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LinkedIn Premium or Free Account – Which Should You Have?
Creating a LinkedIn account is free, and many features are open to a person with a free account, so you can take advantage of many of the benefits of LinkedIn as soon as you sign up.
You can also choose to pay a monthly fee for a premium or payment account to access additional features or communication options.
LinkedIn offers tailor-made products for companies that want to leverage LinkedIn for their sales team or for their HR staff when recruiting.
Free accounts compared to payment / premium variants on LinkedIn
There is no big difference between a free account and a premium/payment account on Linkedin.
The basic account is actually not very “basic”, other than the name.
Your free account allows you to use most of LinkedIn’s most popular features, including:
- Build your network of contacts with no size limit.
- Network with any member on LinkedIn, as long as they want to network with you.
- Create a professional and detailed LinkedIn profile.
- Give and receive as many recommendations as you want.
- Join or create up to 50 different LinkedIn groups.
- Ask for up to five introductions per opportunity. If someone accepts your introduction, you can use it again.
- Search indefinitely on contacts in your extended network.
If you decide you want to get a premium account, you will be able to:
- Send a message to anyone on LinkedIn – whether this person is on your network or not – via InMail.
- Send more introductions than through a free account.
- View more and more detailed profiles of people who are outside your network when using advanced search.
- You can always see who is visiting your profile, with extended information, and how they found your profile.
- Make a reference check on a profile.
- Obtain a membership in the OpenLink Program, which gives you unlimited access to OpenLink messages.
LinkedIn premium accounts
LinkedIn offers a couple of different levels of premium accounts, each variant with different benefits and features. The most up-to-date variant of what LinkedIn offers can be found here on LinkedIn’s Compare Account Type page.
Of course, you can also click the “upgrade” button in the top right corner when logged in, under the accounts & settings button, to see a comparison.
Benefits of Linkedin Premium accounts
- Unlimited reference searches
- OpenLink membership
- Access to unlimited with OpenLink or a larger amount of InMail message
- Ability to see detailed information about those who visit your profile
- Access to premium content
- 24-hour customer service for your LinkedIn questions
LinkedIn offers 3 different types of premium packages based on your role/needs: Job Seeker (for those looking for a job), Business Plus, and Executive.
Each account level comes with specific features:
Job Seeker
- 5 inMails per month, with a 7-day response guarantee, so if you do not receive your inMail within 7 days, you will receive a new inMail.
- Expanded profile search, with a total of 250 search results outside your network when you search.
- 15 introductions that you can use to use your own contacts to open new dialogues with people outside your network.
Business Plus
- 10 inMails per month, with a 7 day response guarantee. Unused InMails rolls over to a new month (up to 30).
- Expanded view of profiles that viewed your profile, as well as expanded search of up to 500 results outside your contact network.
- 25 introductions that you can use to use your own contacts to open new dialogues with people outside your network.
Executive
- 25 inMails per month, with a 7-day response guarantee.
- Unused InMails rolls over to a new month (up to 30).
- Expanded view of profiles that viewed your profile, as well as expanded search of up to 700 results outside your contact network.
- 35 introductions that you can use to use your own contacts to open new dialogues with people outside your network.
- Full view of other third-party profiles from you in your network or in group contacts. (Other premium accounts only give you want information on these people.)
What is the benefit of having a LinkedIn premium account?
In addition to all the features and functions listed above, there are a few more things.
If you have a premium account and are looking for a job via the “apply” button on new job listings on LinkedIn, your application will end up with a LinkedIn “badge” next to your name.
LinkedIn also gives you access to special content in the form of mail, video, articles that give you tips and advice from leaders in digital and social.
Above all, you have the opportunity to see who has viewed your profile fully, which can help you contact a new prospectus and access to send messages to people without having their email address through InMails.
We also see a great benefit from being able to save information about your contacts.
When you have a premium account, you get the opportunity to use features to fill in how you met, create reminders to reconnect with the contact and tag the contact with optional tags.
So our suggestion is this: When you “hit the ceiling” and feel that you are limited in your purpose (prospecting, looking for a job) on LinkedIn, it’s time to upgrade. Automating your account with one of the 13 Best LinkedIn Bots & Automation Tools is a good marketing option.
