Blog/Guide
How to find leads on LinkedIn without Sales Navigator
Six ways to find B2B leads on LinkedIn with a free account: Boolean search, post search, company pages, job posts and more, plus when Sales Navigator pays off.
In short
You can find good B2B leads on LinkedIn with a free account by searching for people with Boolean terms, reading posts about the problem you solve, working through company pages, and using job posts as a sign of a live project. Sales Navigator adds more filters and costs US$119.99 a month, so it pays off once search is a daily habit. Before that, a clear ideal customer profile and the methods below will find plenty of people. The limit is your time, more than your LinkedIn plan.
Start with who you are looking for
Search works far better with a specific target. Before opening LinkedIn, write down three things from your ideal customer profile: the job titles that own the problem, the kind of company, and the location. Everything below depends on that.
Six ways to find leads with a free account
1. Boolean search for people
LinkedIn's main search bar supports Boolean terms. According to LinkedIn Help, you can use quotation marks for exact phrases, parentheses to group terms, and the words AND, OR and NOT, which must be in capitals. Wildcards and brackets do not work.
A useful search combines the title variants of one role and removes what you do not want. For example, search for "head of finance" OR controller, leave out recruiter and consultant with NOT, then filter the results by location and current company.
2. Search posts, not just people
This is the method most people miss, and it is the best one for timing. Switch the search to posts and look for words someone would use when they have your problem. Sort by the latest. The authors and the people commenting have just shown you they care about the topic, which is a real buying signal.
Try phrases that describe the pain in their words. "Our month-end close takes forever" will beat "accounting automation", because buyers describe symptoms and vendors describe solutions.
3. Work through company pages
Once you have a list of target companies, open each company page and go to the people tab. You can filter by keyword to find the right role, which is often quicker than searching all of LinkedIn. It also helps you see who else is on the team, and who the person you want reports to.
4. Use job posts as a signal
A company hiring for a role close to your product has a project and a budget. Search the jobs section for titles or tools linked to your problem. Then go to the company page and find the manager of that team, since the person who owns the problem is usually a better contact than the recruiter.
5. Look at who engages with competitors
Open a competitor's company page and read the comments on its recent posts. People who comment are often customers, or are thinking about the category. Treat this as a weaker signal than a post about the problem, because many commenters are employees, partners or vendors.
6. Search LinkedIn through Google
Google indexes public profiles, so you can search LinkedIn profiles from Google by limiting a search to the site and adding the title and location. It finds people outside your network and does not use LinkedIn's own search. Results are less fresh and less complete than LinkedIn's.
Sales Navigator: is it worth it?
Here is what the paid plan changes, based on LinkedIn's plan page.
| Free LinkedIn | Sales Navigator Core | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | US$119.99 a month, or US$1,079.88 a year |
| Search filters | Basic people filters | 50+ advanced filters |
| Boolean search | Yes | Yes |
| InMail | Not included | 50 credits a month on the plan page |
Prices exclude tax and may change. Sales Navigator earns its cost when you search every day, when you need its finer filters, or when you sell to a narrow group of companies and want to follow them closely. If you search a few times a week, the methods above will do.
Stay within LinkedIn's limits
LinkedIn restricts accounts that behave like automation, so keep your activity at a human pace. Free accounts can also hit a monthly limit on search. LinkedIn does not publish exact figures in the pages we could read. Connection requests are widely reported at around 100 a week, so treat that as a ceiling, not a target, and stay well under it on a new or quiet account.
Two habits protect your account and improve your results.
- Send fewer, better requests. A short note that mentions why you are connecting beats a blank request.
- Look before you write. Read someone's recent posts before you reach out. It takes a minute and gives you something real to say.
From a list to a conversation
Finding the person is the first half. Keep a simple record of who you found, why they matched and what the signal was, so you remember why you are writing. When you do write, open with the problem you noticed, not with your product, and ask one small question.
Common questions
Can you use LinkedIn for lead generation for free?
Yes. People search, post search, company pages and job search are all available on a free account. The main limits are fewer filters and a cap on how much you can search.
What is the best free alternative to Sales Navigator?
For most small teams it is a combination of Boolean search and post search on a free account, along with a good record of who you found. If you want the searching done for you, a lead generation tool can replace the manual part.
How much does Sales Navigator cost?
LinkedIn lists Core at US$119.99 a month or US$1,079.88 a year per license, and Advanced at US$159.99 a month or US$1,799.88 a year. Advanced Plus is priced on request. Tax may be extra.
How many connection requests can you send on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn does not state a single figure on the pages we could read. Around 100 a week is widely reported. Accounts that are new or get many ignored requests may see less.
Sources
Retrieved November 5, 2026.