales operations architect designing a monitoring system inside a hard constraint.
Allocate my saved search slots so that every alert that reaches me is one I will act on the same day.

Another 909 words of it, the 4 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Saved Search & Alert System page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Stage 3 of 5 — Choose

Something has to cut 2,500 rows down to 100, and this is the stage most sequences skip

Which of them this week, and who do I message first? Roughly 100 invitations a week per account, on every plan including the two LinkedIn quotes rather than prices. It is adjusted downwards for accounts whose invitations go unaccepted. See the qualification and research prompts.

Lead List Qualifier

Your list, split into three tiers with a one-line reason per row, sized to what a LinkedIn account can actually contact in a week.

Where it sits

Step 3 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: The export from that search. Out: Three tiers, capped at what your weekly invitation budget can actually cover. 5 min per few hundred rows. Runs on the output of Sales Navigator Search Builder. Hands its output to LinkedIn Prospect Research.

Skip it when

Your export has missing fields you have not flagged. A model will assign a confident score to a row with no headcount in it, and you will have no way afterwards to tell which of the scores were invented.

How it opens
You are a sales operations analyst triaging a prospect list. You are ruthless about rows you cannot evaluate: guessing a score is worse than marking it unknown, because a guessed score gets acted on.

Another 894 words of it, the 4 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Lead List Qualifier page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Account Research Brief

An account brief that names the committee, picks the entry point and states one testable hypothesis — built only from what is visible on LinkedIn.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of Lead List Qualifier. Hands its output to LinkedIn Prospect Research.

Skip it when

One person decides the whole thing. The brief earns its time on the committee and the entry point, and at a twenty-person company those are the same person — run the prospect brief instead.

How it opens
You are an account researcher for a B2B seller. You build a picture of a company from public LinkedIn material only, and you are explicit about the boundary between evidence and inference.

Another 457 words of it, the 5 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Account Research Brief page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

LinkedIn Prospect Research

A one-page research brief on a single prospect that ends in a usable opening line, and that separates what it read from what it inferred.

Where it sits

Step 4 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: One prospect’s pasted profile and activity. Out: A brief ending in a value hypothesis and an opening line. 3 min each. Runs on the output of Lead List Qualifier. Hands its output to LinkedIn Outreach Personalizer.

Skip it when

You are working two hundred rows. At that volume the problem is the filter rather than the research: run the qualifier first and research what survives it.

How it opens
You are a B2B research analyst preparing a seller for first contact. You are precise about the difference between what you read and what you inferred, because the seller will quote you to the prospect.

Another 481 words of it, the 9 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the LinkedIn Prospect Research page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Stage 4 of 5 — Reach

300 characters, and a decision about whether this message costs money

What do I send, and does this one cost a credit? The connection note is a 300-character field on every plan. The paid channel is capped by the monthly InMail allowance — 5 on Premium Career, 50 on Sales Navigator Core — and unused credits expire at 90 days. See the rest of the outreach prompts.

Connection Request Generator

Three connection requests under 300 characters, each with one specific reference, plus a recommendation on whether to send a note at all.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of LinkedIn Prospect Research. Hands its output to Follow-up Sequence Builder.

Skip it when

They are out of your network and a request will not reach them. That is the InMail Writer below, and it begins by deciding whether the credit is worth spending at all.

How it opens
You are writing LinkedIn connection requests. You treat the 300-character note field as the hard constraint it is, and you know that a bad note performs worse than no note at all.

Another 391 words of it, the 9 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Connection Request Generator page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

LinkedIn Outreach Personalizer

A first message and its follow-up, built from a stated hypothesis, with every claim traceable to something you actually gave it.

Where it sits

Step 5 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: The brief from step 4. Out: A message at the right length, built on a stated hypothesis. 2 min each. Runs on the output of LinkedIn Prospect Research. Hands its output to Follow-up Sequence Builder.

Skip it when

You have no specific evidence to give it. It will decline to write rather than invent a reference, which is the correct outcome and not a fault — go back and read the profile.

How it opens
You are writing a first LinkedIn message from one working person to another. You are not writing marketing copy. The test for every sentence: would a busy person read it and think "this is about me", or "this is about them"?

Another 426 words of it, the 12 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the LinkedIn Outreach Personalizer page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

InMail Writer

A subject line and body written for a paid message, preceded by an honest verdict on whether to spend the credit at all.

Where it sits

Not one of the 8 steps in From ICP to booked meeting, which takes one route through the stage above. Runs on the output of LinkedIn Prospect Research. Hands its output to Reply & Objection Handler.

Skip it when

They are a first-degree connection. A normal message reaches them for nothing, so the credit is a pure loss — and on Premium Career that loss is $8.

How it opens
You are writing a LinkedIn InMail. Unlike every other message on the platform, this one costs a credit, and the credit is only returned if the recipient replies within 90 days. Write accordingly.

Another 824 words of it, the 11 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the InMail Writer page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Stage 5 of 5 — Continue

Four touches is the ceiling, and a reply is worth more to the allowance than a send

What happens after the first message? Four touches including the first is the practical ceiling, because invitations that go unaccepted reduce the ceiling LinkedIn applies to the account. A reply inside the 90 days returns the InMail credit, which is why reply rate rather than send volume is what the allowance rewards. See the reply and meeting prompts.

Follow-up Sequence Builder

A three-to-four touch sequence with dates, channels, a stop rule, and a capacity check against what your plan can actually send.

Where it sits

Step 6 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: Your seat count and plan. Out: Three to four touches inside the platform ceilings, with a stop rule. 15 min, once. Runs on the output of LinkedIn Outreach Personalizer. Hands its output to Reply & Objection Handler.

Skip it when

Three well-aimed touches already produced nothing. A fourth does not fix targeting, and unaccepted invitations reduce the weekly ceiling LinkedIn applies to your account — go back to the qualifier.

How it opens
You are designing an outreach cadence that has to fit inside hard platform limits and inside the recipient's patience.
LinkedIn platform limits that apply on EVERY plan, including the most expensive one:

Another 901 words of it, the 9 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Follow-up Sequence Builder page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Reply & Objection Handler

A read of what the reply actually means and three responses at different levels of directness, including the one that ends it politely.

Where it sits

Step 7 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: The thread, with dates. Out: A classified reply and three calibrated responses. 2 min each. Runs on the output of Follow-up Sequence Builder. Hands its output to Meeting Prep Brief.

Skip it when

You got a clear no. Treating one as an objection to be handled costs the relationship, and occasionally the account.

How it opens
You are a senior seller reading a LinkedIn thread. You are good at the distinction between what someone wrote and what they meant, and you would rather close a dead thread than keep it alive on hope.

Another 383 words of it, the 6 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Reply & Objection Handler page, with the worked example, the runs that go wrong and the ceilings it plans against.

Meeting Prep Brief

A one-page brief you can read in the two minutes before a call, ending in the three questions that decide whether it goes anywhere.

Where it sits

Step 8 of 8 in From ICP to booked meeting. In: The thread and the profile. Out: A one-page brief and three questions, one of them disqualifying. 2 min. Runs on the output of Reply & Objection Handler. Last step in the sequence.

Skip it when

The call has already happened. Nothing in this library writes the record afterwards, and a note-taker wired into your call software is better placed than a pasted prompt, because it has the transcript.

How it opens
You are preparing a seller for a first call. The brief must be readable in under two minutes.
What I want from the call: {{OBJECTIVE}}

Another 252 words of it, the 9 placeholders as fields you fill in the browser and the .md download are on the Meeting Prep Brief page, with the worked example and the ceilings it plans against.

What these prompts are not

Everything above is text. None of it goes near your account

A prompt produces a message, a filter set or a brief. You read it, and then you do the work in LinkedIn yourself. That boundary is not a limitation to be engineered around — it is the line between a writing aid and something that acts as you, and the second one is a different decision with different consequences. These are the three questions people ask next.

Can an assistant press send?

Not through anything here. There is no public LinkedIn API for connection requests or member-to-member messages, and LinkedIn blocks assistant crawlers from reading profiles. The MCP server directory covers the servers that do reach LinkedIn, grouped by what each one authenticates with and what that exposes.

What about the tools that automate this?

They exist and they are worth understanding before buying one. The tool directory sorts them by how they reach LinkedIn — from vendors that never touch your account to servers that hold your session and act under your name — and states the exposure of each route rather than rating the vendors.

Is the AI inside LinkedIn any use for this?

Some of it. The Sales Navigator AI page lists the features LinkedIn ships inside the seat you are already paying for, which plan carries each one, and the three where LinkedIn's own help pages disagree about the tier.

The job this library does not do

Nothing here writes the CRM record after the call. The meeting brief runs before it, and a note-taker with the transcript is better placed than a pasted prompt. The full library map lists that gap and the others rather than padding the count.

Written to a fixed structure and run through Claude and ChatGPT to confirm each one returns the output format it declares. That is not the same as a measured reply-rate benchmark, and nothing here claims one — if you run these at volume and have numbers, we want them.

LinkedIn sales prompts FAQ

The questions the individual prompt pages do not answer

What is the best prompt for LinkedIn sales?

The one that knows what you can do afterwards. A prompt that writes fifty connection requests has written five weeks of work, because an account sends roughly 100 invitations a week on every plan LinkedIn sells and that ceiling goes down, never up, for accounts whose invitations are not accepted. If you want a single starting point rather than the sequence, start with the ICP Builder: everything below it consumes its output, and a search built without it is a search you cannot debug.

Can ChatGPT or Claude write my LinkedIn messages for me?

They can write the message. They cannot read the profile it is about, and they cannot send it. LinkedIn blocks assistant crawlers, so a model handed a profile URL either says it cannot open the page or — much more often — invents its contents and presents them confidently. Every prompt here is written to be fed text you pasted for exactly that reason. Sending is yours too: there is no public API for connection requests or messages, so the last step is always done by you in LinkedIn’s own interface.

How many connection requests can I send a week?

Roughly 100, and no plan raises it. LinkedIn does not publish the figure as a contractual number and adjusts it per account based on acceptance rate, so a low-acceptance account gets less. It applies on the free tier, on Premium Career, on Sales Navigator Core and on the two plans LinkedIn quotes rather than prices. That is the number the Lead List Qualifier caps its top tier at, and it is the reason the qualifier exists at all.

Do I need Sales Navigator to use these prompts?

10 of the 14 need nothing but an assistant and text you can paste. The other 4 write Sales Navigator filters, Boolean strings and saved-search allocations, and those assume the seat — $119.99 a month for Sales Navigator Core, read from LinkedIn on 12 September 2026. The search builder takes your plan as an input and marks the filters your tier does not have rather than writing a search you cannot build.

Will using AI prompts get my LinkedIn account restricted?

Nothing on this page touches your account. Every item here is text: you paste it into an assistant, read what comes back, and act on it yourself. There is no extension, no automation, no stored session and no API call. What does get accounts restricted is volume — sending more invitations or messages in a week than the platform allows — which is why each stage carries the ceiling instead of leaving the arithmetic to you.

How long can a LinkedIn connection note be?

300 characters including spaces, for everyone. Premium does not raise it and neither does Sales Navigator. LinkedIn also caps how many notes a free account sends per month, which is a separate ceiling from the weekly invitation limit. The Connection Request Generator prints a character count on each variant and will recommend sending no note at all when the evidence is thin, because a generic note is worse than none.

Should I run one prompt or the whole sequence?

One, if you have one message to write today — every prompt here works as a standalone paste. The sequence matters when the volume does: each step is written to consume the previous step’s output, so running the outreach prompt without the research prompt means supplying by hand the thing it was designed to be handed. The full run through all 5 stages is a first-time setup, not a daily routine. Afterwards the daily part is the last two stages.

Next questions

The ceilings these prompts plan against, and the decisions that sit either side of them.

Where to next

Start with the ICP, not with the message

Every prompt below the first one consumes its output, and a search built without it is a search you cannot debug. The whole sequence is 14 prompts and one afternoon.

Open the ICP BuilderThe first stage, and the only one that needs nothing from LinkedIn.Read the limits firstThe ceilings these prompts plan against, read from LinkedIn on 10 September 2026.

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