Benchmark range
Cold outreach reply rates in 2026
What three reports say about replies to cold email and LinkedIn messages
Three 2026 reports on cold outreach reply rates, shown as a spread because they count replies differently. Cold email lands between about 3.4% and 5%, and LinkedIn messages reach about 17% in one dataset of recruiting outreach. Founders recruiting interviewees from strangers can use the spread to work out how many people to contact for a target number of conversations.
Where this appears
What's in this benchmark range
| Hunter 2026 | Pin 2026 | Instantly 2026 | Range | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold email reply rate | 4.5% | 4.96% | 3.43% | 3.43% to 4.96% |
| LinkedIn message reply rate | n/a | 17.08% | n/a | 17.08% |
Hunter counts replies per sequence, Instantly per email sent, and Pin measures recruiting messages.
Use this image
Free to use in your docs, decks and posts under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Koji with a link to this page. To embed it, paste this into your page:
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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/cold-email-and-linkedin-reply-rates-2026"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/cold-email-and-linkedin-reply-rates-2026/cold-email-and-linkedin-reply-rates-2026.png" alt="Range chart of cold outreach reply rates in 2026: cold email between 3.43% and 4.96% across three reports, and LinkedIn messages at 17.08% in one report." width="1200" height="630" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/cold-email-and-linkedin-reply-rates-2026">Cold outreach reply rates in 2026</a>, Koji</p>
