# LinkedIn reply rate after someone accepts Last updated 19 October 2026 When you measure your LinkedIn message reply rate after connecting, HeyLead's own invitations show that directors accept most often but reply least often. ## Replies after an accepted invitation **Replies after an accepted invitation: LinkedIn invitations HeyLead sent from its own workspaces** | Seniority | Invited | Accepted | Replied | | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | | Owner or founder | 246 | 26% | 28% | | C-level | 204 | 26% | 17% | | Director | 224 | 32% | 8% | | All invitations | 777 | 30% | 20% | Source: HeyLead's own outreach, the invitations HeyLead sent from its own team's workspaces, 10 March 2026 to 19 September 2026, each at least 30 days old, read 19 October 2026. Each person is counted once. Accepted means the person accepted the invitation; replied is a share of those who accepted. Seniority is read from the person's job title. Rows with fewer than 30 people are not shown. Nobody is named. Published under CC BY 4.0: reuse it with credit and a link to heylead.dev. ## What the numbers say The data reveals a clear gap between accepting a connection and starting a conversation. Directors accepted most often at 32% but replied least often at 8% (n = 224 people invited, 10 March 2026 to 19 September 2026). An accepted invitation was not a conversation with this group. Owners and founders showed a different pattern. They did not accept most often. They replied most often once they had accepted. Their reply rate was 28% (n = 246 people invited, 10 March 2026 to 19 September 2026). ## How the data was counted HeyLead is an AI agent for LinkedIn outreach: it finds the right people, writes to them in the voice of your own LinkedIn posts, follows up, and handles replies. It runs from Claude Code, Cursor, any MCP client or a web dashboard. The invitations were sent with HeyLead from HeyLead's own team's workspaces between 10 March 2026 and 19 September 2026. Each invitation was at least 30 days old when counted. Each person was counted once. Seniority was read from the person's job title. Groups of fewer than 30 people are not shown. Accepted means the person accepted the invitation. Replied is a share of the people who accepted. Time to accept was not measured. Nobody is named. ## What they do not tell you These figures are one sender's results. They are not a LinkedIn benchmark. They do not represent an average across all industries. Your own results will vary based on your profile. Your results will also depend on your message. The data only reflects HeyLead's own outreach. It does not show how fast people replied. It does not show the content of the messages. It does not measure the time of day the messages were sent. The numbers do not reveal the industry of the people invited. They do not indicate the size of the companies targeted. ## What to do in your own outreach Focus your attention on owners and founders. They reply more often after connecting. Write a clear opening message for directors. They accept easily but need a strong reason to reply. Measure your own reply rate after acceptance. Do this 30 days after you send your invitations. Track the job titles of the people who reply. Adjust your target audience based on who actually starts a conversation. Look at your own data to see which seniority level engages most. Test different opening messages for different seniority levels. ## How HeyLead manages campaigns 1 sentence creates a draft campaign. You type a brief in Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or the HeyLead dashboard. HeyLead drafts the campaign. You review it and press Launch. Nothing is sent before. Before an invitation, HeyLead warms up. It does a profile view, a follow, and a comment on a recent post. An invitation includes a note, an opening message, up to 2 follow-ups on Free and 5 on Pro, InMail and email fallback. Replies are read, classified and answered from the campaign's facts. Anything ambiguous is held for you. A not now gets a check-in in 30 days. Opening messages, follow-ups and answers to replies wait for your approval until you switch to autopilot. Invitations, not-now check-ins and meeting nudges are not held. It runs from the cloud with your laptop closed. Free costs $0 for 1 connected account with 2 follow-ups. Pro costs $29 a month per connected account. The client's source is on GitHub under MIT. The hosted backend is not. HubSpot is the CRM it syncs with. Google Calendar is the calendar it books into. ## Questions people ask ### What was the overall reply rate after acceptance? In HeyLead's own outreach, 20% of those who accepted replied (45 out of 230 people) from n = 777 people invited between 10 March 2026 and 19 September 2026. ### Which seniority level replied most often? Owners and founders replied most often once they had accepted. Their reply rate was 28% (n = 246 people invited, 10 March 2026 to 19 September 2026). ### Did directors reply often? Directors accepted most often at 32% but replied least often at 8% (n = 224 people invited, 10 March 2026 to 19 September 2026). ### How does HeyLead handle replies? Replies are read, classified and answered from the campaign's facts. Anything ambiguous is held for you. HeyLead sends from your own LinkedIn account at a human pace: at most 20 invitations a day and 100 a week on a free LinkedIn account (more on Premium or Sales Navigator), Monday to Friday 08:00 to 22:00 in your time zone, minutes apart. It backs off when LinkedIn pushes back and resumes on its own. You can pause any campaign at any time. HeyLead is not affiliated with LinkedIn. It reaches LinkedIn through Unipile, which is also not affiliated. LinkedIn's own rules are in the Terms: https://heylead.dev/terms Related: [How to reach agency owners on LinkedIn](https://heylead.dev/for/agency-owners), [Reach Chief Compliance Officers on LinkedIn](https://heylead.dev/for/chief-compliance-officers), [How to reach chief customer officers on LinkedIn](https://heylead.dev/for/chief-customer-officers), [how to reach CFOs on linkedin](https://heylead.dev/for/cfos), [With or without a note on LinkedIn connection requests](https://heylead.dev/insights/linkedin-connection-request-with-or-without-a-note), [LinkedIn outreach data](https://heylead.dev/insights)