Sales Navigator Free Trial: 30 or 60 Days Free, and What You Keep After

The Sales Navigator free trial gives you the full product for 30 days, and a referral link from an existing subscriber gives you 2 months. Both require a credit card, both convert to a paid plan automatically, and both leave you with exactly one problem on day 31: the lead lists you built live inside Sales Navigator and there is no export button.

This page gives you the official rules first, then the two ways in, a week-by-week plan for the month, the prices you convert to, and how to leave with your list still in your hands.

The Official Rules of the Sales Navigator Free Trial

Five rules govern every trial, and they come from LinkedIn itself rather than from a blog. They are worth reading before you click anything, because four of them decide whether you get charged.

• A card is required. LinkedIn states that you must enter a valid credit card to start the trial. Nothing is debited while the trial runs.
• One trial, then a 12-month wait. If you cancel a free Premium trial, you are not eligible for another free trial for at least 12 months. This applies across LinkedIn products, not just Sales Navigator.
• It converts automatically. At the end of the trial the subscription becomes a paid plan unless you cancel before the last day.
• No plan switching during the trial. You cannot move between Premium plans for free while the trial is running, so the plan you pick on day 1 is the plan you test.
• Length varies. LinkedIn says trial length may vary based on region or promotional terms, and that not all members qualify. Thirty days is the common case, not a contractual guarantee.

Source: the official LinkedIn Premium free trial help page, read on 22 September 2026. When a blog and that page disagree, that page wins.

How to Get Sales Navigator for Free (30 Days)

The standard path takes about four minutes and starts on LinkedIn's own site, never on a third-party link.

Step 1: open the official Sales Navigator page

Go to the Sales Solutions section of LinkedIn Business and click Try for free. If you searched for it, check that the domain in your address bar is linkedin.com before you type anything.

Step 2: pick the plan you actually want to test

Three plans are offered, and each one is eligible for the trial:

• Core: for freelancers, independents and small teams. Advanced search filters, saved leads and lead lists, InMail, alerts.
• Advanced: for sales teams. Adds shared lead lists, team collaboration and TeamLink.
• Advanced Plus: for large organisations. Adds CRM sync and reporting, and is quoted rather than priced publicly.

Because you cannot switch plans mid-trial, choose the one whose features you need to judge. Testing Advanced tells you whether the team features earn their difference; testing Core tells you whether the search alone is worth 119.99 dollars a month.

Step 3: enter the card and note the cancel date

The card is verification, not payment. The moment the trial starts, put the day before the end date in your calendar. Most of the complaints about this trial come from people who meant to cancel and lost the date, not from people who decided to pay.

Step 4: cancel from Settings if you decide not to continue

Cancellation happens in your LinkedIn account settings, under your subscriptions, and it takes effect at the end of the trial rather than instantly. You keep access until the last day, which means cancelling on day 2 costs you nothing and removes the risk entirely.

What the trial actually includes

The trial is the full plan, not a demo mode. On Core that means unlimited advanced searches with the full filter set, saved leads and lead lists with alerts on job changes and company news, the monthly allowance of InMail credits, and the browsing experience outside your normal LinkedIn commercial-use limit. On Advanced you add shared lists, team collaboration and TeamLink.

Two things are not included, and they matter more than the feature list. There is no export: Sales Navigator shows you the leads, it does not hand them over as a file. And there is no grace period on the data, so a list that is still inside the tool on the last day is a list you no longer have on the next one.

That is why cancelling on day 29 is only a good plan if the work is already done. You keep access until the period closes, so cancelling early costs nothing, but everything you built stays behind unless you took it out. The order that works is: build the list, take it out, then cancel whenever you like.

How to Get 2 Months Free: The Referral Program

LinkedIn runs an official referral program inside Sales Navigator, and it is the only documented way to get more than the standard trial. It is not a trick and it does not involve a second account.

An existing subscriber opens the Gift icon in the upper-right corner of Sales Navigator, which leads to the Referral hub, and sends a referral link. Anyone who signs up through that link receives their first 2 months of Sales Navigator free. Each link works once and is unique to the person it was sent to.

The conditions are strict, and they are the same rules as the standard trial rather than a way around them. A subscriber can refer up to 15 first-degree connections, and each of them must:

• not already subscribe to Sales Navigator,
• not have used a LinkedIn.com free trial, on any product, in the past 12 months,
• not have another active LinkedIn Premium subscription, including Premium Career, Premium Business or Recruiter Lite.

The offer can only be redeemed once per member account. Source: the official Sales Navigator Referral program FAQ, read on 22 September 2026.

The practical consequence is simple. If you already used any LinkedIn trial this year, a referral link will not help you, and no article claiming otherwise changes the eligibility check. If you have not, asking one connection who already pays for Sales Navigator is the difference between 30 and 60 days.

The Sales Navigator Free Trial, Week by Week: A 30-Day Plan

A trial spent browsing produces nothing. A trial spent building one list produces an asset you still own in six months. Here is the version that works, week by week.

Week 1: define the target and save the search. Write your ICP down in one sentence, then translate it into filters: headcount, industry, geography, seniority, function. Run it, look at the first fifty results, and fix the filters until those fifty are people you would genuinely contact. A Boolean search in the keyword field is what turns a broad filter set into a precise one. Save the search so it keeps running.

Week 2: build the lists and take the data out. Move the qualified results into lead lists, then export them while you still have access. This is the week that decides whether the trial leaves anything behind, and it is the one most people postpone.

Week 3: enrich and contact. With the rows in a sheet, add what Sales Navigator does not give you, starting with a verified work email, and start the outreach. Doing this during the trial is what turns a product evaluation into pipeline.

Week 4: measure and decide. Count replies against the hours spent, then choose: cancel, continue monthly, or commit annually for the discount. Whatever you decide, your list is already outside the tool.

Sales Navigator Free Trial vs Paid: What Changes, And What It Costs

The trial is not a stripped-down version. For 30 days you get the full Core or Advanced feature set. The real difference is what happens when it ends.

And here is what you convert to. Prices read on LinkedIn's own compare-plans page on 22 September 2026, where LinkedIn marks them "Updated: Aug 1, 2026". They have moved more than once this year, so check the page rather than an article, including this one.

The full plan-by-plan comparison, including what each tier unlocks, is in our Sales Navigator pricing guide.

Discounts and the Limits Worth Knowing

There are exactly two discounts worth planning around, and one myth worth dropping.

Annual billing is the reliable one: 25 percent off Core, about 6 percent off Advanced, taken as a single payment. If the trial convinced you, this is where the money is.

Regional and promotional terms are the second: LinkedIn states plainly that trial length varies by region and promotion, which is why some people see offers others do not. There is nothing to do here except check what your own account is offered.

The myth is the second account. Creating another LinkedIn profile with a different email and card to restart a trial breaks LinkedIn's terms, is detected through payment and login signals, and risks a restriction on the account you actually use for work. A restricted profile costs far more than a month of Core. We used to describe that workaround on this page; it does not belong here, and it is gone.

The limits of the trial itself are short and honest: a valid card is required, the period is one-time, billing starts automatically if you miss the date, the filters take a few days to master, and nothing you build inside the tool survives the expiry unless you exported it.

Export Your Leads Before Day 30 and Keep Them

A free month is plenty of time to build targeted searches and lead lists. The problem is what comes next: when the trial ends, those lists are locked inside Sales Navigator with no export button. This is the gap Derrick closes, and it is the only reason this page ends where it does.

Derrick reads your Sales Navigator searches and lead lists and turns them into a list you own, in the web app or in a spreadsheet, one row per lead. Import LinkedIn Leads pulls each profile into the sheet at 1 credit per profile, and it works on the free plan: 100 credits a month, no card. Once the rows are yours, Email Finder adds a verified work email at 5 credits per email found and nothing for a miss, on a paid plan from 20 euros a month.

The same work runs on the surface that fits you. The Google Sheets sidebar is the natural home for a list. The MCP server answers the question directly inside Claude or another AI client when you only need one contact. The REST API puts the same enrichment inside your own pipeline or CRM. The web app does the same work without a spreadsheet. Pick the door, the credits are the same.

Run this in week 2, not on day 29. A list exported calmly is a list you can still use when the trial is a memory, and it is the difference between having tested Sales Navigator and having got something out of it.