diff --git a/swh/indexer/cli.py b/swh/indexer/cli.py
--- a/swh/indexer/cli.py
+++ b/swh/indexer/cli.py
@@ -214,7 +214,9 @@
 
     client = get_journal_client(
         ctx, brokers=brokers, prefix=prefix, group_id=group_id,
-        object_types=['origin_visit'])
+        object_types=['origin_visit'],
+        max_messages=max_messages,
+    )
 
     worker_fn = functools.partial(
         process_journal_objects,