Why InMail reply rates are falling
Every recruiter has an InMail credit balance, so every recruiter sends. Candidates triage by ignoring anything that looks templated, and the InMail format makes templates obvious. The format that once felt premium now codes as spam.
How connection-gated messaging fixes it
On Connecting Odds, you send a connection request with a personal note. The candidate sees your full profile, mutuals, and recent posts before they accept. When they do, your DMs are unlimited and free, and the candidate has already signaled interest, which is why reply rates clear 30%.
The math at 20 hires a year
A team hiring 20 roles a year sends roughly 4,000 outbound messages. On InMail that's 13-27 seat-months of credits or $40K+ in cost-per-message overruns. On Connecting Odds it's included in a flat plan.
What you give up
You lose the ability to spam cold strangers at will, which is the point. If your sourcing strategy depends on 5% reply rates at high volume, this isn't the tool.