LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. LinkedIn offers two paid subscription plans for sales and recruiting professionals: Sales Navigator and Premium. These plans provide additional features beyond the free LinkedIn account to help find new prospects, build relationships, and close more deals. This article will compare Sales Navigator vs Premium to help you decide which plan is right for your sales and recruiting needs.
Overview of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Premium Plans
LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Premium are paid subscription plans that unlock more LinkedIn features for sales, recruiting, and branding. Here is a quick overview of each plan:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Designed specifically for sales and business development professionals
- Helps identify, connect with, and build relationships with key decision makers
- Provides lead recommendations, saves leads, and alerts on key account updates
- Enables advanced searching and filtering of LinkedIn profiles
- Shows how you are connected to prospects with connection insights
- Pricing starts at $64.99/month for the Professional plan
LinkedIn Premium
- Designed for sales, recruiting, and branding professionals
- Gives more search filters, messages, and profile views
- Provides data on who’s viewed your profile and content
- Lets you publish long-form posts and videos
- Gives access to unlimited LinkedIn Learning courses
- Pricing starts at $29.99/month for the Premium plan
While there is some overlap, Sales Navigator focuses solely on sales while Premium has a broader focus across sales, recruiting, and branding. Sales Navigator provides more sales-specific features while Premium offers a wider range of general features.
Key Differences Between Sales Navigator and Premium
While Sales Navigator and Premium share some similarities, there are some key differences between the two plans. Here are some of the most important distinctions:
Lead Recommendations
One of the core features of Sales Navigator is lead recommendations. It uses predictive analytics and AI matching to automatically recommend relevant prospects for you to connect with. Premium does not include lead recommendations.
Advanced Search and Filtering
Sales Navigator enables more advanced searching and filtering of LinkedIn member profiles. You can search by industry, job title, company size, location, skills, and more. Premium offers basic search filters.
Saved Leads and Alerts
With Sales Navigator, you can save leads to organize your prospects and accounts. You also get alerts when leads make changes or updates on LinkedIn that could signal opportunities. These features are not available in Premium.
Connection Insights
The Connections tab in Sales Navigator shows how you are connected to 2nd and 3rd degree connections. This helps you leverage your connections to reach prospects. Premium does not offer connection insights.
Publishing
Premium allows you to publish long-form posts and videos to showcase thought leadership. Sales Navigator focuses just on profile and messaging capability.
Unlimited Learning Courses
Premium includes unlimited access to over 16,000 courses on LinkedIn Learning for professional development. Sales Navigator does not include Learning access.
Profile Views and Who’s Viewed Your Profile
With Premium, you can see how many times your profile and content has been viewed. You can also see who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days. Sales Navigator does not include these profile view analytics.
Sales Navigator vs Premium Use Cases
Whether Sales Navigator or Premium is the better choice depends on your specific profession and use cases. Here is how they compare for sales, recruiting, and personal branding use cases:
Sales Professionals
For salesprofessionals, Sales Navigator is clearly the better choice. It provides lead recommendations, advanced searches, saved leads, alerts, and other sales-focused features. Premium has some sales benefits but lacks the robust suite of sales tools.
Recruiters
For recruiters, Premium delivers more value with unlimited LinkedIn Learning access, long-form content publishing, and analytics on profile views. Sales Navigator has fewer specific recruiting features.
Personal Brand / Thought Leadership
Premium is better suited for personal branding and thought leadership thanks to long-form content publishing and the ability to see profile view analytics. Sales Navigator is not focused on content and branding.
Use Both Together
Power users can utilize both Sales Navigator and Premium together to enjoy the full suite of sales and branding capabilities LinkedIn offers. However, that requires paying for both plans.
Sales Navigator vs Premium: Feature Comparison
Here is a detailed feature comparison between LinkedIn Sales Navigator vs Premium plans:
Feature | Sales Navigator | Premium |
---|---|---|
Lead Recommendations | Yes | No |
Advanced Search Filters | Yes | Basic Filters Only |
Saved Leads | Yes | No |
Lead Alerts | Yes | No |
Connection Insights | Yes | No |
Long-form Content Publishing | No | Yes |
LinkedIn Learning Courses | No | Unlimited Access |
Profile View Analytics | No | Yes |
Sales Navigator Plans and Pricing
Sales Navigator offers four paid plans at different price points. Higher-priced plans unlock more features and capabilities.
Plan | Price | Key Features |
---|---|---|
Professional | $64.99/month | Lead recommendations, saved leads, basic search filters |
Team | $109.99/month | Everything in Professional plus team link reports |
Business | $249.99/month | Everything in Team plus advanced lead analytics |
Enterprise | Custom Quote | Everything in Business plus custom onboarding and insights |
Premium Plans and Pricing
LinkedIn Premium comes in three plans with annual pricing at a discount compared to monthly pricing.
Plan | Monthly Price | Annual Price (25% savings) |
---|---|---|
Premium | $29.99/month | $239.88/year |
Premium Career | $39.99/month | $359.88/year |
Premium Business | $59.99/month | $479.88/year |
Conclusion
Sales Navigator and Premium both offer additional capabilities for LinkedIn users but cater to different focuses. Sales Navigator is purpose-built for sales professions to identify prospects and close more deals. Premium allows greater content publishing and analytics for recruiting, branding, and thought leadership.
For most sales professionals, Sales Navigator delivers far more value with robust sales tools lacking in Premium. Recruiters and those focused on branding get more mileage from Premium’s offerings like unlimited Learning courses and long-form posts.
The best option depends on your budget, target use cases, and specific needs. But for dedicated salespeople who live on LinkedIn daily, Sales Navigator provides the clear advantage.