LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million users worldwide. It allows members to create profiles, connect with other professionals, find jobs, network, and more. LinkedIn offers several premium subscription plans that provide additional features beyond the free basic account.
Overview of LinkedIn Premium Plans and Pricing in India
There are currently 3 paid subscription options for LinkedIn Premium in India:
- Premium Career – ₹4,200 per month or ₹49,800 per year
- Premium Business – ₹9,900 per month or ₹1,17,588 per year
- Premium Sales – ₹9,900 per month or ₹1,17,588 per year
LinkedIn offers monthly and discounted annual pricing options. The annual plans allow you to save up to 45% compared to paying month-to-month.
Here is an overview of what’s included in each of the premium plans:
LinkedIn Premium Career
- See who’s viewed your profile
- Stand out in search results
- View full profiles of people who’ve viewed yours
- Get insights on how you compare to other applicants
- Request personalised feedback on your profile
- Take skill assessments to showcase your abilities
- Get 1 free premium Career profile highlight per month
- Unlimited profile badge showcase
LinkedIn Premium Business
- All Premium Career features
- Unlimited profile highlights
- Advanced search filters
- InMail messages to reach anyone, even if you’re not connected
- See the names of people who’ve viewed your profile
- Access salary insights
- Interview preparation and coaching
- Customizable analytics and reporting
LinkedIn Premium Sales
- All Premium Business features
- Contact and account insights
- Unlimited Lead recommendations
- Sales navigator chrome extension
- TeamLink collaboraton system
- Sales coaching and content
So in summary, LinkedIn Premium costs between ₹4,200 to ₹9,900 per month in India, depending on which premium plan you choose. The annual subscriptions provide the best value and offer savings of up to 45% compared to monthly billing.
Detailed Breakdown of Premium Features and Benefits
Let’s take a deeper look at some of the key features included with LinkedIn’s premium subscriptions and how they can benefit users in India:
See 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 profiles that have viewed yours.
Premium allows you to unlock the full list of up to 90 recent profile visitors. You’ll see their name, headline, company, location, industry, profile photo, and how they landed on your profile. This visibility allows you to identify relevant connections and pursue networking or business opportunities.
Profile Badges
Premium users can showcase badges on their profile to highlight skills, accomplishments, volunteer work, organizations, and more. This offers a visual way to communicate your expertise and achievements to distinguish your profile.
Advanced Profile Search
Premium unlocks advanced filters and criteria for searching member profiles on LinkedIn. You can target your searches by location, company, job title, industry, skills, degree, and other fields. This allows for precise prospecting to find your ideal connections.
InMail Messages
A key Premium Business and Sales feature is the ability to send InMail messages to anyone on LinkedIn, even if you’re not connected. This allows you to directly reach top executives, recruiters, potential customers, and decision makers.
You get a set number of InMails per month depending on your subscription. InMail typically has high open and response rates compared to other cold outreach methods.
Salary Insights
The premium Business plan provides access to detailed salary data. You can research and benchmark salaries by role, company, location, experience level, skills, education, and other factors. This can help you negotiate job offers and pay raises or set competitive compensation for open roles.
Profile Highlights
Premium allows you to highlight different sections of your profile, such as skills, experiences, education, accomplishments, recommendations, volunteer work, and more. This draws attention to your most relevant strengths.
The Premium Career plan includes 1 highlight per month, while Premium Business has unlimited profile highlights.
Expanded Search Results
With premium, your own profile will show up at the top of some search results. This increases your discoverability and visibility when people search for professionals with your job title, skills, or other keywords relevant to you.
Use Cases and Who Can Benefit from Premium
Here are some of the main use cases and types of users who can get value from upgrading to a LinkedIn Premium subscription:
Job Seekers
For individual contributors and professionals looking for a new job, Premium Career provides insights to optimize your profile, understand how recruiters see you, take assessments to highlight your skills, and see detailed data on who is viewing your profile. This allows you to focus your networking and job applications.
Business Owners and Marketers
Premium Business helps sales, marketing, and business development professionals identify prospects, conduct targeted outreach, showcase thought leadership, and generate more leads. Advanced search and metrics help optimize your approach.
Recruiters and HR Professionals
Premium aids recruiting and talent acquisition by unlocking extended profiles, contacting passive candidates, researching salaries for accurate offers, and sourcing high-quality candidates faster based on advanced search filters and screening questions.
Sales Professionals
Premium Sales provides sales tools to identify contacts at target companies, qualify accounts, expand your network, engage prospects with customized pitches, and close more deals faster.
Anyone Seeking More Connections
Premium helps anyone on LinkedIn build a larger professional network. Features like seeing who views your profile, unlimited InMails, and expanded search allow you to connect with more relevant people and organizations.
Comparing the Different Premium Plans
Here is a comparison of the key differences between the LinkedIn Premium Career, Business, and Sales plans:
| Feature | Premium Career | Premium Business | Premium Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile views | Last 90 days | Full names | Full names |
| InMail messages | None | 25/month | 50/month |
| Search filters | 12 | 20 | 25 |
| Profile highlights | 1/month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Contact / Lead info | None | None | Included |
As you can see, Premium Sales has the most extensive features, followed by Premium Business. Premium Career offers great value for individual users focused on their job search and personal brand.
Premium Pricing Strategies
Here is an overview of some of the pricing and monetization strategies behind LinkedIn’s premium subscription plans:
- Tiered plans – LinkedIn offers multiple premium tiers at different price points with varying features to appeal to users with diverse needs.
- Charging for core features – Key LinkedIn features like profile views, InMail messages, and advanced search are paywalled behind premium plans.
- Individual and company plans – Both individual (Career) and company/sales (Business, Sales) focused offerings are available.
- Monthly and annual pricing – Customers can choose to pay monthly or save up to 45% with discounted annual plans.
- Raising prices over time – LinkedIn has gradually increased premium pricing over the years as the value of its platform continues to grow.
- Special offers and discounts – Introductory deals, student discounts, and occasional promotions incentivize premium upgrades.
- Bundling with Microsoft 365 – LinkedIn Premium is now bundled with some Microsoft 365 business and enterprise subscriptions.
- Free trial offers – 1 to 2 month trials allow users to experience premium before committing to paid plans.
Overall, LinkedIn has developed sophisticated upsell and cross-sell strategies to convert users to paid subscriptions over time. The premium plans deliver high value for active professionals and recruiters on the platform.
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It?
Whether LinkedIn Premium may be worth the investment depends on your individual use case and professional goals on LinkedIn.
Here are some benefits that can make premium worthwhile:
- More job opportunities – Premium helps you stand out, get discovered by recruiters, benchmark skills/salaries, and expand your network to unlock more jobs.
- Faster prospecting – Identify, research and contact more potential clients and business connections in less time.
- Higher response rates – InMail and other premium tools lead to more high-quality responses, meetings, and closed deals.
- Better visibility – Premium profile branding and visibility features attract more profile views, connections, and engagement.
- Deeper insights – Detailed analytics help optimize your profile, content, and approach for greater effectiveness on LinkedIn.
For active job seekers and sales professionals, the ROI can easily justify the subscription cost many times over. Occasional users may find the free account sufficient.
You can try out Premium for free for 1-2 months to evaluate if the features are worthwhile for your personal usage before committing to paid plans.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Premium provides a range of benefits to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level by unlocking additional features, insights and exposure. Premium Career starts at ₹4,200 per month, Premium Business at ₹9,900 per month, and Premium Sales at ₹9,900 per month in India.
Key features like seeing full profile visitors, InMail messages, advanced search filters, profile highlights, and others can help you stand out. Premium is most valuable for job seekers, sales professionals, recruiters, and anyone seeking to maximize their effectiveness on LinkedIn.
While the free account provides basic access, upgrading to premium can significantly expand your reach and impact – helping you land your next job, client, or outstanding hire. The premium subscriptions each serve different functions based on your needs as an individual contributor, marketer, recruiter, or sales rep. Maximizing your LinkedIn presence is vital for today’s hybrid work environment, so review the premium features and consider if investing in a paid plan may be worthwhile.
