Should you pay for LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million users worldwide. While a free basic account allows you to create a profile, connect with others, and search for jobs, LinkedIn also offers several paid subscriptions that provide additional features.

So should you pay for LinkedIn? Here we’ll explore the pros and cons of LinkedIn’s paid offerings to help you decide if an upgrade makes sense for your career goals and budget.

What are LinkedIn’s paid offerings?

LinkedIn currently offers these paid subscriptions:

• LinkedIn Premium Career – $29.99/month
• LinkedIn Premium Business – $64.99/month
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator – $64.99/month
• LinkedIn Recruiter Lite – $99.95/month
• LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate – $259.95/month

The Premium Career and Premium Business subscriptions focus on expanding your network and increasing your visibility as a professional. Sales Navigator targets sales professionals specifically. And Recruiter Lite and Recruiter Corporate provide tools to source, engage, and manage candidates if you’re involved in hiring.

Benefits of paid LinkedIn

Here are some of the main benefits that come with LinkedIn’s paid offerings:

Expanded network

Paid accounts allow you to connect with anyone on LinkedIn, going beyond just your 1st-degree connections. This gives you access to a much larger pool of professionals for networking.

Increased profile views

With a paid subscription, your profile gets prioritized in search results. This can help attract recruiters, potential clients, and valuable connections.

Advanced search

Paid members can use filters like location, company size, job title, and skills to precisely target their searches for people, jobs, groups, and content.

InMail messages

Premium and Sales Navigator accounts include a certain number of InMail messages per month (the exact amount depends on your subscription tier). InMail allows you to directly contact anyone on LinkedIn, even if you’re not connected.

Learning courses

Premium subscribers get unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning courses at no added cost. Courses cover business, creative, and technical skills.

Sales leads

Sales Navigator helps sales professionals identify, qualify, and engage promising prospects through lead recommendations, saved leads, and other sales tools.

Recruiter tools

Recruiter accounts include candidate searching, messaging, pipeline organization, and other tools to manage hiring. This is aimed at corporate recruiters, staffing agencies, and headhunters.

Downsides of paid LinkedIn

There are also some potential drawbacks to weigh when considering paid LinkedIn options:

Cost

LinkedIn’s paid tiers range from $29.99/month for Premium Career up to $259.95/month for Recruiter Corporate. The price may not suit those with limited professional development budgets.

Overlap with free account

Some features like profile-building, creating posts, and joining groups are available on free accounts. You’re paying mostly for extras like expanded network and messaging.

Hard selling tactics

Some users complain that LinkedIn aggressively pushes its paid subscriptions through persistent emails and in-app prompts. This can be annoying if you’ve already decided a paid account isn’t for you.

Ongoing cost

Unlike a one-time resume or career coaching purchase, LinkedIn is a recurring subscription. This ongoing cost may be difficult to justify indefinitely.

Should you upgrade to premium?

Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding if it’s worth paying for LinkedIn:

What are your career goals?

If you’re happy in your current job and network, a paid account may not offer enough value. But if you’re actively job hunting, building a consultancy, or expanding your industry presence, premium tools could help.

How much time will you invest?

To justify the cost, you’ll need to devote time to optimizing your expanded network and profile visibility. Occasional users may not see a significant impact from paid features.

What’s your current network size?

Premium makes the most sense for those looking to grow their network. If you already have 5,000+ first-degree connections, the wider access may be less valuable.

Can you get by with free tools?

Consider whether you can achieve some of your goals with free account search filters, groups, and content sharing. These can be effective for basic networking and career management.

Will paid tools impact your bottom line?

For sales roles and recruiters, paid lead gen, prospecting, and hiring tools can have a direct impact on revenue and justify the costs.

LinkedIn Premium vs. Sales Navigator

If you’ve narrowed it down to Premium or Sales Navigator, here’s how they compare:

As you can see, Sales Navigator prioritizes sales-specific tools like lead recommendations, saved leads, and integration with sales automation software. Premium offers a wider set of benefits across networking, learning, and profile building.

Should you pay for multiple LinkedIn subscriptions?

Some heavy LinkedIn users choose to pay for both an individual Premium subscription and a corporate Recruiter or Sales Navigator account. Here are some scenarios where multiple subscriptions could be beneficial:

• A recruiter or HR professional who wants Recruiter for hiring but also uses Premium for their personal brand and network.
• An entrepreneur or consultant who maintains Premium for networking but uses Sales Navigator for lead gen.
• An executive or manager who wants Premium for learning and profile visibility plus Recruiter to source talent.

The key is determining whether you’ll use the unique tools enough to justify paying for both. For most professionals focused on a single role, one paid product will likely meet their needs.

Tips for getting the most from paid LinkedIn

To maximize the value from a paid LinkedIn subscription, focus on actively using the expanded features. Here are some best practices:

Grow your network

Proactively connect with qualified professionals in your industry, leveraging InMail to message those outside your network.

Set search alerts

Get alerts when potential prospects, candidates, or valuable connections join LinkedIn or change jobs.

Use all available InMails

Don’t let those precious direct messages go to waste each month. Use them to reach out to your top targets.

Keep your profile updated

Refresh your profile regularly with new positions, projects, skills, and media to stay visible in search results.

Engage with content

Comment on posts, like, share, and publish your own content to build your professional brand and credibility.

Follow up

When connecting with new contacts, continue the dialog with follow up messages and relationship-building.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, whether one of LinkedIn’s paid subscriptions is a wise investment depends entirely on your career objectives and budget.

For most job seekers and professionals, the free account provides sufficient tools to create an effective profile, build connections, and participate in the LinkedIn community.

Premium and Sales Navigator accounts offer more advantages to those who will utilize the expanded network, messaging, profile visibility, lead gen, and learning features enough to justify the ongoing costs.

Carefully consider which paid plan (if any) aligns closest with your goals and needs. And if you do upgrade, stay active in leveraging all benefits of the membership to maximize value.