LinkedIn is the most popular and useful social media tool for business professionals. It can help you build a profile, boast your academic and professional achievements, find top jobs, connect with like-minded individuals, and much more!
However, LinkedIn also offers premium plans with additional benefits and features to make the application more useful. The only problem is LinkedIn premium plans are a tad bit too expensive.
The cheapest premium plan for LinkedIn costs $30 a month, which seems to be a hard sell. Still, hundreds and thousands of users are subscribed to it.
To unveil this mystery, today we’ll look at LinkedIn premium plans, figure out why they are so expensive, and deduce whether they are worth it.
Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
LinkedIn Premium Plans
Let’s start by looking at the price tag for LinkedIn premium plans. LinkedIn offers 4 different premium packages targeting different users at different prices. These are:
| LinkedIn Premium Plans | Monthly subscription (paid annually) | Users |
| LinkedIn Premium Career | $29.99 | Used by individuals looking to score top jobs, hone their skills, and connect with employers |
| LinkedIn Premium Business | $47.99 | Used by businesses to scale their brand and look for unique talent all around LinkedIn |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core | $79.99 | Used by salespersons to create funnels of prospects and clients |
| LinkedIn Recruiter Lite | $140 | Used by recruiters to find and hire the best individuals on LinkedIn |
5 Reasons Why LinkedIn Is So Expensive
If you’ve encountered many SaaS, you might have realized that even a $30 monthly tag for an app is more expensive than most software charges. You can even build and start a website from scratch at a more affordable rate.
However, when we ask LinkedIn premium users if they are happy with the service and find it worth it, they always seem to agree and have no complaints.
Let’s understand why.
1. Advanced refined searches
LinkedIn’s platform hosts millions of users, and finding your targeted individuals can be difficult. With LinkedIn Premium, however, you can use advanced filters such as company, location, and industry when searching for a role. This saves you hours browsing through the application and enables you to find the right individual for the right role, whether it be an employee or a freelance contract you’re looking for for a project.
2. InMail Messages
The most popular USP for LinkedIn Premium has to be the InMail Messaging service. Without a premium subscription, LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to message someone unless you’re connected with them directly. This can be a big obstacle for employees, employers, and businesses, where a lot of time is wasted playing the patience game of waiting to be connected with other profiles to message them.
With LinkedIn Premium, however, you can easily bypass this restriction and unlock InMail messages that can be sent to anyone and everyone without needing a prior connection.
This helps businesses and individuals save time, directly focus on building connections and relationships, and pitch their initiatives, making the LinkedIn premium price tag worth it.
3. LinkedIn Learning Courses
LinkedIn offers a vast catalog of learning courses and certifications that individuals all over the internet can access for free if they are subscribed to LinkedIn Premium. These courses are created by industry pioneers that can help employees learn new skills and hone their existing talent, making them more efficient, productive, and unique.
This competitive advantage helps you be recognized by the top businesses worldwide and increases your likelihood of being recruited by first-class firms, making the LinkedIn Premium investment worth it.
Upon completing a LinkedIn Learning course, you can boast your certifications on your LinkedIn profile which recruiters and employers can publicly view.
4. LinkedIn ProFinder
LinkedIn ProFinder is the single powerful tool that almost justifies the whole price tag of LinkedIn Premium. LinkedIn ProFinder helps freelancers and contractors directly find businesses looking for their services.
Using LinkedIn ProFinder, these individuals can identify potential businesses that can act as their leads and pitch them their services. Using ProFinder filters, you can easily identify businesses looking for individuals who share your skills and talent.
This way, freelancers and contractors can seamlessly explore new avenues to generate income and curb their initial LinkedIn Premium investment in no time.
5. Job Applications and Salary Insights
Application and Salary Insights is an extremely useful tool for employees looking to competitively land jobs in leading businesses of the industry. Using this feature, LinkedIn Premium users can access significant information relating to their desirable jobs to leverage to be the top candidate for the application.
For example, if an SEO auditor is applying for a prime job, they can get Job Application Insights, which will show data for all the existing applications enrolled for this role. This means you can know the general qualifications and skills of all the applicants for the role and tailor your application to be better than the rest.
Additionally, Salary Insights can help individuals understand the average salaries for these roles, which can help you negotiate market-competitive compensation.
So Is The Price Tag Worth It?
I took it upon myself to research this instead of reading reviews on the internet to find the impression LinkedIn Premium has on its user.
I connected and messaged many LinkedIn users and asked them about their opinions. Here’s what I found.
Generally, I found most Premium users happy and satisfied with LinkedIn’s services. However, the job-seeking individuals on LinkedIn didn’t benefit much.
LinkedIn Premium can help you get better jobs with robust features like Job Applications and Salary Insights. However, you still need to put in much effort to use it best. Putting in hours of effort for a free platform to get a good job sounds great, but paying LinkedIn $30 doesn’t seem right.
Businesspersons such as employers, executives, or freelancers seem to be getting a good load of benefits from LinkedIn Premium services.
The LinkedIn Premium gets your brand good recognition and appearance that helps you with direct income generation but also assists you in building and scaling your brand.
Overall, using LinkedIn Premium for business is a good investment with a great ROI. Even if you’re paying $140 a month, you can transparently see it helps your business make much more.
Another factor we have to consider is LinkedIn’s alternatives. LinkedIn’s basic features aren’t nearly enough to operate a business with, but other professional platforms also don’t pose heavy competition for LinkedIn.
Platforms like Facebook Jobs, Glassdoor, or Indeed only offer basic job-seeking features that LinkedIn Basic can easily surpass.
This is another reason LinkedIn Premium can be expensive but also worth it because you won’t find similar features elsewhere.
Can You Get LinkedIn Premium For Free?
You can get LinkedIn Premium free only for a single month. After this, you must pay LinkedIn to continue utilizing the Premium features.
LinkedIn offers a free trial for all its Premium packages, whether you want to try Premium Career or Recruiter Lite.
But that’s not all. You can get LinkedIn Premium for free more than once! The only condition is that you must wait at least 12 months after your initial LinkedIn Free Trial to utilize another trial.
During LinkedIn Premium Trial, you can avail all the premium features without any restrictions. This includes enrolling in LinkedIn Learning Courses and getting certification if you can.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Premium is expensive because its features are powerful and robust. And LinkedIn offers its premium users good worth for this expensive charge by ensuring a good ROI, at least if you use it for business purposes.
LinkedIn Premium can help you get some spotlight if you’re seeking employment, but it’s not necessary. If your skills and experience are good enough, you can land the best jobs using LinkedIn Basic.
Interested in more? Check out What To Write While Posting A Certificate On LinkedIn?
