When you’re looking for a new job or expanding your customer base, tapping into a professional networking platform becomes a necessity, doesn’t it? And which platform pops into mind first? LinkedIn, of course.
It’s not just a few people browsing around; over 1 billion users globally are on it, scouting for talent, networking, and building their lead databases via LinkedIn prospecting. LinkedIn offers access to over 67 million companies, making it an ideal platform for job seekers, lead generation, and networking.
You can start using it for free, but the premium version has some cool features. But wait, is LinkedIn Premium worth it?
We’ll find out today.
What Is LinkedIn Premium?
LinkedIn offers a paid subscription service called LinkedIn Premium. It packs advanced features the free version does not offer.
The four main tiers of LinkedIn Premium are:
- Career: For seeking jobs
- Business: For building business and networking
- Sales Navigator: For lead generation and sales
- Recruiter: For searching talent pools and hiring
You will find basic and advanced plans for Sales Navigator and Recruiter. It has plans for individual users.
LinkedIn Premium also offers Sales Navigator Advanced, Recruiter Advanced, and LinkedIn Learning for a team.
Each plan has specific tools and insights you can use. For instance, LinkedIn Career lets you discreetly examine profile visitors. This means you can check who has shown interest in your professional LinkedIn profile.
You can directly message profile visitors, send InMails, and use advanced search filters to create a recruiter list for job applications.
Let us make a short note of features you can get from the LinkedIn Premium plans.
1. Advanced Search Filters
These advanced search filters let you refine your parameters for a focused search result. Recruiters, sales professionals, and job seekers can use the advanced filter option to look for more relevant opportunities.
2. AI Assistance
LinkedIn Premium’s AI assistance helps you draft messages, get job insights, and write profile descriptions. Its AI’s power writing can frame headlines about you and other crucial parts of your profile.
For instance, you can club LinkedIn’s AI along with some cool LinkedIn recommendations examples to craft compelling recommendations for higher visibility and profile visits.
3. Inmail
You can send InMail directly to LinkedIn users, regardless of connections. Every plan has specified InMail credits you can use wisely to create a connection.
4. Profile Visitor Info
Collecting profile visitors is no magic with LinkedIn Premium. Its premium plans let you check the profile visitor list for 90 to 365 days.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is designed with tools to identify and connect with potential leads. Combining this advanced feature with GrowMeOrganic’s email extractor Chrome extension, you can quickly create a B2B contact database.
6. Advanced Career Features
Use the advanced tools and insights related to job listing, salary standards, recruiter profiles, etc to tailor your job applications.
7. Linkedin Learning
LinkedIn Premium is a treasure trove of learning resources for both individuals and teams. Just look up the skills you’re interested in improving, and you’ll find a wide array of courses at your fingertips.
I completely understand that you are still looking for more features and distinctions between these plans. Well, here is an easy way to follow:
Decide why you need LinkedIn Premium.
Done?
Now, move to this concise comparison table to get an overview of all these features according to LinkedIn Premium plans.
| LinkedIn Premium Plans | Premium Career | Premium Business | Sales Navigator Core | Recruiter Lite | LinkedIn Learning | Company Page Premium |
| LinkedIn Learning Access | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Application Insights | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Application Insights | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Profile visitor info | Yes (365 days) | Yes(365 days) | Yes(365 days) | No (only insights for 90 days) | No | No |
| Direct messaging | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| InMail credits | 5 | 15 | 50 | 30 | No | No |
| Custom button | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| AI tools | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Business-related insights | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Premium Service Page | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Top job choice | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Sales Interface | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Advanced search | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Custom lead lists | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Lead recommendation | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Real-time updates and notifications | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Recruitment-focused design | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Candidate tracking automation | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Smart suggestions | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Integrated hiring | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Custom testimonials | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Page visitor | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Credibility highlights | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Auto invitation | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a545596
Consider This Scenario
As a SaaS sales professional, LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator can help generate leads and provide valuable business insights, InMail credits, private browsing, and profile visitor info with just one click.
GrowMeOrganic’s unlimited search credits and LinkedIn lead extractor can assist in refining a lead list further. You can leverage its Navigator insights to craft lead-specific cold emails and introduce your product.
For example, LinkedIn user Akhilesh Tripathi used GrowMeOrganic to scrape leads and integrate the data with his CRM for a cold email outreach campaign.
When setting up your B2B sales campaign, starting with creating an ideal customer profile (ICP) using GrowMeOrganic is a solid move. This approach allows you to get really specific about who your dream clients are.
Once you’ve established your ICP, the next step is to dive into Sales Navigator. While you’ll gather a bunch of email IDs, not all of them will be a perfect fit. This is where GrowMeOrganic comes back into play.
You can use it to sift through these emails and can even find phone numbers. Filter out the ones that don’t match up with your ICP.
Image courtesy: Trustpilot
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It? Check these Benefits
Yes, LinkedIn Premium is worth it. But depends on what need you are looking to satisfy. For now, let’s talk about its benefits.
Connect & Expand Your Network Via InMail
You can only send InMail to connections with your LinkedIn basic account. Hence, a promising lead will not get your message unless you connect with him.
LinkedIn Premium InMail can directly land your message in a lead’s profile, irrespective of connection. It targets three touchpoints: mobile, the traditional email inbox, and LinkedIn inbox.
LinkedIn Premium is convenient as you can skip the ‘request to connect’ part and send InMail messages. However, keep the InMail credits (5 to 15) in mind. You can also buy InMail credits (multiples of 10 up to 70) whenever needed.
Be A Featured Applicant
In LinkedIn Basic, you can only add an ‘Open to Work’ badge and posts. LinkedIn Premium takes this to the next level, where you can apply as a ’Featured Applicant’.
Your application gets an added boost from LinkedIn, making it more prominent to recruiters. Hence, your chances of landing an interview increase a lot.
Check Profile Views
LinkedIn Basic shows one or two profile viewers and hides the rest. With LinkedIn Premium, you can check and get a list of visitors in the ‘Who’s Viewed Your Profile’ section. It stores profile visitors for 90 to 365 days.
The best part is that you can create a list of profile visitors and use advanced filters to shortlist them. If you are a job seeker, this helps you connect with potential recruiters. You can also pair this with tools like GrowMeOrganic to find contact info and build a lead list even.
Data For Competitive Edge
LinkedIn Premium offers insight data for company profiles and job applications.
- Recruiters can use it for talent insights.
- Companies can create reports in Talent Insights, and
- Job seekers can use it to understand companies’ portfolios.
You can also use it to optimize your LinkedIn profile and compare your qualifications with job descriptions. It also helps businesses and sales professionals to find the right audience with advanced filters. Use GrowMeOrganic to extract emails from LinkedIn of the defined audience and generate more revenue with ROI-focused campaigns.
6 Reasons Why LinkedIn Premium Is Definitely Worth It?
If you are looking for reasons to subscribe besides LinkedIn Premium benefits, here are a few.
Resumes & Interviews
Let’s forget about LinkedIn Career! It’s a great resource for checking out companies and job posts. The AI assistant can even compare job descriptions with your profile to see if there are any skill gaps.
Plus, you can get insights on salaries and use that info to negotiate with recruiters for better compensation. And let’s not forget that you can also use LinkedIn to prep for interviews. There are some really helpful courses available to get you ready.
LinkedIn Learning
A LinkedIn Premium subscription will open a local library of courses. These courses created by industry leaders are reliable, updated, and relevant. You can complete courses and earn certificates with your Premium account. Showcase your earned certificates of newfound skills and enhance your professional portfolio.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/topics/linkedin-learning
Researching Companies
LinkedIn Premium plans like Premium Business, Recruiter, and Sales Navigator provide company insights such as employee count, distribution, new hires, notable alumni, and job openings. These insights are helpful for job hunting and business research.
Just remember, you need a company with 30 or more employees to see these details. For example, you can use these insights for B2B email campaigns.
AI Assistant
LinkedIn Premium’s AI assistant can spice up your profile with industry-specific words. Plus, you can summarize all sorts of content like videos, conversations, and articles to stay on top of the latest opportunities. And the best part is you can take action on the insights generated by the AI. Cool, right?
Browsing Privacy
Another salient feature of LinkedIn Premium is that you can select your privacy mode. Here, you can choose ‘Private Mode’ to visit others’ profiles anonymously. You can set the private mode where profile users can only see your name and headline.
In the semi-private mode, your name, job title, and industry. Even if you choose any private browsing mode, you can still check your profile views in the last three months.
There are ways to find someones email address in privacy mode using tools as well.
Unlimited Searches
You cannot use LinkedIn Basic for unlimited commercial searching. LinkedIn Premium opens the door for prospecting, hiring, and job seeking. You can search first-degree connections and unknown profiles.
This feature is available in Premium Business, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite.
See how LinkedIn Premium can make a difference in your profession. Let us see how LinkedIn Basic differs from Premium.
LinkedIn Premium vs. Basic: What’s the Difference?
This comprehensive table will help you understand the elemental difference between LinkedIn Premium and Basic in five sections.
| Features | LinkedIn Basic | LinkedIn Premium |
| Profile Views | 🔶5 most recent viewers 🔶Profile view list spans 90 days 🔶Interesting views 🔶Viewer’s company name 🔶Job titles 🔶Where they searched and found your LinkedIn profile | 🔶All profile viewers can be seen on a list 🔶Profile view list spans from 90 to 365 days 🔶Interesting viewers’ feature only shows notable visitors (it can be turned on or off). 🔶Graphical representation of weekly viewer trend 🔶Highlights and data for analytics on profile viewers (companies, locations, industries, job roles, etc) |
| Access To LinkedIn Learning | No | Yes |
| Searches | 🔶Search for profiles and view 🔶Can only save three searches 🔶Weekly alerts for those saved searches | 🔶Unlimited conventional searches 🔶Advanced search with filters (Sales Navigator Core) 🔶No limit on saved searches |
| Open Profile Option | 🔶Not included in the Basic plan 🔶Users can only message you when you use the ‘Open Profile’ feature | 🔶Only Premium members can send messages 🔶You can only message if a profile user has enabled ‘Open Profile’ |
| InMail | 🔶Not available for the Basic account 🔶Users can message connections but cannot send InMail messages. | 🔶InMail credit varies from 5 to 50 as per Premium plans. |
We now have a complete idea of LinkedIn Premium and how it differs from the Basic (free) account. Here, we will examine the pricing tiers.
How Much Does LinkedIn Premium Cost?
| LinkedIn Premium Plans | Features | Pricing |
| Premium Career | ⚡5 InMails/month ⚡No advanced search filtersLimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (365 days) ⚡LinkedIn Learning access | $29.99/month |
| Premium Business | ⚡15 InMails/month ⚡No advanced search filters ⚡Unlimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (365 days) ⚡LinkedIn Learning access | $59.99/month |
| Sales Navigator Core | ⚡50 InMails/month ⚡30+ advanced search filters ⚡Unlimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (90 days) ⚡LinkedIn Learning access | $99.99/month |
| Sales Navigator Advanced | ⚡50 InMails/month ⚡30+ advanced search filters ⚡Unlimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (90 days) | $149.99/month |
| Recruiter Lite | ⚡30 InMails/month ⚡20+ advanced search filters ⚡Unlimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (90 days) ⚡LinkedIn Learning access | $170/month |
| Recruiter Advanced | ⚡150 InMails/month ⚡40+ advanced search filters ⚡Unlimited searches ⚡Profile visitor list (90 days) ⚡Applicant Tracking System (ATS) integration ⚡LinkedIn Learning access | $835/month |
Source: https://evaboot.com/blog/linkedin-account-types
There! You have now everything to decide whether LinkedIn Premium is good for job seekers and recruiters. Let us concisely answer each question. Shall we?
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Job Seekers?
LinkedIn Premium is definitely worth it for job seekers. You can make a huge difference with LinkedIn Career features.
- InMail: Message recruiters directly, even if you’re not connected. This increases your chances of making important contacts.
- Profile Views: See who viewed your profile, and contact these viewers to turn their interests into opportunities.
- Featured Applicant: Your applications stand out to recruiters, boosting your chances of landing an interview.
- Job Insights: Access detailed information about job listings, helping you understand how you compare to other applicants.
- LinkedIn Learning: Enhance your skills with courses included in Premium, making you more competitive in the job market.
Simply applying for jobs will not make you stand out. Use the LinkedIn Premium Career tools to research companies, match skills, check salary insights, and build your career step by step.
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Recruiting?
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite, however, is not a good investment. It offers only 21 filters to shortlist candidates. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite offers these features and costs $180/month.
- InMail: Message potential candidates directly even if you’re not connected.
- Advanced Search Filters: Use advanced filters to find candidates that match specific criteria.
- Profile Views: See who has viewed your profile and check their interest.
- Recruiter Insights: Access detailed analytics about candidate profiles to make informed hiring decisions.
- LinkedIn Learning: Use courses to enhance your recruiting skills and stay updated on the latest industry trends.
You can access the same features of the LinkedIn database with Sales Navigator ($99/month). It offers 29 filters at a lower price.
However, LinkedIn Recruiter (advanced) is an upgrade to the Lite version. However, it costs a fortune ($835/month), which may not be budget-friendly for small and medium-sized companies. Big firms can use it to integrate with ATS systems to streamline bulk recruitment processes.
Here, you can take your recruitment game to the next level with GrowMeOrganic. It saves the email addresses of filtered prospects identified by Sales Navigator or Recruiter and assists in shortlisting them. Save hours of manual work to find the right talent.
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth The Hype?
The bottom line, you need LinkedIn Premium’s advanced features to be at the top of your game. Be it recruitment or job search, creating a sales funnel, or networking, LinkedIn Premium is the key.
The benefits of Premium—such as InMail, advanced search filters, AI assistance, and LinkedIn Learning—will make you stand out.
Multiply these benefits with GrowMeOrganic’s cold email software, along with an email finder, which helps you build B2B campaigns through Sales Navigator.
By aligning LinkedIn Premium with GrowMeOrganic, you can save more than $1000/month on expensive prospecting.
Image Courtesy: Trustpilot
FAQs
- Does LinkedIn Premium Help Get A Job Faster?
Yes, LinkedIn Premium can help you get a job faster. It offers features like InMail for direct messaging, advanced job insights, and profile visibility boosts. You can also apply as a ‘Featured Applicant’ and get noticed.
- Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It In 2024?
Yes, LinkedIn Premium is worth it in 2024. It provides significant advantages for job seekers, recruiters, and business professionals with features like InMail, advanced search filters, detailed job insights, and LinkedIn Learning.
- Does LinkedIn Premium Make You More Visible To Recruiters?
LinkedIn Premium makes you more visible as a featured applicant. You can get insights to compare with other candidates. Additionally, you can see who has visited your profile and send InMail messages directly to them.
- Which LinkedIn Premium Is Best For Job Seekers?
LinkedIn Premium Career offers:
- InMail credits for direct messaging.
- Check profile visitors
- Get job insights with AI
- LinkedIn Learning for online courses.
These features make this plan ideal for job seekers.
- Which LinkedIn Plan Is Best?
The best LinkedIn plan depends on your needs:
- Premium Career: Ideal for job seekers.
- Premium Business: Great for networking.
- Sales Navigator: Best for sales teams and lead generation.
- Recruiter Lite: Perfect for recruiters.
- Can People Tell If You Have LinkedIn Premium?
LinkedIn Premium accounts display a gold badge on their profile pictures. Such badges also appear on searches. However, a LinkedIn Premium account holder can decide to hide or display that badge.
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