Finding Your Targeted Accounts on LinkedIn: Free LinkedIn Search vs Sales Navigator (Paid)
Finding your targeted accounts on LinkedIn and deciding whether to invest in a Sales Navigator paid account comes down to one simple question: Do you need to upgrade?
As LinkedIn users looking to win clients, we all have different circumstances and audiences, so this decision is completely individual.
In this article, I will walk through the free company search vs the Sales Navigator account search, then help you decide which one suits your circumstances, and the potential trade‑off.
Companies Search Filters in the Free LinkedIn Search
The free LinkedIn Companies search gives you 5 filters in total (excluding the search bar).
On the company side, you can build a solid list of target companies by adding locations, industry, and company size. These are foundational search filters for identifying target accounts.
You can also see companies that have job listings (meaning they’re growing), and you can also find how many 1st connections you have in your network – these are people who may provide an opening for you.
The free search has some limitations:
It caps the number of results you can see per search at 1000.
There is no save search facility built into it (unlike Sales Navigator), but searches can be bookmarked.
The search doesn’t integrate with the people search, which makes finding the right people en masse tricky.
That said, it’s free and includes foundational filters that can help you identify companies to incorporate into the people search, but bear in mind that there will be manual work and time involved in using the search and extracting the data.
Account Search Filters in Sales Navigator Search
Image of a Sales Navigator Advanced account
Sales Navigator Account search filters are organised into three main groups: Company attributes, Spotlights, and Workflow.
Company attributes include company headcount, headquarters location, industry, job opportunities and Connections, which are equivalent to the filters in the free LinkedIn search.
Additional filters include:
Annual revenue: If you’re looking for companies with a certain revenue, this filter lets you filter by reported annual revenue. Revenues can be selected from min-max and in 22 different currencies
Company headcount growth: It is used to filter accounts by their employee growth over the last 12 months, with a Min-Max for the %. Companies that are growing in size may suffer growing pains they need help with.
Number of followers: It can be used to filter accounts by the number of followers on their company page on LinkedIn. The filters are: 1-20, 51-100, 101-1,000, 1,001-5,000 & 5,001+. It can be used to identify companies that have a large following on LinkedIn, which may indicate they prioritise the platform.
Department headcount and Department headcount growth: If your solution impacts certain departments, you can prioritise companies where those teams are growing, constrained or of a small size to the overall company.
Fortune: The Fortune filter is used to filter accounts by Fortune rankings. There are 4 rankings: Fortune 50, Fortune 51-100, Fortune 101-250 & Fortune 251-500.
Recent activities: Recent activities contain two useful filters – ‘Senior leadership changes in the last 3 months’ and ‘Funding events in past 12 months’. ‘Senior leadership changes in the last 3 months’ identify companies that have new leadership in place, who may be in the market for a change in direction/suppliers. Whereas ‘Funding events in past 12 months’ identifies companies that have money to spend. Both identify potential opportunities.
Buyer intent: Identifies companies with ‘Moderate or high intent’ intent. This can be used to quickly identify companies that are interested in you. This is only available for Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus accounts.
Companies in CRM: Used to filter by accounts in your connected CRM. This is only available in a Sales Navigator Advanced Plus account.
Saved Accounts: This filter helps you bring all your saved accounts into the search. This can help you get a bird’s-eye view of your accounts and identify which are worth paying closer attention to.
Account lists: Adding companies to lists is a great way to organise them. Once in lists, they can be included or excluded from the ‘Account filters’ and ‘Lead filters’ searches. The additional filters in Sales Navigator do more than create a list; they let you pre‑qualify your accounts before you ever start the relationship-building process.
Free vs Paid: The Trade Off
As can be seen so far, Sales Navigator’s Account search has many more filters, but it doesn’t mean everyone should upgrade.
Free LinkedIn search may be ok when you:
Are looking for a small number of prospects.
Sell into a broad market where “good enough” targeting works.
You can rely on your content to attract your audience, and active outbound is not that important.
Sales Navigator makes sense when:
You are looking to win many deals and require ways to quickly identify the best companies.
You don’t have the time to do manual work
You can’t afford to deal with general targeting and require the best‑fit accounts.
The trade‑off is simple: free search costs you nothing but time, relevance, and missed opportunities (if you need them).
Sales Navigator costs money but reduces the time from searching to talking to the right people at the right accounts.
Conclusion
The free LinkedIn search will always have a place for visibility, networking and light prospecting for some.
But if your strategy relies on consistently finding and working with high‑value target accounts, free search will hold you back and eat up your time.
Sales Navigator’s account filters let you identify the best accounts, and in conjunction with the leads search, identify the best people at those accounts.
If one new client easily covers a year of Sales Navigator, the question becomes opportunity cost, not subscription cost.
Finding Target Accounts: LinkedIn Search vs Sales Navigator
Finding Your Targeted Accounts on LinkedIn: Free LinkedIn Search vs Sales Navigator (Paid)
Finding your targeted accounts on LinkedIn and deciding whether to invest in a Sales Navigator paid account comes down to one simple question: Do you need to upgrade?
As LinkedIn users looking to win clients, we all have different circumstances and audiences, so this decision is completely individual.
In this article, I will walk through the free company search vs the Sales Navigator account search, then help you decide which one suits your circumstances, and the potential trade‑off.
Companies Search Filters in the Free LinkedIn Search
The free LinkedIn Companies search gives you 5 filters in total (excluding the search bar).
On the company side, you can build a solid list of target companies by adding locations, industry, and company size. These are foundational search filters for identifying target accounts.
You can also see companies that have job listings (meaning they’re growing), and you can also find how many 1st connections you have in your network – these are people who may provide an opening for you.
The free search has some limitations:
That said, it’s free and includes foundational filters that can help you identify companies to incorporate into the people search, but bear in mind that there will be manual work and time involved in using the search and extracting the data.
Account Search Filters in Sales Navigator Search
Sales Navigator Account search filters are organised into three main groups: Company attributes, Spotlights, and Workflow.
Company attributes include company headcount, headquarters location, industry, job opportunities and Connections, which are equivalent to the filters in the free LinkedIn search.
Additional filters include:
Annual revenue: If you’re looking for companies with a certain revenue, this filter lets you filter by reported annual revenue. Revenues can be selected from min-max and in 22 different currencies
Company headcount growth: It is used to filter accounts by their employee growth over the last 12 months, with a Min-Max for the %. Companies that are growing in size may suffer growing pains they need help with.
Number of followers: It can be used to filter accounts by the number of followers on their company page on LinkedIn. The filters are: 1-20, 51-100, 101-1,000, 1,001-5,000 & 5,001+. It can be used to identify companies that have a large following on LinkedIn, which may indicate they prioritise the platform.
Department headcount and Department headcount growth: If your solution impacts certain departments, you can prioritise companies where those teams are growing, constrained or of a small size to the overall company.
Fortune: The Fortune filter is used to filter accounts by Fortune rankings. There are 4 rankings: Fortune 50, Fortune 51-100, Fortune 101-250 & Fortune 251-500.
Recent activities: Recent activities contain two useful filters – ‘Senior leadership changes in the last 3 months’ and ‘Funding events in past 12 months’. ‘Senior leadership changes in the last 3 months’ identify companies that have new leadership in place, who may be in the market for a change in direction/suppliers. Whereas ‘Funding events in past 12 months’ identifies companies that have money to spend. Both identify potential opportunities.
Buyer intent: Identifies companies with ‘Moderate or high intent’ intent. This can be used to quickly identify companies that are interested in you. This is only available for Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus accounts.
Companies in CRM: Used to filter by accounts in your connected CRM. This is only available in a Sales Navigator Advanced Plus account.
Saved Accounts: This filter helps you bring all your saved accounts into the search. This can help you get a bird’s-eye view of your accounts and identify which are worth paying closer attention to.
Account lists: Adding companies to lists is a great way to organise them. Once in lists, they can be included or excluded from the ‘Account filters’ and ‘Lead filters’ searches. The additional filters in Sales Navigator do more than create a list; they let you pre‑qualify your accounts before you ever start the relationship-building process.
Free vs Paid: The Trade Off
As can be seen so far, Sales Navigator’s Account search has many more filters, but it doesn’t mean everyone should upgrade.
Free LinkedIn search may be ok when you:
Sales Navigator makes sense when:
The trade‑off is simple: free search costs you nothing but time, relevance, and missed opportunities (if you need them).
Sales Navigator costs money but reduces the time from searching to talking to the right people at the right accounts.
Conclusion
The free LinkedIn search will always have a place for visibility, networking and light prospecting for some.
But if your strategy relies on consistently finding and working with high‑value target accounts, free search will hold you back and eat up your time.
Sales Navigator’s account filters let you identify the best accounts, and in conjunction with the leads search, identify the best people at those accounts.
If one new client easily covers a year of Sales Navigator, the question becomes opportunity cost, not subscription cost.
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