Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it

Many people looking for work are on the fence about whether or not to upgrade to LinkedIn Premium. Every dollar counts when you’re out of work or have been laid off for some time, even though LinkedIn Premium isn’t too pricey at $39.99 per month.

This article will discuss the features of LinkedIn Premium, the types of job-seekers who will benefit from it, and, ultimately, whether or not it is worth buying. This review doesn’t recommend any services; we provide an honest evaluation of the benefits, features, and cons. It is up to you to make the decision.

What is LinkedIn Premium?

LinkedIn is one of a kind among social media. LinkedIn, as the hub of professional social networking, offers a monthly service to promote your professional profile, unlike Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks that allow you to advertise. In addition to providing more value to its users, LinkedIn also features significantly fewer adverts.

LinkedIn Premium’s precise offerings are always subject to change, but the service now includes several paid subscription tiers. They include:

• Sales Navigator (for salespeople)
• Recruiter Lite (for hiring managers)
• Premium Career (for job searchers)
• Premium Business (for bigger companies and businesses)
• LinkedIn Learning

They vary in the value-added features they offer to serve a wide range of potential customers.

How much does LinkedIn Premium cost?

All users can try LinkedIn Premium for free for a whole month.

After that, you can pick from the following packages, with prices beginning as shown:

• A monthly subscription to Premium Career is $39.99.
• When paid annually, the price of Premium Business is $55.99 per month.
• Sales Navigator plans annually begin at $79.99 per user.
• If paid annually, Recruiter Lite costs $119.99 per month.

Benefits of Using LinkedIn Premium

With more than 900 million users, LinkedIn is the leading business network worldwide. It makes perfect sense to explore ways to deepen your connection to the business sector for the present and future, given that the platform has been growing steadily month over month for the past twenty years.

One of these is upgrading to a LinkedIn Premium Account, which unlocks several useful tools beyond what is accessible with a free LinkedIn Basic account. To help you make a proper decision about the worth of LinkedIn premium, we have listed all the prominent features you can get:

1. See who looks at your Profile

One benefit is that you can see who viewed your profile. Although seemingly inconsequential, this is quite useful in establishing meaningful professional relationships. It’s no secret that LinkedIn profiles are popular reading material. Several of them work as recruiters. Other people are hiring executives and managers. Many are likely to be professionals in your sector actively seeking new contacts. 

In addition to helping you land a job, a strong network can open doors to other opportunities. When you see that your profile has been viewed, it signifies that someone was curious enough about you to check it out. That’s a good enough cause for you to send an InMail or a connection request. Make sure you’re messaging LinkedIn recruiters properly.

2. InMails

It’s possible to send an InMail to a LinkedIn user even if you aren’t already connected to them. Users with free accounts can only send private messages to those already in their social network.

That’s fantastic, as it means you can bypass LinkedIn’s connection request process and go straight to LinkedIn’s direct messages. Depending on the LinkedIn premium package you purchase, you have a varied monthly inbox limit:

• Sales Navigator includes 50 InMails per month
• You can send up to 5 InMails per month when you subscribe to LinkedIn Premium Career.
• With LinkedIn Premium Business, you can send up to 15 InMails every month.
• Recruiter Lite allows for 30 monthly InMails.
• 150 monthly InMails with LinkedIn Recruiter

Simple enough. More expensive plans come with more InMails.

3. Linkedin Learning Courses

More than a thousand courses designed to help you develop your career are available in both Linkedin’s Learning series subscription levels. Courses teaching the abilities you need to get the job you want (or make yourself more useful) can be found by searching in categories like “Business,” “Creative,” and “Technology” or by doing your search.

Most of these programs are delivered in video format and taught by recognized authorities in their disciplines. In time, you’ll also start getting suggestions for more courses based on your current and past interests.

4. Private Search

To offset the first perk, premium members of LinkedIn can view profiles without alerting the account holder. This is a good option if you’re looking for something but don’t want the other person to know. This can be useful while looking for a job, looking for clients, or researching potential competitors.

5. Premium Job Insights

When you upgrade to LinkedIn Premium, you gain access to even more information on businesses and careers.

This benefit has three components:

• Company information: Learn more about the organizations you’re interested in working for, including the types of candidates they often receive, the average applicant’s level of education, the average applicant’s skill set, and more. Because of this, you may evaluate your abilities concerning the employees.
• Job search capabilities: Job search options, including the ability to sort results by salary and get comprehensive compensation projections by location.
• Job Seeking and Interview Preparation Insights: Get tips on how to find a job, how to prepare for an interview, how to make a résumé, and more.

6. Profile Folders and Organization

When you upgrade to a Premium account, you’ll have more options for managing the many LinkedIn profiles you’ll see. Tags can be used to organize contacts, profiles can be saved in the Profile Organizer, and leads can be categorized into subfolders.

7. Job Listing Breakdown

This function allows you to examine other job seekers in your search by their education, experience, and more. The ability to do so will enable you to evaluate your standing in the candidate pool and make an informed decision about whether or not to apply.

8. Open Profile

When your profile is “Open,” anyone can get in touch with you without a prior connection or introduction. To function, a group’s most fundamental members need to either already know one other or be introduced to one another. The convenience of being more approachable is a trait whose value may not be immediately obvious.

The cons

Even though LinkedIn Premium opens up numerous doors for you to explore, your success will depend on how committed you are to cultivate your platform. The return on what may be a sizable investment will depend on how much effort you put into finding qualified leads and developing individual plans for each of them.

One of your leads may be more interested in a particular part of your business than another, so you’ll need to do some digging to figure out what exactly your company will resonate with each lead. Other cons of LinkedIn Premium include the following:

1. Results can be unreliable

Accounts that don’t fit your criteria may occasionally appear in search results. Sometimes LinkedIn doesn’t consider all your standards when returning results that are a good fit for your preferred prospect type.

2. You can’t export Lead Lists

If you’ve been using LinkedIn Premium to compile a list of high-quality leads, you’ll be disappointed to learn that you can’t export this information. To maintain contact with these leads, you must either keep up with the membership costs or manually log the data into a spreadsheet.

3. The platform isn’t always clear

Although the platform is packed with useful tools, figuring out how to employ them effectively may require some prior experience. It’s important to be prepared to devote some effort to discovering and mastering the platform’s many features.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Job Seekers?

It’s debatable. On the one hand, a Premium membership has access to many tools that streamline the process of researching and applying for open positions.

But, a free account that makes the most of LinkedIn’s features is still sufficient for securing a new employment opportunity. It comes down to how much money you have at your disposal. Rather invest a little money to make your LinkedIn job search more productive because you have more of it than time? 

Do you have a limited budget but enough spare time to compensate for the free account’s waste and inefficiency? Excellent, keep using the basics. Remember that many Premium Career subscription perks become moot once you’ve found a job, so you might only need to pay for a couple of months.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Sales?

The LinkedIn Sales Premium subscription is an effective means of accomplishing sales goals. It can improve your business’s prospecting and lead creation procedures. You can turbocharge your business-to-business (B2B) lead creation and sales with premium membership and the Octopus CRM LinkedIn automation solution.

When it comes to making sales, the most useful aspects of LinkedIn Premium are the InMail credits, the advanced search tools, and the ability to visit and contact your various degrees of relationships.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Small Businesses?

Lead generation, networking, and email marketing are the pillars on which a thriving firm is built. Better connections and more refined searches are only available in the premium edition, which will make it possible to do it all. For this reason, the paid edition is highly recommended for enterprises of all sizes.

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Students?

The steep cost of LinkedIn Premium could put off some students. A graduate’s chances of getting hired can be improved by expanding their network through these activities. In addition, the readily available online courses can help students benefit by maintaining their proficiency. Recent grads can use the “featured applicant” option to move to the top of the hiring process.

Final Thoughts

You might consider upgrading to LinkedIn Premium as an investment in your professional future. LinkedIn Premium can be a great asset in your search for a new job or promotion if you put in the effort.

To get the most out of LinkedIn Premium, you must ensure your profile is optimized for the service. Creating meaningful relationships on the site will be difficult if your profile isn’t optimized.