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Deadlock invite rules: the 30-day friend rule, invite limits and who can be invited

Old guides say you have to be Steam friends for 30 days before you can invite someone to Deadlock, and that each player can only send a few invites. We checked, with 9,298 invite requests, nearly all from one Steam account. Neither rule shows up any more. Here is what Deadlock actually answered, and the two rules that are left.

The short answer

  • No 30-day wait: 8,835 of 8,970 invites (98.5%) went through within a minute of becoming Steam friends, half of them within 3 seconds.
  • No invite limit we could reach: one account has sent about 9,000 invites since 24 October 2026, and Deadlock never said its limit was reached.
  • Limited Steam accounts can't be invited: ones that haven't spent $5 on Steam.
  • Players who already have Deadlock can't be invited again, and asking again for someone who already got an invite doesn't send a new one.

What Deadlock answered

When you invite a friend from the game's menu, Deadlock answers with one of a few results. These are the answers Invite Frog got for every player it asked Deadlock to invite, up to 8 November 2026:

Deadlock's answerPlayersWhat it means
Invite sent8,970Valve's invite follows in the Steam chat, usually within 2 minutes.
Already has the game294 (3.2%)Deadlock is already on their account, often from someone else's invite.
Limited account34 (0.4%)The account hasn't spent $5 on Steam. See limited accounts.
Not friends long enough0The old 30-day rule. The game still has the message, but never sent it.
Invite limit reached0The per-player limit. Never reached in about 9,000 invites.

Where the 30-day rule came from

In mid-2024, players reported that Deadlock only let them invite friends they had been friends with for 30 days, and the game still contains the message for it. A player on the official Deadlock forums wrote in July 2024 that the rule had been lifted. Our numbers agree: the frog invites people seconds after they add it, and Deadlock has never answered that they weren't friends long enough.

Is there an invite limit?

The game has an "invite limit reached" answer, and you'll still read that every player gets 5 or 10 invites. Valve never published a number. One Steam account inviting about 9,000 players without reaching any limit says it is far higher than that today, if it is still there at all.

One invite per player

Valve sends each player one invite. When players who had already been invited asked again, Deadlock answered that the invite went through, but no new invite came (4 of 4 times we checked). If yours seems lost, it's usually waiting somewhere: see invite not showing up.

The exception is a limited account that has since been lifted: after spending $5, both players we saw ask again got their invite.

Questions

Do you need to be friends for 30 days to invite someone to Deadlock?
No. Invite Frog invited 98.5% of 8,970 players within a minute of becoming friends, and Deadlock never refused one for not being friends long enough.
How many people can you invite to Deadlock?
No limit we could reach. One Steam account has sent about 9,000 invites without Deadlock saying its limit was reached.
Can I invite someone who declined my Deadlock invite?
Deadlock accepts the invite again, but in every case we checked no new invite arrived: Valve sends one invite per player.
Who can't get a Deadlock invite?
Limited Steam accounts (under $5 spent on Steam) and accounts that already have Deadlock.

Related

Get a Deadlock inviteHow to get an inviteLimited accounts

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