LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 740 million members worldwide. It allows individuals to connect with other professionals, search for jobs, join industry groups, and more. In addition to the free version, LinkedIn also offers premium subscriptions for individuals that unlock additional features. However, many businesses and companies are also active on LinkedIn to attract talent, market their products and services, and build their brand. This raises the question – is there a LinkedIn premium option available for companies as well?
LinkedIn Premium for Individuals
Before discussing if there is a LinkedIn premium for companies, it’s important to understand the existing premium options available for individual users first. LinkedIn currently offers three premium subscription levels for individual members:
LinkedIn Premium Career
LinkedIn Premium Career is the most basic paid tier for individuals. Key features include:
– Seeing who viewed your profile
– Seeing how your profile ranks against other applicants
– Unlimited profile searches
– 15 InMail messages per month to directly contact anyone
– Premium profile badges to stand out
– Interview preparation tools
This plan costs $29.99 per month if paying monthly or $239.88 per year if paying annually.
LinkedIn Premium Business
LinkedIn Premium Business builds on the Career tier. Additional features include:
– Professional learning courses
– Salary data insights
– Company research tools
– 20 InMail messages per month instead of 15
– Premium profile badges
This plan costs $44.99 per month if paying monthly or $359.88 per year if paying annually.
LinkedIn Premium Hiring
LinkedIn Premium Hiring provides all Premium Business features plus:
– Unlimited InMail messages
– Pipeline and hiring tools
– Talent recruiter messaging
– Candidate insights
This premium tier costs $79.99 per month if paying monthly or $639.88 per year if paying annually.
So in summary, LinkedIn Premium for individuals unlocks additional capabilities beyond the free account to boost their professional brand, network smarter, and advance their careers. But what about companies and organizations – do they have premium options too?
Does LinkedIn Offer Premium Plans for Companies?
Unlike the individual user side, LinkedIn does not offer premium subscription tiers for companies and organizations. However, there are paid products that businesses can access for recruiting, marketing, and sales that provide advanced functionality beyond a free company page. The main LinkedIn premium offerings for companies include:
LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s flagship talent acquisition product. Features include:
– Search the full LinkedIn network, not just your connections
– Contact anyone with InMail messages
– Manage candidates and share with hiring team members
– Track application process and pipeline
– Post jobs to reach suitable candidates
LinkedIn Recruiter is sold as seat-based subscriptions, with pricing starting at $999 per seat per year. Volume discounts are available.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps companies identify, connect with, and manage sales prospects. Capabilities include:
– See full profiles of prospects outside your network
– Surface team connections to prospects
– Save leads and accounts for tracking
– Receive notifications for saved leads and accounts
– Send InMail messages to prospects
– Use sales integration and analytics
Like Recruiter, Sales Navigator is sold as seat-based subscriptions starting at $79.99 per seat per month. Volume discounts are available.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions offers an array of advertising products to help brands market to LinkedIn’s audience of professionals. This includes:
– Sponsored content to publish promoted posts
– Sponsored InMail for targeted direct messaging
– Text, display, and video ads
– Dynamic ads customized to member interests
– Audience targeting and segmentation tools
– Campaign measurement and reporting
Pricing for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions varies significantly based on campaign type, targeting, and duration. LinkedIn provides a self-service advertising platform to manage campaigns.
In addition to the above core products, LinkedIn also offers premium options tailored for talent development, corporate recruiting, events/conferences, and other business needs. But there is no singular “LinkedIn Premium for Companies” product like the individual subscriptions.
Key Differences From Individual Premium
It’s worth highlighting some key differences between the premium options for businesses versus individual members:
– For companies, there is no monthly/annual subscription for core features. Products are priced per seat or campaign.
– Company products focus more on recruiting, marketing, and sales use cases vs. individual networking and branding.
– Individual premium tiers build on each other (Career > Business > Hiring). Company products are standalone for specific functions.
– For individuals, premium unlocks additional capabilities on their account. Company products enable new tools across multiple employee accounts.
– Company offerings require a business LinkedIn account. Individual premium only needs a regular free account.
So in summary, the premium experience for companies is very different from individuals – it’s focused on business workflows vs. the personal brand and networking.
Are Company Products Worth the Cost?
Given the significant price tags of many LinkedIn company products, are they worth the investment? There are a few factors to consider:
– For recruiting, LinkedIn Recruiter can significantly expand candidate pipelines thanks to LinkedIn’s unmatched scale and data. The tools can streamline hiring processes. But costs add up for larger teams.
– Marketing Solutions provide unmatched targeting and audience data for B2B ads. But costs can be substantial for ongoing campaigns vs. one-off promotions. Results vary greatly by campaign quality.
– For sales prospecting, the depth of LinkedIn data again can be extremely valuable. Tools like InMail also help make direct contacts. But individual outreach efforts remain important.
– Alternatives with lower price points may provide a subset of functionality, but lack LinkedIn integration and data assets.
– For many functions, the free Company Page still provides substantial value, especially for smaller teams. Premium tools offer more convenience and depth.
Overall, the premium value depends greatly on each company’s hiring volume, marketing budgets, and sales organization maturity. Piloting premium products in a limited capacity can help demonstrate ROI. Partnering with a LinkedIn rep can also help develop the ideal solution.
What Does the Future Hold?
While individual and company premium experiences remain quite different today, some convergence may occur in the future. For example:
– LinkedIn may package company products into solution bundles that emulate premium tiers. Partners already customize offerings.
– Sales Navigator could evolve into a more robust CRM alternative, competing with tools like Salesforce.
– Premium badges and other branding features could carry over to company pages behind the scenes to boost visibility.
– More unified pricing and packaging across individuals and companies could simplify purchasing.
– Machine learning and AI will play bigger roles in matching talent, marketing, and selling.
Still, the core focus on talent, marketing, and sales workflows for companies will likely remain quite distinct from individual use cases. But shared premium conveniences and features may emerge over time, especially as technology advances.
Conclusion
In summary:
– There is currently no singular “LinkedIn Premium for Companies” product like the individual premium tiers.
– Companies can access premium recruiting, marketing, and sales tools for a price through LinkedIn Recruiter, Marketing Solutions, and Sales Navigator.
– These tools provide significant depth on par with a premium experience. But the focus is different than individual features for networking and branding.
– Premium value depends on each company’s needs and budgets. The free Company Page still provides substantial functionality.
– Some convergence between individual and company premium features may occur in the future. But the core focus will remain on business workflows.
So a traditional premium subscription does not exist for companies today. But LinkedIn does offer a variety of premium tools and capabilities for businesses to boost recruiting, marketing, and sales by tapping into its unrivaled professional data and platform. Carefully evaluating business needs and objectives is key in determining the potential benefits of these offerings.