Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's prospecting tool. It runs in a separate interface linked to your account and does one thing: find the right people at the right companies, then follow them until the right moment to get in touch. Core is the individual plan, for a sales rep, a founder or a consultant who prospects on their own.
What it actually does
Much finer search
More than 40 filters let you target people and companies: industry, company size, location, job function, seniority, time in role, recent job change, recent activity on LinkedIn. You can save a search, and Sales Navigator then flags new profiles that match it.
Lead and account lists
You save people (leads) and companies (accounts) in lists, up to 10,000 leads. Each record can take notes. It is your prospecting file, and it stays current because the profiles do.
Alerts at the right time
When a lead changes jobs, posts something, or their company is in the news, you are told. These are the best moments to write: you have a concrete reason to do so.
Lead recommendations
Based on your saved accounts and sales preferences, Sales Navigator suggests people to contact that you had not spotted.
50 InMails a month
Enough to reach several prospects every working day. As with the other plans, an InMail that gets a reply within 90 days is credited back to you.
What Core does not do
- It does not give you prospects' email addresses or phone numbers.
- CRM sync and team features are reserved for the higher Sales Navigator plans.
- It does not send messages automatically: you still do the prospecting, only faster and better aimed.
Who it is worth it for
Sales Navigator Core pays off if you spend several hours a week finding and contacting prospects on LinkedIn: B2B sales reps, founders doing their own outreach, consultants and freelancers looking for clients, agencies pitching companies. In many B2B businesses, a single client won through it is enough to cover the year's subscription.
When Business is enough
If you contact around fifteen people a month and LinkedIn's standard search is enough, Business will do: 15 InMails, unlimited profile search and company insights. Sales Navigator pulls ahead as soon as you need precise filters, lists and alerts.
A simple way to start
- Describe your target in one sentence: industry, company size, roles to contact. For example "sales directors at manufacturing companies with 50 to 500 employees in the North West".
- Create two or three saved searches that turn that sentence into filters.
- Save around fifty accounts that fit best, then the right contacts in each.
- Spend 15 minutes every morning on alerts: job changes, posts, news.
- Only write when you have a trigger, with a short message that refers to it.
After a month, look at what got replies and tighten your filters. That is when the tool shows its full value.