LinkedIn Premium is LinkedIn’s subscription service that provides users with additional features and benefits beyond the free version. Premium helps users get the most out of LinkedIn for recruiting, business development, career advancement and more. But what exactly do you get with a Premium subscription?
Benefits of LinkedIn Premium
Here is an overview of the main benefits offered with LinkedIn Premium:
- See who’s viewed your profile
- See how you rank for profile views compared to others in your industry and location
- Contact info for anyone who has viewed your profile
- Unlimited InMail messages
- Know when your messages have been read
- See full profiles of your 3rd-degree connections
- Get introduced through a connection
- Standby support from LinkedIn experts
- 30-day free trial
Next, let’s take a detailed look at each of these key benefits.
Who’s Viewed Your Profile
One of the most popular Premium features is the ability to see who has viewed your profile recently. With a free account, you can only see the last 5 profile views. With Premium, you get unlimited profile view tracking so you can see all the recruiters, hiring managers, prospects, partners and others who are looking at your profile.
This allows you to identify which companies and people are interested in you. You may discover recent profile views from your dream employer or a hot prospect you want to connect with. Or you can uncover patterns like certain companies viewing you over and over, indicating they may be gearing up to make you a job offer.
Profile View Insights
In addition to seeing your recent profile viewers, Premium provides insights on how your profile views stack up. You can see the number of weekly and monthly views compared to the average for people with similar job titles and locations. This allows you to benchmark your profile visibility and determine if you need to boost your networking and search optimization to get more profile traffic.
Full Contact Info for Profile Viewers
For many LinkedIn members, the ability to see full contact information for your profile viewers may be one of the biggest advantages of upgrading. With the free version, you only see the name, headline and company for your recent viewers with no way to contact them.
Premium members can click on any profile viewer to see their full public contact info if they’ve added it to their profile. This includes email address, phone number, Twitter handle, website URL and more. Imagine being able to instantly email that recruiter who keeps looking at your profile or message the sales prospect who’s suddenly taking an interest in you.
Unlimited InMail Messages
One of LinkedIn’s best features for making connections is InMail messaging. This allows you to directly contact any LinkedIn member without needing to connect first. Great for reaching elite executives and hard-to-contact prospects. The problem is that free members only get 5 InMails per month before having to pay per message.
With Premium, your InMail limit is removed so you can send unlimited messages. You can cold contact anyone on LinkedIn no matter how big your prospect list is. This is a huge advantage for sales development, recruiting and business development.
Know When Your InMails are Read
Premium also upgrades your InMail experience by letting you know when your messages have been opened. This allows you to easily see which prospect messages are getting attention vs. being ignored. You can then follow up with another message for hot leads who open your initial InMail.
See Full Profiles of 3rd-Degree Connections
Growing your LinkedIn network is critical for opportunity and visibility. A Premium account allows you to go deeper into your extended network by seeing the full profiles of your 3rd-degree connections. This network expansion lets you browse the profiles and contact info of people well outside your existing connections.
You can discover and connect with qualified prospects, industry experts, potential partners and more through your 3rd-degree network. Great for identifying hidden gems who can help you achieve your career and business goals.
Get Introduced Through Connections
LinkedIn Premium makes it easier to connect with the right people through shared connections. You can send messages asking any of your 1st-degree connections for an introduction to one of their connections. This allows you to tap into the power of your network for making valuable new contacts.
And if the person agrees to the introduction, they can write a personal note to help kickoff the relationship in a positive way. This is great for reaching decision makers and qualified prospects who otherwise might ignore a cold outreach.
Premium Support from LinkedIn Experts
All Premium members get access to LinkedIn’s standby customer support team. This means you can get personalized help optimizing your profile and LinkedIn strategy from their team of experts.
You can contact them directly by email, web chat or phone. Some key ways they can help include:
- Profile optimization – Ensure your profile attracts your ideal opportunities
- Networking advice – Best ways to grow your meaningful connections
- Job search strategies – Help applying for jobs and reaching recruiters
- Using LinkedIn tools – Mastering Premium features and getting the most out of LinkedIn
Having LinkedIn specialists ready to help you can really give your efforts a boost compared to trying to figure everything out on your own.
30-Day Free Trial
If you’re on the fence about whether LinkedIn Premium is worth the investment, you can try it out risk-free. LinkedIn offers a 30-day free trial to sample all the Premium features.
After signing up, you have 30 days to experience the benefits for yourself before deciding if you want to continue. Many people sign up planning to just test it out, but end up gaining so much value that it’s an easy decision to pay the subscription at the end of the trial.
LinkedIn Premium Plans and Pricing
LinkedIn currently offers four Premium subscription options at different price points. Here is an overview of the plans and pricing:
| Plan | Price per Month | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Premium Career | $29.99 | Profile views, InMail, Network expansion |
| Premium Business | $59.99 | Everything in Premium Career plus business insights about your brand, competitors and partners |
| Premium Sales | $64.99 | Premium Business features plus additional sales insights and lead recommendations |
| Premium Hiring | $99.95 | Premium Business features plus Recruiter Lite recruitment and hiring tools |
As you can see, Premium Career is the basic package focused on individual benefits while the higher-priced options add more analytics and tools tailored to sales, business development, recruiting and hiring.
All plans can be paid monthly or get a discount for paying annually upfront. And the 30-day free trial applies to any of the Premium levels to test it out.
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It?
Whether LinkedIn Premium is worth the investment depends on your individual needs and how you plan to use it. Here are some key benefits that may make Premium worthwhile for you:
- Looking for a job – Premium can help you find the right opportunities and get noticed by more recruiters which can dramatically shorten your job search. The profile views, InMail messages and network expansion in Premium are invaluable for candidates.
- Prospecting – For salespeople and business development pros, Premium can pay for itself quickly by enabling you to identify, research and contact more prospects. Unlimited InMail and network growth are game-changers.
- Recruiting – Premium includes several tools to find, contact and manage candidates more easily. Unlimited InMails help engage more prospects.
- Career advancement – People looking to grow their careers often find Premium’s profile and network-building features accelerate their progress.
- Lead generation – Marketers, agencies and consultants can tap into Premium to expand reach and generate more inbound leads.
In general, Premium works best for those who will use the tools extensively as part of their active job search, sales process, recruiting needs or career strategy. For more casual users, the free tools may be sufficient for their needs.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Premium provides a robust set of additional features and benefits for enhancing your experience on LinkedIn. The ability to see who’s viewed your profile, contact anyone who’s looked at your profile, send unlimited InMails and expand your network can give your career and business efforts a big boost.
Premium also provides insights to benchmark your performance as well insight into sales leads, talent pools and brand presence. For those actively using LinkedIn as a core work tool, the Premium features often deliver a high ROI and are well worth the monthly investment. But more casual users may do fine sticking with LinkedIn’s free offerings.
