By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

The right LinkedIn Sales Navigator alternative depends on the job. Sales Navigator is built to find and message people you do not know yet on LinkedIn; FRONT OF MIND is built for the people you already know, telling you who to text today, why, and drafting it in 10 minutes.

Full disclosure: I built FRONT OF MIND. Sales Navigator is a serious tool, and for some deal makers it is the right one. So I will be straight about where it wins.

Here is the moment you are probably in if you searched this. Your Sales Navigator renewal email just landed. You open the app and find 14 unread alerts, three saved searches you have not run since spring, and a list of 200 owners you never messaged. Meanwhile the broker who sent you your last real deal has not heard from you since July. He barely posts on LinkedIn, so no alert will ever tell you about him.

What does LinkedIn Sales Navigator do?

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s paid tool for finding people on LinkedIn, tracking them and reaching them. LinkedIn describes it as an AI powered sales tool built on its B2B network (LinkedIn Sales Navigator). Per LinkedIn’s own pages, every plan includes:

• 50+ advanced search filters to find people and companies by role, industry, geography and more.
• 50 InMail credits a month, so you can message people you are not connected to.
• Alerts when the people and accounts you save take important actions, which LinkedIn frames as timely reasons to reach out.
• Relationship Explorer, which surfaces job changes and recent LinkedIn posts.
• TeamLink, which shows shared connections across your team so you can find a warm path in.
• Custom lists to group saved people and accounts.

Advanced and Advanced Plus add team seat management, team reporting, buyer intent and advanced CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics 365 (LinkedIn compare plans).

What does Sales Navigator do better than FRONT OF MIND?

Sales Navigator wins whenever the person is not in your phone yet. Plainly:

• Cold search. If you need every owner of a commercial cleaning company in Ohio, or every M&A attorney in Dallas, its filters do that. FRONT OF MIND does not search LinkedIn’s member base.
• Messaging strangers. InMail reaches people you are not connected to. FRONT OF MIND drafts texts to people you know.
• LinkedIn depth. Job change and post signals come straight from LinkedIn, the source.
• Team selling. TeamLink, team reporting and CRM sync matter if you run a deal team or a brokerage with associates.

If you are building a target list of owners from scratch, use Sales Navigator. Do not let my comparison page talk you out of it.

Where does Sales Navigator stop for deal makers?

Sales Navigator stops at the edge of LinkedIn. Its alerts and Relationship Explorer only see what happens on LinkedIn, and many of the people who send deals are quiet there: the regional broker, the CPA with retiring clients, the banker who texts instead of posts. It also does not know your texts, your phone contacts, or the event where you met someone.

The second gap is the decision. Alerts tell you something happened. They do not rank 14 alerts against the broker who went quiet, pick three, and hand you a draft that sounds like a text. That ranking is the part that dies at volume. Say you know 800 people and actively keep up with 50. The rest fade, not from neglect, but because nothing tells you which of them is worth a text today.

Sales Navigator vs FRONT OF MIND: side by side

	Sales Navigator Core	FRONT OF MIND
Best for	Finding and messaging new people on LinkedIn	Keeping up with people you already know
Monthly price	US$119.99	$29, free for 25 contacts and 1 intro
Annual price	US$1,079.88	$29 a month
Where it looks	LinkedIn	Your own contacts
Messages	50 InMail credits a month	Drafted texts, 40 words max, you tap to send
Ranks who to reach today	No, alerts and lists	Yes, one reason per person
Event capture	No	Voice, card, badge or selfie, filed by event

Prices as listed on LinkedIn’s compare plans page in October 2026. LinkedIn notes prices are estimates and may exclude VAT, GST or promotional discounts. Advanced is US$159.99 a month or US$1,799.88 a year, and Advanced Plus is priced by team size on request.

What is the best LinkedIn Sales Navigator alternative for deal makers?

For people you already know, the best LinkedIn Sales Navigator alternative is a tool that ranks them for you each morning, which is what FRONT OF MIND does. It opens every morning on your 10 minutes for today. Each person has a one line reason: they posted, it is their birthday, you met at an event 12 days ago and never followed up, a follow up is due, a pipeline deal has been quiet 7+ days, their company was in the news, or they are going cold.

• Drafts that read like a text. 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits.
• Only real signals. A post is only shown if it is confirmed to belong to that person, so you never congratulate a banker on someone else’s promotion.
• Capture in seconds. Say a name and a sentence out loud, snap a business card or badge, or take a selfie together. It is filed under the event.
• Ask your network. Ask Liala “who do I know that is an M&A advisor” or “who lives in Miami” and get the right people with why.
• Intros to make this week, with dated proof on both sides.

It runs in your phone’s browser and can be saved to your home screen. There is no native iPhone app yet.

Can you use both?

Yes, and here is how I would split it. Use Sales Navigator to meet: search, save, and send the first InMail. Once someone replies and you have their number, they belong in your phone, and FRONT OF MIND keeps them warm from there. For the LinkedIn side of that handoff after an event, see how to follow up on LinkedIn after a conference.

How I would choose

Pick Sales Navigator if your next deal depends on finding owners or intermediaries you have never met, or your team needs shared LinkedIn search and CRM sync.

Pick FRONT OF MIND if your next deal comes from someone already in your phone, and you want the few people worth texting today, with a reason and a draft.

For the other head to heads, see Apple Contacts vs personal CRM and every comparison in one place at personal CRM comparisons.

If FRONT OF MIND doesn’t surface people in your network worth reaching out to within 72 hours, we’ll refund you. No questions asked. Concierge setup is $500 if you want it done for you.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who comes up first. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export and delete anytime.

See how it works