Yes, Sales Navigator is a separate, premium subscription service from LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is free to use for creating a profile, connecting with others, and searching for jobs, Sales Navigator requires a paid monthly or annual subscription to access its sales-focused features. However, to use Sales Navigator you must have a LinkedIn account first.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 690 million users worldwide. When you sign up for a free LinkedIn account, you can create a professional profile with your work history, education, skills, accomplishments, and more. You can then connect with colleagues, clients, business partners, and others in your industry or location.
With a free LinkedIn account you can:
- Create a professional profile
- Connect with other LinkedIn members
- Join industry or interest-based groups
- Follow companies to receive their latest updates
- Search and apply for jobs
- View other people’s profiles and make new connections
So the core value of LinkedIn is professional networking, profile building, and making new connections. It serves as an online resume and portfolio for your career.
What is Sales Navigator?
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium, paid subscription service specifically designed for sales professionals. It costs $79.99 per month for an Individual subscription. Sales Navigator provides additional sales-focused tools and information beyond the free LinkedIn account. Key features of Sales Navigator include:
- Advanced search filters to find customer prospects that meet specific criteria
- Lead recommendations using AI that suggests possible sales prospects
- Notifications when your saved leads make changes to their LinkedIn profile
- Contact information and email addresses for many leads
- Conversation starters and email templates
- Team collaboration tools
- Sales statistics and insights
So while LinkedIn is focused generally on networking and connections, Sales Navigator specializes in sales prospecting, lead generation, and sales intelligence gathering. It equips sales teams with tools to identify, connect with, and close more prospects through LinkedIn.
Is a LinkedIn account required for Sales Navigator?
Yes, to subscribe to and use Sales Navigator you must first have a LinkedIn account. Sales Navigator is a service that builds on top of LinkedIn’s core networking platform. It takes all of the profile, employment, connection, and interest data from LinkedIn and allows sales professionals to utilize it in their sales process.
Without a LinkedIn account, you would not have access to the underlying data that Sales Navigator leverages. Your LinkedIn profile provides the foundational information about your industry, location, connections, and interests that Sales Navigator then filters to find targeted prospects.
So a LinkedIn account is required to sign up for any of Sales Navigator’s paid plans. You must first register for a free LinkedIn account before you can subscribe to Sales Navigator.
Key Differences Between LinkedIn and Sales Navigator
While Sales Navigator requires a LinkedIn account, there are some key differences between LinkedIn’s free offering and Sales Navigator’s paid service:
| Sales Navigator | |
|---|---|
| Free to use core networking features | Paid monthly subscription required |
| General professional networking | Focused on sales prospecting |
| Limited search filters and preferences | Advanced search filters for sales leads |
| Profile-focused | Lead and data-focused |
| For all professionals | Meant specifically for sales teams |
| No sales tools or templates | Tailored sales templates and workflows |
Should you pay for Sales Navigator or use free LinkedIn?
Whether you should pay for Sales Navigator depends on your career focus and if you need its sales-specific features:
- For general networking and profile building, the free LinkedIn account is likely sufficient.
- If you are in a sales role that actively seeks out new business prospects, Sales Navigator may provide a worthwhile return on investment.
- Companies with multiple sales representatives may benefit more from team collaboration in Sales Navigator.
- Individual sales freelancers or entrepreneurs may not require robust team tools.
- Review Sales Navigator’s pricing and features to see if they align with your sales process needs.
- Consider trying its free 1 month trial first to test it out.
- Weigh the monthly or annual cost versus the potential new business it could help generate.
The best candidates for a paid Sales Navigator subscription are sales teams who already actively use LinkedIn for lead generation and outreach. The additional sales features and filters can take their prospecting to the next level. But for general professional networking purposes, the free LinkedIn account is suitable for most people’s needs.
Sales Navigator Mobile App
In addition to the Sales Navigator web dashboard, LinkedIn also offers a mobile app for iOS and Android. The Sales Navigator mobile app allows sales professionals to access many key features and data on the go from their smartphone.
Some of the capabilities of the Sales Navigator mobile app include:
- Search for prospects by industry, company, job role, and more
- Save leads to a customized list
- View notifications when saved leads make profile updates
- One-tap access to contact information and email addresses
- Sort leads by likelihood to close or influence level
- Quickly document prospect interactions and activity
- Sync leads and activity seamlessly with the web dashboard
Having Sales Navigator mobile access allows sales reps to prospect and nurture their leads from anywhere at any time. And key information syncs across the mobile and web apps.
The mobile app provides a subset of the full Sales Navigator functionality tailored to on-the-go usage. But key features like lead management, notifications, contact profiles, and workflow support make Sales Navigator Mobile an essential component of the sales toolkit.
Conclusion
Sales Navigator provides a premium sales layer on top of LinkedIn’s foundation of networking data. While a LinkedIn account is necessary to use Sales Navigator, a Sales Navigator subscription provides sales-focused features, templates, analytics, and tools that LinkedIn alone does not.
Sales Navigator excels at lead generation, prospecting, and sales intelligence to help teams actively source and close more business through LinkedIn. It offers advanced filtering and integrations tailored specifically for a sales workflow.
Professionals looking to get the most out of LinkedIn for sales should strongly consider supplementing their free account with a Sales Navigator subscription. The paid plan unlocks Sales Navigator’s full capabilities and sales automation support. But users primarily focused on networking and profile-building may find the free LinkedIn account sufficient for their needs.
In summary, Sales Navigator takes LinkedIn’s social data and makes it actionable for sales. It provides the sales features and functionality that LinkedIn alone lacks. So Sales Navigator sits firmly atop LinkedIn as a paid sales tool, while LinkedIn remains the free foundation for professional connections and profile networking.