There are 9 types of LinkedIn accounts:
- FreeLinkedIn Account
- LinkedIn Premium Career: $39.99 /month
- LinkedIn Premium Business: $59.99 /month
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core: $99.99 /month
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced: $149.99 /month
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus: custom
- LinkedIn Recruiter Lite: $180 /month
- LinkedIn Recruiter: $835 /month
- LinkedIn Learnings: $29.99/month
Wondering which LinkedIn plan you should go for?
Here we compare LinkedIn premium plans in terms of costs and functionalities so you can clearly see what is the best option for your business.
Let’s dive right now into the different types of LinkedIn subscriptions plans.
LinkedIn Basic Account
A free LinkedIn account is a good start to discover the platform. However, if your goal is it to generate leads or to recruit talents, you will quickly face some limitations.
LinkedIn Basic Account Cost
The LinkedIn Basic Account is free forever. LinkedIn will never charge LinkedIn members for accessing the basic features.
LinkedIn Basic Account Plan
Here’s what included in the LinkedIn basic account plan:
- Build your LinkedIn profile and publish content
- Expand your network by sending connection requests
- Use the search engine to find profiles
You can also use LinkedIn Boolean search on the free search engine to build a targeted lead and candidate lists.
LinkedIn Free Account Limitations
There are some limitations of having free LinkedIn membership:
- The search results limitation
- The commercial use limit
- No access to 2nd & 3rd degree connections
- No access to profile visitors
1. The search results limitation
The search results of the LinkedIn free search engine are composed of 100 pages of 10 results.
It means that you can only see the first 1000 results of your searches. You can get access to the rest.
2. The commercial use limit
The most annoying thing for free LinkedIn users is the commercial use limit:
It means that if LinkedIn detects that you’re intensively using the free search engine to generate leads or find candidates, they will block your access.
You won’t be able to use the search engine anymore, and you will need to wait until the end of the month to use it again.
These limitations can be lifted by the following LinkedIn premium plans.
3. No access to 2nd & 3rd degree connections
With LinkedIn free accounts, you don’t get InMail credits. It means you are forced to send connection requests if you want to contact people out of your network.
Given that 50% of connection requests get accepted on average, it really compromises your LinkedIn prospecting capacity and your ability to expand your professional network.
4. No access to profile visitors
With the free version of LinkedIn, you can’t access your profile views.
You’ll miss a source of qualified leads or potentially interested candidates.
Now, let’s see how LinkedIn premium features can help you overcome these limitations and help you reach your goals.
You will see that LinkedIn premium costs are low compared to the return on investment you can get from LinkedIn premium accounts.
LinkedIn Premium Career: $29.99 /month.
LinkedIn Premium Career have been designed to help you get a job faster. LinkedIn claims candidates with Premium Career get hired an average of 2X as fast.
LinkedIn Premium Career Cost
LinkedIn Premium Career costs $29.99 per month. Or $239 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Premium Career Plan
LinkedIn Premium Career plan includes:
- 5 InMail Messages
- See who’s Viewed Your Profile
- Job and applicant insights
- Featured Applicant Feature
- Company insights
- Salary insights
- Access To LinkedIn Learning
- Access to Interview Preparation tools
1. 5 InMail Messages
With a LinkedIn Premium Career account, you get 5 InMail credits per month.
LinkedIn InMail messages are premium messages that allowed to send direct messages to 2nd and 3rd degree connection without having to send a connection request first.
This can be used by jobseekers to easily contact busy recruiters who received a lot of connection request.
2. See who’s Viewed Your Profile
LinkedIn Premium Career allows you to see who viewed your profile in the last 90 days.
It might help you with your job search if you noticed some recruiters visiting your profile.
That is a good way to start the conversation.
3. Job and applicant insights
Each time you apply to a job, you’ll get a data about other applicants.
You can leverage information to know what will make a difference during the interview.
4. Featured Applicant Feature
Want to stand out when applying? Use the Feature Applicant Feature.
This feature allows you to appear at the top of the job application list and catch recruiters eyes.
5. Company insights
A good interview is a well-prepared one.
LinkedIn Premium Career gives you access to a lot of company data so you can make a difference during the interview.
6. Salary insights
Want to know how to negotiate your salary?
Take a look at Salary Insights.
That will give you the average salaries in the industry and idea on what can you ask to your future employer.
7. Access To LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Premium access gives you access to the 16,000+ LinkedIn Learning Courses.
You can use these resources to improve your skills and prepare for the interviews.
8. Access to Interview Preparation tools
LinkedIn Premium Career also offers an Interview Preparation Tool that will prepare you for the most common questions asked during job interviews.
A good way to prepare if you’re just getting started.
That was for job seekers.
Now,
Let’s talk about salespeople.
LinkedIn Premium Business: $59.99 /month
LinkedIn Premium Business is made for sales professionals who are willing to generate leads with the platform.
LinkedIn Premium Business Costs
LinkedIn Premium Business costs $59.99 per month. Or $575.88 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Premium Business Plan
LinkedIn Premium Business plan offers:
- Everything included in Premium Career
- 10 InMail credits
- Unlimited people search
1. 15 InMail credits
LinkedIn Premium Business accounts offer 15 InMails per month. So it’s 10 more than LinkedIn Premium Career.
2. Unlimited people search
By subscribing to LinkedIn Premium Business, you lift the commercial use limit.
You can do unlimited searches on the free LinkedIn search engine without fearing to be restricted.
LinkedIn Premium Business, honestly, isn’t worth paying for when you compare with what you’ll get with Sales Navigator for $40 more.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core: $99.99 /month
LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps sales repsfind, connect and build relationships with potential buyersby using LinkedIn’s network data to get all the information they need to better identify and engage with their leads.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Costs
LinkedIn Sales Navigator costs $99.99 per month. Or 958.88 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core Plan
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core plan includes:
- Unlimited searches
- Advanced search filters
- Access to 2500 search results
- 50 InMail credits
- Lead & Account Lists
- Alerts & Notifications
- Lead recommendations
- Account Insights
- Saved Searches
1. Unlimited Searches
With a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account, you’re not restricted in the number of searches you can make every month.
You’ll also get access to the account search engine.
2. Advanced search filters
The Sales Navigator search engine, which is much more powerful than the basic (job title, company, etc.).
Export Sales Navigator leads for free
It contains a lot more search filters and additional features.
To learn more about this, you can check our article on how you can use Sales Navigator features to generate leads.
3. Access to 2500 search results
With the basic LinkedIn search engine, you’ll only get access to the first 1000 results.
With Sales Navigator, that limit is raised to 2500.
If your searches have more than 2500 results, we got you covered. Here’s a tutorial on how to split your searches into several chunks.
4. 50 InMail credits
With Sales Navigator, you’ll get 50 InMail credits per month, so it’s 35 credits more than LinkedIn Premium Business.
By the way, there’s a way to send unlimited InMails on LinkedIn. Here’s a video showing you how to do that.
5. Lead & Account Lists
Sales Navigator allows you to create targeted lists of leads and account so you personalize your outreach, take notes, and keep record of your interactions with them.
6. Alerts & Notifications
Once you’ve created lead and account lists, you’ll start getting alerts on their activities on LinkedIn.
These alerts will give you business insights you can leverage to send your personalize LinkedIn outreach and your follow-ups.
7. Lead recommendations
Based on the leads you saved into lists and your actives on Sales Navigator search engine, LinkedIn will recommend leads every week.
8. Account Insights
Looking for account intelligence to personalize your LinkedIn prospecting?
For every account, you have access to:
- Best decision-makers to reach out to
- Account Map
- Growth Insights
- Account Alerts
All you need to do is to send personalized outreach messages.
9. Saved Searches
Saved searches is one of the best features offered by LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
It basically allows you to put your LinkedIn lead generation on autopilot.
When you save a search, LinkedIn will update the results weekly and tell you if there are new people that match with your search criteria.
The only thing that you can’t do with Sales Navigator is to export the lead lists into a CSV or an Excel file.
Export Sales Navigator leads for free
But no worries, you can use a 3rd party tool like Evaboot to get the data.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced: $149.99 /month
Sales Navigator Advanced (previously named LinkedIn Sales Navigator Team) is an upgraded version of Sales Navigator Core built for sales team. It facilitates collaboration between members of the sales team.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Cost
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced costs $149.99 per month. Or $1300 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plan
With Sales Navigator Advanced, you’ll get all the features in the Sales Navigator professional plus:
- TeamLink
- Smart Links
- CSV Upload
1. TeamLink
LinkedIn TeamLinkhelps sales teamdetect warm introduction opportunitieswith their prospects.
TeamLink is doing that by showing you if people in your search results are among the1st degree connectionsof your teammates.
2. Smart Links
Sales Navigator Smart Linksallows creating Sales presentations aggregating files and websites, and then easily share andtrack your prospect’s interactions with this content.
3. CSV Upload
This LinkedIn CSV upload feature is really useful because it allows you toimport data from other B2B databaseslike Crunchbase, Wappalyzer, or job boards into Sales Navigator.
Instead of searching for target companies one by onewith the search engine, you can bulk upload your excel and save a huge amount of time.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus: custom
Sales Navigator Advanced Plus is designed for enterprises and offers advanced features like CRM integration and real time contact update.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus Cost
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus is the most expensive LinkedIn premium offers. There are no public prices but it seems that it starts at $1600/year.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus Plan
With Sales Navigator Advanced Plus, you’ll get all the features in Core and Advanced, plus:
- TeamLink Extend
- CRM Synchronization
- Real-Time Contact Updates
- Advanced Ads Campaign Manager
1. TeamLink Extend
TeamLink Extend allows you to see if your prospects are connected to anyone in your company (not just your sales teammates).
2. CRM Synchronization
This feature allows you to exclude leads from your Sales Navigator searches already present in your CRM.
That way, you avoid prospecting people that are already in contact with your Sales team.
You’ll also save time by focusing your efforts on leads that are never been contacted by your company.
3. Real Time Contact Update
The Real Time Contact Update feature allows you to be notified when your prospects change jobs or companies.
Given that 30% of B2B data get deprecated every year, keeping your CRM data updated is essential to ensure the efficiency of your sales team.
4. Advanced Ads Campaigner Manager
With a LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus account, you’ll get access to more features on LinkedIn Ads to precisely target your ideal customers.
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite: $180 / month
LinkedIn Recruiter Liteis made for recruiters and hiring managers to find talents on LinkedIn who wants to source candidates.
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite Cost
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite costs $180 per month. Or $1,480 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite Plan
The feature of LinkedIn Recruiter Lite are:
- 30 InMail credits
- Advanced searches filters
- Recruiting CRM
- Candidate recommendations
- Automated sourcing
- Job posting
- InMail & job post analytics
1. 30 InMail credits
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite offers 30 InMail credits per month.
You can use theses InMails to contact candidates without having to send them a connection request first.
2. Advanced search filters
LinkedIn Recruiter gives you access to 21 advanced search filters to find the ideal candidates for your company or your clients.
3. Recruiting CRM
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite has a mini ATS system built-in that you can use to manage your recruiting process.
The cool thing is that you can add people directly from their LinkedIn profile but also with their regular information if they are not present on LinkedIn.
4. Candidate recommendations
Once you’ve created a Project in LinkedIn Recruiter Lite, it will recommend candidates that fits with your search criteria on a daily basis.
That will save you a lot of time on candidate sourcing.
5. Automation sourcing
Another way to automate your sourcing is to save your candidates searches.
Once your search is saved, LinkedIn Recruiter will notify you of new candidates matching your search criteria every week.
Automatic candidate tracking is a game changer for any recruiter.
6. Job posting
Another great time saver, you can post job offers on LinkedIn Jobs directly from Recruiter Lite.
You can assign these job offers to specific projects so the people applying will directly be added into the dedicated candidate pipeline.
That way, you centralize the candidates you get from outreach and the candidates you get from job offers?
7. InMail and job post analytics
If you plan on using InMails for your LinkedIn outreach, Recruiter got you covered.
They offer detailed analytics so you can analyze your performance and improve your LinkedIn messages.
Same thing for job posts, it will give you stats like apply rate or completion rate so you can improve your job offers.
LinkedIn Recruiter: $835/month
LinkedIn Recruiter is an upgraded version of Recruiter Lite that offers more search filters and advanced integrations with Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
LinkedIn Recruiter Cost
LinkedIn Recruiter costs $835 per month. Or $8,999 per year if you pay annually.
LinkedIn Recruiter Plan
With LinkedIn Recruiter, you get all the features in Recruiter Lite Plus:
- 150 InMail credits
- InMail bulks endings
- Additional Search filters
- Integrations to ATS
1. More InMail credits
LinkedIn Recruiter offers 150 InMail credits per month. 120 more than LinkedIn Recruiter Lite.
2. InMail bulk sending
With LinkedIn Recruiter, you can send InMail messages in bulk.
Meaning, you can send the same message to 10 people in 1 click, without having to send them manually to each candidate.
It can save you time but if you use this feature, make sure to send well-written messages. Non-personalized mass prospecting is not working anymore.
3. Additional search filters
LinkedIn Recruiter offers more filters to find the perfect candidates.
The most useful being “Open to Work”.
It allows you to find all the open to work profiles on LinkedIn.
These people are looking for opportunities so you are sure to get good reply rates if you contact them.
4. Integration to popular ATS
You’re using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to manage your candidate pipeline?
LinkedIn Recruiter can easily integrate with it, so the data is sync between the two software programs.
Here’s the list of the ATS’s LinkedIn Recruiter integrates with.
LinkedIn Learnings: $29.99 /month
LinkedIn Learning gives you unlimited access to the 16,000 courses are available on the platform.
LinkedIn Learning Costs
LinkedIn Learning costs$29.99 per month. Or$239.88 per yearif you pay annually.
LinkedIn Learning Plan
You can use it to learn new skills and be a thought leader in your industry.
Don’t forget thatLinkedIn Learnings is included in LinkedIn Premium Business and Career. All the LinkedIn premium members have automatically access to it.
It’s also possible tobuy individual courses if you don’t want to subscribe.
They’re between $20 and $50 dollar each.
LinkedIn Premium Plans Comparison
In this part we compare linkedin premium plans:
- LinkedIn Premium VS LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- LinkedIn Premium Business VS Basic
- LinkedIn Premium Career VS Basic
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core VS Advanced
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator VS Recruiter Lite
1. LinkedIn Premium Business VS Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator has much more value for money than LinkedIn Premium Business if your goal is to generate lead on LinkedIn.
It has way more search filters to find leads and offer more InMails.
If you’re a sales rep, an SD or a founder, there is absolutely no question: you should get LinkedIn Sales Navigator instead of LinkedIn Premium Business.
Export Sales Navigator leads for free
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core VS Advanced
If you use the CSV upload feature, Sales Navigator Advanced can be a game changer. If you don’t, not so much.
Here is a demo of the features that’s useful for you.
3. LinkedIn Premium Business VS Basic
LinkedIn Premium Business isn’t worth the cost, especially if you want to use for lead generation.
Plus LinkedIn Premium Business is included in Sales Navigator. So you can have both tools for $40 more.
Instead of comparing LinkedIn premium business and your free account, you should compare sales navigator vs. a basic account.
4. LinkedIn Premium Career VS Basic
If you are a jobseeker, LinkedIn Premium Career does not make a big difference compared to a basic LinkedIn account. You can spend that money if that you have the budget. However, it would be better to spend that money on improving your skills to get hired to your new job.
5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator VS Recruiter Lite
LinkedIn Sales Navigator can almost do the exact same thing as LinkedIn Recruiter for less money.
If your only interest is getting access to advanced search filters and LinkedIn database, better choose Sales Navigator over Recruiter Lite.
Sales Navigator is interesting for a recruiting business because you can find candidates and clients with the same tool.
If you are also interested in the ATS and job posting features, you might prefer having a global recruiting solution like LinkedIn Recruiter.
FAQ
Here we answer the most common questions about LinkedIn premium subscriptions
Is LinkedIn Premium worth the cost?
Yes. LinkedIn Premium worth the cost 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
What is the cheapest LinkedIn premium plan?
The cheapest LinkedIn premium membership is LinkedIn Premium Career which cost $29.99 per month. Or $239 per year if you pay annually.
How do I get LinkedIn Premium for free?
Every LinkedIn Premium subscriptions have a one-month free trial. So you can try the tool for free for one month. You just need to provide your credit card details. That’s a good opportunity to evaluate the benefits of LinkedIn premium.
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