Research and benchmarks
Cold outreach statistics 2026: sourced numbers for LinkedIn, email and WhatsApp
By Viktorio Shopov, co-founder of Sellinger. Reviewed by Asen Levov. Published . Last updated . 8 minute read.
Published 2026 studies put the LinkedIn connection acceptance rate at about 20% to 29% and cold email reply rates anywhere from 0.45% to 3.43%, depending on who counted and how. Every number below carries its source, date and sample, because the same word, reply rate, is divided differently from one study to the next. We use no pooled customer numbers, only published sources and our own account, labelled.
Statistics pages are easy to write badly: a number with no source, or one quoted from a blog that quoted another blog. This page does the opposite. Each figure was read on the vendor's own page on 25 October 2026, with the publication date and sample size where the page gives them. Most come from companies that sell outreach tools, so the numbers describe their users, and we say so. Where a source is old, we say that too. We will refresh the page each quarter.
LinkedIn outreach statistics
| Statistic | Source and date | Sample and caveat |
|---|---|---|
| 28.5% connection acceptance rate | Expandi, published 19 May 2026 | 13,218,869 requests, May 2025 to April 2026, 13,302 accounts. Vendor data |
| 3.0% reply rate to the connection request note | Expandi, same study | Fell from 3.5% in May 2025 to 2.2% in April 2026, according to the study |
| 10.4% message reply rate | Expandi, same study | 6,730,447 outbound messages |
| 17.5% to 40.1% acceptance range across industries | Expandi, same study | The study flags the smallest industries as too small to be reliable |
| 26.3% to 29.4% acceptance by sender seniority | Expandi, same study | Junior and entry level to C-level, all within a 3 point band |
| 23.85% average and 20.75% typical acceptance rate | HeyReach, published 17 September 2026 | 96,051 campaigns over 12 months. Vendor data |
| 25.19% average and 22.22% typical reply rate | HeyReach, same report | Calculated only on campaigns with at least one started conversation, so it is not comparable to Expandi's |
| 10.7% of campaigns with accepted connections got zero replies | HeyReach, same report | Same sample |
| Acceptance falls from 21.43% to 19.35% as campaign volume rises | HeyReach, same report | 50 to 100 bucket against the 1,000 plus bucket. Reply rates stay roughly flat |
Two things to read before you compare yourself with these. First, Expandi's reply rate and HeyReach's reply rate are not the same measure, and the HeyReach figure excludes campaigns that never started a conversation. Second, both are samples of customers who chose a LinkedIn automation tool, which may differ from your audience. Our post on how we define reply rate explains how to count your own.
Cold email statistics
| Statistic | Source and date | Sample and caveat |
|---|---|---|
| 3.43% average reply rate | Instantly, report updated 12 January 2026 | Platform data, 1 January to 18 December 2025 |
| 10.7% or more reply rate for the top 10% of senders | Instantly, same report | Defined by the report as its top tier |
| 0.45% average reply rate | Belkins, updated 26 June 2026 | 7,530,489 emails, 2025. Replies divided by total emails sent, which the study says differs from its earlier method |
| 0.57% for founders and owners, 0.42% for C-level, 0.32% for VPs | Belkins, same study | Reply rates by seniority |
| 58% of replies come from the first email, 42% from follow ups | Instantly, same report | The report recommends 4 to 7 touches |
| 8.3% reply rate with 3 to 5 follow up steps against 4.1% with none | Woodpecker, updated 23 June 2026 | Sample not stated on the page. Treat as indicative |
| 5.8% reply rate for campaigns under 50 recipients against 2.1% for large lists | Woodpecker, citing Belkins analysis of 16.5 million emails | Secondary citation, so check the original before you quote it |
| C-level executives are 30.2% less likely to reply than non-executives | Gong, published 29 January 2026 | Relative figure, from the analysis of more than 1 million executive sales cycles. No absolute rates in the text |
| Emails of 50 to 100 words perform best, with a drop beyond 100 | Gong, same article | Chart values not in the text we could read |
| 8.5% of outreach emails get a response | Backlinko, last updated 16 April 2019 | 12 million emails, link building outreach with Pitchbox. Old and a different use case |
| One extra follow up raises replies by 65.8% | Backlinko, same study | Same caveats |
| 36 to 50 character subject lines responded best | Backlinko, same study | Same caveats |
The spread from 0.45% to 3.43% is a counting difference as much as a performance difference. Belkins divides by every email sent. Instantly reports across its platform's workspaces. If your own reply rate looks low against one and high against the other, that is why. The Backlinko study is the oldest, from link building outreach, and we include it only because many pages still quote it.
Deliverability and open rate rules
| Statistic or rule | Source and date | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bulk senders are those sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail | Google, email sender guidelines | Requirements apply from 1 February 2024 |
| Spam rate must stay below 0.30%, and Google advises keeping it below 0.10% | Google, same page | Measured in Postmaster Tools |
| Marketing mail from bulk senders must support one click unsubscribe | Google, same page | Uses the List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers |
| SPF, DKIM and DMARC required for bulk senders | Google, same page | The DMARC policy can be set to none |
| Mail Privacy Protection helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email | Apple Newsroom, 7 June 2021 | Why open rates include machine opens |
Open rates deserve their own warning. Once a share of recipients' mail apps open messages automatically, an open count no longer means a person read the message. Our posts on Google and Yahoo's bulk sender rules and cold email rules we enforce cover what to do about both.
WhatsApp pricing rules
Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform pricing page, read on 25 October 2026, says Meta charges per message rather than per conversation, from 1 July 2025, and charges for delivered messages only. A customer service window of 24 hours opens when a person writes to a business. Rates differ by market and category. We cover this in WhatsApp Business API cost in 2026.
Our own account, labelled
These are not benchmarks. They are one account's results, from the Sellinger case study: 27,737 people messaged on LinkedIn, 10,978 replied (40%), and 351 showcase meetings were booked through the agents' booking link, one per person, from September 2025 to October 2026 (production data, snapshot 9 October 2026). In the October 2025 cohort an intent signal list replied at 54.6% against 37.2% for an untagged list. One account and one offer say little about yours.
How to use these numbers
- Pick the study closest to your channel and audience.
- Count your own rate with the same denominator.
- Compare trends in your own data over time before you compare with a vendor.
- Track meetings and replies from the right people, not opens.
Common questions
What is a good LinkedIn connection acceptance rate in 2026?
What is the average cold email reply rate in 2026?
Do follow ups matter?
Can I trust cold email open rates?
Why does Sellinger not publish customer averages?
How Sellinger helps
Read how it works on Use the free reply rate and acceptance rate calculator, or see a real campaign in Read the Sellinger case study.
Sources
- Expandi, LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks 2026 (published 19 May 2026)
- HeyReach, LinkedIn outreach benchmarks (published 17 September 2026)
- Instantly, Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 (updated 12 January 2026)
- Belkins, B2B cold email response rates (updated 26 June 2026)
- Gong, Do execs really reply to cold email (published 29 January 2026)
- Backlinko, Email outreach study (last updated 16 April 2019)
- Woodpecker, Cold email statistics (updated 23 June 2026)
- Google, Email sender guidelines
- Apple Newsroom, 7 June 2021
- Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing
- Sellinger case study, own workspace
