What is LinkedIn Premium and Is It Worth It? [Features Review]

Wondering if you should invest in a LinkedIn Premium account?

You are in the right place.

Whether you are looking for a job, looking for candidates or looking for leads, this article will help you make the right choice.

We are going to cover everything that sales, recruiters, and jobseekers must know about LinkedIn premium offers.

What is LinkedIn Premium?

LinkedIn Premium is an improved version of LinkedIn that requires a subscription fee.

With Premium, members can see who has viewed their profile, send InMails even without a direct connection, and access specialized tools and resources to help with job searches or business networking.

How Much Does LinkedIn Premium Cost?

The cost of LinkedIn premium depends on the plan you pick.

Here’s the full list:

• LinkedIn Premium Career: $39.99 /month
• LinkedIn Premium Business: $59.99 /month
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: $99.99 /month
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced: $149.99 /month
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator Enterprise: custom pricing
• LinkedIn Recruiter Lite: $180 /month
• LinkedIn Recruiter: $835 /month
• LinkedIn Learning: $29.99 / month

They have common benefits, but there are also benefits specifics to each offer.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it?

Yes – LinkedIn Premium is worth it if you have the budget.

Whether you choose Premium Career or Premium Business plan, it provides valuable tools and insights to help you reach your professional goals.

Connecting with key individuals through InMails and gaining insights on profile viewers are strategic investments for many LinkedIn members.

What are the Benefits of LinkedIn Premium?

The LinkedIn Premium benefits:

1. InMail
2. See who’s viewed your profile
3. Access to LinkedIn Learning
4. Unlimited searches
5. Open Profiles option

1. InMail

InMail messages allows you to directly contact someone who you’re not currently connected with on LinkedIn.

For users on a free account, you’ll find that you can only directly message those who are already in your network.

That is really convenient because you can skip the connection request step to directly land into LinkedIn DM’s.

You have a different number of InMails per month depending on the LinkedIn premium offer you chose:

• 50 InMails per month with Sales Navigator
• 5 InMails per month with LinkedIn Premium Career
• 15 InMails per month with LinkedIn Premium Business
• 30 InMails per month with Recruiter Lite
• 150 InMails per month with LinkedIn Recruiter

Pretty simple. The more you pay, the more you have InMails.

2. See who’s viewed your profile

With any LinkedIn premium subscription, you can have access to the entire list of people who visited your profile in the last 90 days

You can even apply filter on profiles views to search for specific LinkedIn users.

This feature can be useful is you are looking for signs of interest from recruiters, prospects, or candidates.

If these people are visiting your profile, it means they have some sort of interest in what you have to offer, right? So, you can leverage that as an icebreaker for your messages.

3. LinkedIn Learning

With any LinkedIn premium subscription, you have access to LinkedIn Learning courses.

It is for sure one of the most underrated source of knowledge on the internet.

There are tons of high-quality content on:

1. How to get a job
2. How to be better at sales
3. How to be better at recruiting

So if you have a career plan and you are willing to learn and grow by learning from industry leaders, LinkedIn learning definitely is worth it.

4. Unlimited Searches

The number of searches you can do with a basic account is limited by what LinkedIn calls the commercial use limit.

It means if LinkedIn detects that you are extensively using their free search engine for a professional activity like prospecting or recruiting, they will block you.

If you upgrade to Premium Business, Sales Navigator or Recruiter license, you will get access to unlimited searches and won’t get bothered by this limitation.

5. Open Profile option

If you are subscribed to a LinkedIn premium offer, you can activate the Open Profile option. It means you allow your 2nd and 3rd degree connections to send you free InMails.

Instead of spending an LinkedIn InMail credit to contact you, the message will be free.

Useful if you are a freelance, a consultant, or for your work. This allows potential customers outside your network to send you a direct message without spending any InMail credit.

By making the contact easier, you increase your chances to get contacted by prospects, candidates, or recruiters.

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Here, we cover the LinkedIn Premium features common to all offers.

Now let’s see the benefits specific to each offer:

1. LinkedIn Premium Business
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
3. LinkedIn Premium Career
4. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite
5. LinkedIn Recruiter

Let’s dive in.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it For Sales?

LinkedIn Premium Business isn’t worth it for sales, but Sales Navigator is. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a game changer for Sales whereas Premium Business is more of a nice to have.

1. LinkedIn Premium Business

LinkedIn Premium Business is not worth it for Sales compared to what LinkedIn Sales Navigator has to offer.

LinkedIn Premium Business is actually pretty expensive for what it does.

It costs $59/month for only:

1. 15 InMails per month
2. Unlimited searches
3. LinkedIn Learning
4. Who’s viewed your profile
5. Business insights

It can look a good offer at first sight.

However, when you compared this to what Sales Navigator has to offer for $40 more, there is no match.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is absolutely worth it for Sales. It’s an essential tool to find qualified leads and reach out to them.

When you buy a Sales Navigator subscription, you have access to:

1. Unlimited searches
2. +40 advanced search filters
3. 50 InMail credits per month
4. Advances Boolean search queries
5. Saved searches to automate lead generation
6. Custom alerts on leads and account activities
7. Advanced insights on accounts

Learning how to use LinkedIn sales navigator is essential to become efficient at LinkedIn outreach.

Luckily for you, we have made a 1-hour tutorial on the topic:

The only drawback of Sales Navigator is that you can’t export your lead lists to a CSV file.

But no worries…

You can use the Evaboot Chrome Extension.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Job Seekers?

Yes. LinkedIn Premium Career is worth it for jobseekers. The features it offers can really help get a new job and make you stand out from other job applicants.

1. Featured applications
2. Competition insights
3. Salary insights

Let’s dive in.

1. Featured applications

In addition to the other benefits, one big advantage of Premium Career is the Featured Applicant feature. This helps you stand out more in the lists of job applicants by appearing on top of it.

To use this feature, simply check the checkbox “Featured Applicant” at the bottom of the job application page and your application will automatically be displayed in a highlighted row at the top of the list.

A really useful feature to stand out into competitive job offers.

2. Competition insights

LinkedIn Premium Career allows you to see how you stack up against other applicants or a company’s current employees, based on your LinkedIn profile.

With this feature, you can compare your education, skills with the other applicants to evaluate your chances of getting hired

You can use this information to prepare your speech and answer the question: “why you vs. your competition”

3. Salary insight

Premium Career allows its subscribers to filter jobs by salary and have immediate access to detailed salary information on jobs they are interested in.

This data brings transparency to the job seeking process and will help you make better informed career decisions.

That way, you don’t lose time applying to jobs that don’t meet your salary expectations. Note that this feature is only available in the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Recruiting?

LinkedIn Recruiter Lite isn’t worth it for recruiters.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator can do the same job but better.

LinkedIn Recruiter is worth it for recruiter as it offers more feature, but it is way pricier : $835/month.

1. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite

No. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite isn’t worth it. Sale Navigator does the job better and for less money. Recruiter Lite costs $180/month and offer less filters than Sales Navigator, which costs $99/month.

Both tools give you access to the whole LinkedIn database, but Sales Navigator is more efficient to build candidates lists.

Using Sales Navigator for recruiting is actually better than using LinkedIn Recruiter itself.

The cool thing is that you can use Sales Navigator to find candidates and recruiting clients for your business. With LinkedIn Recruiter, you can only find candidates.

Why pay two tools when you can only pay one?

2. LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn Recruiter, the upgraded version of Recruiter Lite, is worth it.

It costs way more money ($835/month) but it offers features that make the life of big recruiting firms easier like integrations to ATS and the Open to Work filter.

It also offers much more InMails: 150 per month.

LinkedIn Recruiter is worth it if you are a recruiting firm with budget that need to streamline it processes.

FAQ

Here we answer the most commons questions about LinkedIn Premium.

Do LinkedIn Premium members get more views?

According to LinkedIn, premium profiles can receive up to 6X more views than standard profiles. This boost is attributed to various premium features, including unlimited people browsing, detailed insights on “Who Viewed My Profile,” and the “Open Profile” option, allowing anyone to send messages to premium members.

Does LinkedIn premium show who searched you?

Yes, LinkedIn Premium allows users to see who viewed their profile. Premium Career members can view up to 90 days of viewers, while Premium Business sees up to 365 days.

However, viewers in private mode remain anonymous, even to Premium subscribers.

Can I use LinkedIn premium without paying?

Yes, LinkedIn offers a free trial for its Premium services. Users can explore the Premium features for 1 month without any charges.

However, you’ll need to provide credit card details to initiate the trial. If you don’t cancel before the trial ends, the subscription will automatically convert to a paid one, and your card will be charged.

It’s essential to note that after using a free trial, you won’t be eligible for another one for at least 12 months.

Will LinkedIn premium get me a job?

LinkedIn Premium doesn’t guarantee a job. However, it can significantly improve your visibility and provide valuable data to make informed job application decisions.

Using Premium features effectively can increase your chances of landing a job, but success also depends on factors like your profile strength, networking efforts, and the quality of your applications.

Which LinkedIn plan is best?

Choosing the best LinkedIn Premium plan depends on your goals.

If you are job hunting, go for ‘Premium Career’.

For recruiters seeking candidates, ‘Recruiter Lite’ is ideal.

‘Sales Navigator’ is perfect for expanding your network, while ‘Premium Business’ is tailored for those aiming to find prospects, enhance sales, and gain new client

Who should use LinkedIn premium?

You can use LinkedIn Premium as a job seeker, a business owner, a sales professional, or a recruiter, there’s a plan designed for you.

Each of the four plans offers features aligned with specific goals, complemented by InMail credits to enhance communication.

Disclosure

This content was partly written by AI (ChatGPT 4), I added my own perspective, fact-checked it and made sure it is helpful for you.