Short answer: LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid prospecting product. In 2026 it comes in three plans (Core, Advanced, Advanced Plus), each with 50 InMail credits a month, 50+ lead and account filters, saved searches with alerts, and lead lists. Set it up around one ideal customer profile, then work it on a weekly rhythm.
This LinkedIn Sales Navigator guide is written for someone who has just bought a seat, or is about to, and wants a working routine rather than a feature tour. It covers the 2026 plan lineup as LinkedIn publishes it, a first-week setup, the filters worth learning, how InMail credits behave, and how to move leads from a saved search into actual conversations.
What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator in 2026?
Sales Navigator is a separate app inside LinkedIn, built for finding and tracking buyers. You sign in at linkedin.com/sales, and it runs on the same member data as LinkedIn, with a deeper search, lists, alerts and its own inbox.
LinkedIn says every Sales Navigator plan includes access to Premium Business features, so you are not buying Premium on top. What you add is a sales layer: lead and account search with 50+ filters, saved leads and accounts, alerts on job changes and posts, AI research summaries (Account IQ and Lead IQ), and the Message Assist drafting tool.
What it does not do matters just as much. Sales Navigator does not give you email addresses, it does not send sequences or follow-ups, and it does not export lists to CSV. It is a targeting and research tool. The outreach happens somewhere else.
Which Sales Navigator plan should you choose?
Most individual sellers start on Core; teams that need TeamLink, Smart Links or buyer intent move to Advanced; Advanced Plus is for organizations that want CRM sync. The table below follows LinkedIn's compare-plans page, updated September 27, 2026.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Built for | Adds over the plan before it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | $119.99/mo | $1,079.88/yr | Individual sellers | Advanced search, Account IQ and Lead IQ, Relationship Explorer and Map, alerts, Message Assist, 50 InMails/mo |
| Advanced | $159.99/mo | $1,799.88/yr | Sales teams | Buyer Intent, TeamLink, Smart Links, team reporting, seat management, CSV upload of your book of business |
| Advanced Plus | Custom quote | Custom quote | Teams on a supported CRM | CRM sync (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle), lead and contact creation in the CRM, Sales Navigator for Microsoft Teams |
LinkedIn notes that these prices can exclude VAT or GST, vary by currency and device, and are subject to change, so check the checkout page before you budget. If you are still deciding whether to pay at all, our breakdown of whether Sales Navigator is worth the cost walks through the math, and Sales Navigator vs LinkedIn Premium covers the cheaper alternatives.
How do you set up Sales Navigator in your first week?
Spend the first week building the inputs (an ICP, account lists, saved searches) before you send a single message. Sellers who skip this end up with a homepage full of irrelevant alerts.
- 1
Write a one-paragraph ICP
Name the industry, company size band, region and two or three job titles. Example: "US logistics software companies, 51 to 500 employees, selling to VP Operations and Head of Supply Chain."
- 2
Build an account search first
Use account filters (industry, headcount, headquarters location, headcount growth) to find 100 to 300 target companies, then save them to a named account list.
- 3
Run a lead search inside those accounts
Filter leads by the account list, function, seniority and current job title. Save the best people into a lead list per persona.
- 4
Save the search with alerts on
Turn on the "Save search to get notified of new results" toggle. LinkedIn then emails you weekly when new people match, and shows them under All alerts on the homepage.
- 5
Clean up your alert feed
Unsave leads who do not fit. Alerts are only as good as the lists behind them, and a tidy list keeps job-change and post alerts worth reading.
Which Sales Navigator filters are worth learning?
Learn five filter groups well instead of all fifty: current job title, seniority, company headcount, geography, and the "recent updates" signals. Those cover most prospecting searches.
LinkedIn groups its lead filters into Company, Role, Personal, Buyer intent, Best path in, Recent updates and Workflow. The ones that change results most in practice:
- Current job title. Accepts Boolean logic, so one field can hold several title variants. Our Sales Navigator Boolean search tips include ready-made strings.
- Changed jobs in the last 90 days. New leaders often review vendors and tools early in a role, which makes this a natural reason to reach out.
- Posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days. Narrows the list to people who actually use the platform and are more likely to see your message.
- Connection (1st, 2nd, TeamLink). Second-degree leads give you a mutual connection to mention.
- Following your company and viewed your profile recently. Warm signals that need no research to explain why you are writing.
Account searches add annual revenue, department headcount growth, open job postings and, on Advanced and above, buyer intent based on engagement with your company. Remember that LinkedIn may show related keyword variations, not only exact matches, so spot-check the first page of any search before saving it.
How do InMail credits work in Sales Navigator?
Every plan gets 50 InMail credits a month, and you get a credit back when the recipient accepts, declines or replies within 90 days. Unanswered InMails cost you the credit.
A few rules from LinkedIn Help are worth knowing before you spend them:
- Sales Navigator credits renew on the first day of each month, regardless of when your billing cycle started.
- Unused credits roll over, up to a maximum of 150 on Sales Navigator.
- You cannot send a second InMail to the same person until they respond to the first.
- Credits are lost if you cancel, and Premium credits cannot be used inside Sales Navigator.
Because declines refund the credit too, short and specific InMails that are easy to answer either way stretch further than long pitches. Before spending a credit, check whether the person has an Open Profile: Premium members who enable it can be messaged by anyone for free. Quicklead detects Open Profiles automatically, which keeps your credits for the people who need them.
What does a weekly Sales Navigator routine look like?
A sustainable routine is about 30 minutes a day: review alerts, save new matches, research a handful of top accounts, and hand the rest to your outreach process.
| Day | Task in Sales Navigator | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Open saved-search alerts, save new matching leads to persona lists | Fresh leads for the week |
| Tuesday | Read Account IQ on five priority accounts, map the buying group in Relationship Explorer | Two or three named stakeholders per account |
| Wednesday | Work job-change and post alerts, comment on relevant posts | Warm reasons to reach out |
| Thursday | Send InMails to high-value leads who are not connected and have no Open Profile | 10 to 15 targeted InMails |
| Friday | Prune lists, update notes, adjust filters that returned poor fits | Cleaner searches next week |
How do you turn Sales Navigator searches into outreach?
Sales Navigator finds and organizes leads; you still need a way to invite, message and follow up with them consistently. Most teams pair it with an outreach tool that imports a saved search URL.
The manual way is to work lists by hand: visit the profile, send a connection request with a short note, then message after they accept. LinkedIn does not publish its invitation limit, but about 100 invitations a week is the widely observed ceiling, which caps how fast any single account can move through a list.
To scale beyond hand work, Quicklead imports leads straight from a Sales Navigator search URL, scores each one against your ICP, and runs the invite and follow-up sequence from an isolated cloud session. It can also find triple-verified work emails for leads who never accept, so the conversation continues in the inbox. The Sales Navigator automation guide shows that workflow in detail.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a free trial of Sales Navigator? Yes, for Core and Advanced, if you have no paid LinkedIn subscription and have not used a LinkedIn free trial in the past 365 days. A card is required, and LinkedIn emails a reminder seven days before the trial ends.
- Can I export leads from Sales Navigator? Not to a spreadsheet. Lists live inside Sales Navigator. Advanced Plus can sync with a supported CRM, and Advanced lets you upload a CSV of your existing accounts.
- How many leads can I see per search? Up to 2,500 lead results or 1,000 account results per search, according to LinkedIn Help. Narrow broad searches into smaller segments.
- Does Sales Navigator increase my connection request limit? Not in any documented way. LinkedIn does not publish an invitation limit for any plan, and Sales Navigator users report the same weekly ceiling of roughly 100 invitations as everyone else.
- How do I cancel? Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period: the end of the month on monthly billing, or the end of the paid year on annual billing.
Sources
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Compare plans and pricing
- LinkedIn Help: Sales Navigator lead and account search filter definitions
- LinkedIn Help: Search results limit in Sales Navigator
- LinkedIn Help: InMail message credits and renewal process
- LinkedIn Help: Prohibited software and extensions