LinkedIn for professionals is an irreplaceable Social media network but LinkedIn Premium plans are an extension of this service, and certainly not an affordable service for all users. However, there are a lot of users who find value in the Premium Plan and are permanent subscribers on a monthly basis. Though the cost isn’t too low to access LinkedIn Premium Plan, so the question is that is it worth to pay $30, $60 or $80 to avail these special features? And whether you should opt for it or not?
One of the primary features of LinkedIn Premium is to give access to exclusive job seekers and recruiters or professionals, which justifies the cost of the plan. Whereas, some of them are not so sure to go further for premium platforms and hence they decide to stick to the free version.
Recently in 2017, LinkedIn introduced a new feature in Premium subscription plan, which was focused on making services smoother for both the plans by collecting company details, salary and educational qualification of the users. Also, LinkedIn has started offering a new service i.e. LinkedIn Learning started in 2016. Since then the number of registered users have reached up to 500 million. Few additions like these have helped in the overall growth of LinkedIn as a service as well as a social media network.
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The primary objective of LinkedIn Premium plan is to deliver best possible economic output for the registered members. To categorize and prioritize the services LinkedIn has put them into different categories that starts from $30 to $48 per month for job seekers, $65 per month for sales professionals and $100 for recruiters.
Now, all the three categorize are supposed to get different results and hence their cost is different as per the service they would be getting. If job seekers register for ‘Premium Career Plan’, firstly, they would be getting InMail messages, any LinkedIn user can get these messages without having any connection; secondly, additional details can be viewed of those who have seen the profile and few other tools will be added in order to get attention from the recruiters.
While in the ‘Premium Business Plan’, the quantity of InMail messages will be up to 15 along with advanced search filters and unlimited searches are allowed. The member would be able to access exclusive company data, which is worth spending on.
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Whereas, Sales Navigator Professional Premium Plan enables you to use a lead-builder tool to access lead recommendations and real-time insights with 20 InMail messages, all inclusive at $80 per month. This service is also available at $65 per month for one-time payment option. The same plan is being offered at $100 per month, which includes 30 InMail messages with additional 25 profile unlocks and 10 Point drive presentations.
Lastly, LinkedIn Recruiter Lite Plan costing at $100 per month will include 30 InMail messages with advanced search. Also, it qualifies you to get unlimited visibility on the extended network, automatic candidate tracking with a special recruitment design.
Apart from these premium plans, the major add-ons are LinkedIn Learning and LinkedIn Salary, both were launched in 2016. All four versions of Premium plans are available with these services as well. For job seekers, this feature gives them a chance to stack up salary against other applicants and professionals are able to access unique and exclusive data on specific businesses or industry, which includes Geographic reach, employee turnover, and other insights about competition and more.
Most of the Premium Plan users are from United States, Canada, and Australia, to lure Indians LinkedIn still needs to add more services and features. In fact, LinkedIn is now emphasizing more on improving and adding value to their service to increase the headcount of Premium plan.
To justify the value for money LinkedIn Premium Plan are a bit over-priced for now, though the services are not to be questioned in any way. The only concern here is the affordability, and that’s what LinkedIn has to work on, so as to improve its reach and a lot more connection and contacts can be connected on LinkedIn.
