The X leads most likely to reply are people who just asked, in public, for what you offer. In our own outreach in September 2026, people who commented on "drop your startup link" posts replied with interest 3.0% of the time. Followers of big marketing accounts did so 0.3% of the time, a tenth as often.
Those totals come from one sender's campaigns, so treat them as a strong hint rather than a benchmark. A much larger vendor dataset, covered below, points the same way.
Commenters against followers
People who comment on a post asking for links have just raised their hand, and that showed in the replies. Compare the last column, then the list sizes:
| List source | DMs sent | Replied with interest |
|---|---|---|
| Commenters on "drop your startup link" posts. | 854. | 26, or 3.0%. |
| Followers of big marketing accounts. | 1,804. | 5, or 0.3%. |
The follower list was twice as long and much easier to build, yet it produced a fifth as many interested replies. Following a big account shows interest in a topic. Commenting under a call for links shows a need right now, and that is the difference a first message can work with.
What a bigger dataset says about leads
The benchmark from Xreacher, a rival cold DM tool, covers 43.7 million first DMs to 3 July 2026, and it also splits replies by who received the DM. It counts any answer as a reply, so its rates are not comparable with our interested-only totals:
| Who got the DM | Reply rate |
|---|---|
| Premium users with 10,000 to 100,000 followers. | 3.19%. |
| Premium users of any size. | About 2.3%. |
| People without Premium. | 1.25%. |
The same data shows leads who were followed before the DM replied at 1.42%, against 0.35% for leads who only got the DM. That pattern in one vendor's data proves nothing on its own, and X's rules forbid "indiscriminate following", so following first only makes sense at a slow, human pace.
Where to find leads that reply
The best sources are places where people describe their problem in their own words. These are the four we would start with:
- Posts that ask people to drop a link. Founders who answer are asking to be seen, which makes a first message welcome rather than odd. This was our best measured source.
- Replies under a post about your problem. The person raised it in public, and you can quote their words back.
- X search for a phrase your buyers use. Check the date, since a complaint from last year is cold.
- People who engage with your own posts. They already know you, so this is warm outreach, and we have not measured it against cold lists.
Followers of a big account sit last, for the reason the table shows. Whichever you pick, build the list by hand from posts and replies. X's Terms say crawling or scraping X "in any form, for any purpose without our prior written consent is expressly prohibited".
Check that each lead can get a DM
About 1 in 4 leads on our users' lists, 23% from 2 July to 5 October 2026, could not receive a DM at all. The share depends on how the list was built, and collecting only profiles with open DMs avoids most of it. How to DM someone who does not follow you explains each inbox setting.
How to test two lists fairly
Send the same message to 1,000 leads from each source, then compare interested replies after a week. Changing the message and the list at once tells you nothing about either. At these rates, a few hundred sends can swing by chance. What reply rate to expect explains why 1,000 is the floor.
Size the list to your caps. A Premium account can send 35 first messages a day, but a typical account sends about 28, or roughly 850 a month. Once a list is ready, sending to it inside each account's cap is what Xsender does, and anyone you already messaged is skipped.
Xsender does not find leads for you, though. If you want a tool that does, X DM tools compared side by side shows which ones have a lead finder.
FAQ
Who replies most to cold DMs on X?
In our own outreach, people who had commented on a "drop your startup link" post replied with interest 3.0% of the time. In Xreacher's larger dataset, Premium users with 10,000 to 100,000 followers replied most, at 3.19%.
Should you DM people with a blue check?
In Xreacher's data, Premium users replied nearly twice as often as people without it, about 2.3% against 1.25%. Some of them accept requests only from verified accounts, so a free account cannot reach them at all.
Can you scrape followers to build a lead list on X?
X's Terms say scraping X in any form needs X's prior written consent. Building a list by hand from posts and replies stays inside those Terms.
How big should an X lead list be?
Size an X lead list to what your accounts can send. One Premium account sends about 850 first messages a month, and about 1 in 4 leads may not be able to get a DM, so collect a third more than you plan to send.
Try it on your own X accounts. See plans and the 7-day trial
Sources and method
Sources and dates
- Our list totals: our own outreach campaigns, September 2026: 26 interested replies of 854 and 5 of 1,804. One sender, our own accounts.
- Closed inboxes and daily sends: our production logs, all workspaces, 2 July to 5 October 2026.
- Lead profiles and following first: Xreacher's Cold DM Benchmarks, published 3 July 2026, read 5 October 2026. Vendor data.
- Indiscriminate following: X's Authenticity policy, archived 7 September 2026.
- The scraping rule: X's Terms of Service, read 5 October 2026.
- Verified only inboxes and the caps: X's Chat help page, read 5 October 2026.