Free tool

Reverse funnel calculator: how many invitations do you need for your meeting target?

Start from the meetings you want and divide backwards through each step: meetings held, then booked, replies, people messaged and finally invitations sent. You supply every rate from your own campaigns. The rates in the examples below are made up placeholders, not benchmarks.

Published by Sellinger AI. Numbers and settings checked on 25 October 2026 against the fact register. Report an error.

The working backwards formula

Each step divides by the rate of the step before it. Write the rates as decimals, so 30% is 0.30.

Reverse funnel, one line per step
Step	Formula	What it gives you
1	Meetings booked = target meetings held / show rate	How many meetings must go in the calendar
2	Replies needed = meetings booked / meeting from reply rate	How many people must answer
3	People messaged = replies needed / reply rate	How many first messages go out
4	Invitations = people messaged / acceptance rate	How many LinkedIn invitations to send

In one line: invitations = target meetings / show rate / meeting from reply rate / reply rate / acceptance rate. Round up at the end, not at each step. For email or WhatsApp, drop step 4 and start from people messaged.

Use the same definitions for every rate. Acceptance is per person invited, reply rate is per person messaged and a reply is a person, not a message. The reply rate and acceptance rate calculator computes all of them from your counts. Count meetings the same way every time: how to count meetings honestly. The show rate is defined in the meeting show rate glossary entry.

A worked example with placeholder rates

The target is 10 meetings held in a month. The four rates below are made up for the arithmetic. Replace them with your own.

Target 10 meetings held. Rates are placeholders, not benchmarks
Step	Placeholder rate (made up)	Calculation	Result
Meetings booked	Show rate 80%	10 / 0.80	12.5
Replies needed	Meeting from reply rate 25%	12.5 / 0.25	50
People messaged	Reply rate 30%	50 / 0.30	166.7
Invitations	Acceptance rate 35%	166.7 / 0.35	476.2, round up to 477

These rates are an illustration of the method. They are not what any campaign, industry or Sellinger customer achieves.

Three example scenarios

The same 10 meeting target, with three different sets of made up rates. The point is how sharply the invitations needed move when the rates move.

Target 10 meetings held. All rates are made up examples
	Scenario A (low rates)	Scenario B (middle rates)	Scenario C (high rates)
Show rate	70%	80%	90%
Meeting from reply rate	15%	25%	35%
Reply rate	20%	30%	40%
Acceptance rate	25%	35%	45%
Meetings booked	14.3	12.5	11.1
Replies needed	95.2	50.0	31.7
People messaged	476.2	166.7	79.4
Invitations (rounded up)	1,905	477	177

Four rates multiply, so a modest gap in each one compounds into a large gap in invitations. Scenario A needs more than ten times the invitations of scenario C for the same target.

Check the result against how fast you can send. The LinkedIn pacing planner turns a number of invitations into weeks at a daily and weekly limit.

Hours a week, only from your own minutes per lead

Hours are not part of the funnel, so the formula needs one more number that only you know: the minutes you spend per lead on research, review or writing. If you spend none because the work is automated, the answer is zero.

Hours implied by a made up 2 minutes per invitation
	Scenario A	Scenario B	Scenario C
Invitations	1,905	477	177
Minutes in total (invitations x 2)	3,810	954	354
Hours in the month (minutes / 60)	63.5	15.9	5.9
Hours a week (month / 4.33)	14.7	3.7	1.4

The 2 minutes per lead is a placeholder, not a measurement. 4.33 is 52 weeks divided by 12 months. If you review only the people who reply, multiply by replies needed instead of invitations.

How to use it with your own numbers

1
Step 1
Pull four rates
Take acceptance, reply, meeting from reply and show rate from your last 30 to 90 days, counted by person.
2
Step 2
Run the four divisions
Start at your target and divide in the order of the table above. A spreadsheet with four cells does it.
3
Step 3
Test the weakest rate
Re-run with that rate a few points better and worse to see how much of the result depends on it. Small bases move a lot.
4
Step 4
Compare with capacity
Compare the invitations with your sending limit and your list size before you commit to the target.

Common questions

Which rates should I use?

Your own, from your own campaigns and counted by person. The rates on this page are made up to show the arithmetic and are not benchmarks.

Why divide instead of multiply?

Because you start from the result you want. Each earlier step has to be larger than the next by the rate between them, so you divide by the rate.

Does this work for email and WhatsApp?

Yes. Skip the acceptance step and start from the number of people you must message.

What if I have no history yet?

Run a small first batch to get your own rates, and treat any rate you assume until then as a guess you will replace.

Sources and method

Arithmetic only. All example rates and the 2 minutes per lead are made up for illustration. Checked 25 October 2026.