The LinkedIn social network has developed several free LinkedIn and premium subscription offers. In this article, I decipher these offers for you, and reveal which is the best free LinkedIn subscription. 👇
But then, how do you know which one you’ll be able to reach 100% of LinkedIn’s potential with? 🔥 What features do these subscriptions offer, and at what price? I reveal it all here!
Is LinkedIn Free or Paid?
The answer is yes, and no… 🤔 Here are the differences between a free and a premium LinkedIn account.
With a Basic (free) account, you can:
- Find and network with colleagues and alumni.
- Get and give recommendations.
- Search and view profiles of other LinkedIn members.
- Receive unlimited InMail.
- Save up to 3 searches and receive weekly notifications.
But, LinkedIn also offers several paid or “Premium” subscriptions from which members can choose according to their needs. 🔎
With premium accounts, you can:
- Premium Career helps you get hired and grow professionally.
- Sales Navigator helps you generate leads and develop your customer base.
- Recruiter Lite helps you find and hire talent.
- Premium Business helps you grow your business with in-depth sales information.
- LinkedIn Learning courses helps you strengthen your skills and acquire new ones.
However, premium offers come with a hefty price tag. 🙊 Let’s take a look at how to get a high-performance LinkedIn account, and above all, for free! 🚀
What is LinkedIn Premium?
You may already know this, but signing up for LinkedIn is totally free, as it is for other social networks like Facebook, for example. 🤗
However, to benefit from all the features provided on the platform, you’ll need to subscribe to one of the LinkedIn premium subscriptions. 🧐
Many users wonder whether they have a real advantage in taking out a LinkedIn premium account, or whether the free account is enough. 🤷♀️
To know which one to choose, it’s worth determining your profile needs and monitoring the activity you have on LinkedIn, all of which will depend on whether you’re a recruiter, jobseeker, freelancer, etc. 🤓
If you spend little time on LinkedIn, it won’t seem necessary to take out a premium LinkedIn subscription. ⌛
On the contrary, if you’ve understood the usefulness of having a LinkedIn account for your business, and you want to attract the attention of your target 🧲, then it’s worth knowing about the different subscriptions offered by LinkedIn.
So you’re wondering about the different LinkedIn premium subscriptions and their prices, aren’t you? 🤔
What are the different LinkedIn paid subscriptions?
Basically, there are 4 LinkedIn premium subscription offers: 🏆
- The Career / “Essentials” account, to help you find a job.
- The Business / “Premium pro” account, to develop your network.
- The “Sales Navigator” account, to boost your B2B sales.
- The “Recruiter Lite” account, for your recruitment efforts.
- (You also have the “Learning” account, to improve your skills).
You’ll find all the details on LinkedIn Premium subscriptions here! 🔎
Which LinkedIn subscription should I choose?
LinkedIn offers a Basic account (free) as well as Premium subscriptions that you can try for free for a month. 🤩
With a Basic account, you can:
- Find and connect with people you know.
- Solicit and grant recommendations on your new skills.
- Search and view profiles of other network members.
- Receive an unlimited number of InMails (or block them if you wish).
- Save up to 3 searches and receive weekly alerts.
LinkedIn also offers various paid or Premium subscription plans, from which you can choose according to your needs. 🧐
Get your first customers this week
Take advantage of the power of Waalaxy to generate leads every day. Start prospecting for free, today.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a paid LinkedIn account?
Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of a paid LinkedIn account.
Paid LinkedIn Advantages
So, if you want to know the differences between a free and a paid account, here is a comparison chart with the advantages of LinkedIn Premium:
Premium subscriptions offer features such as: 👇
- Have a LinkedIn premium badge on your profile.
- Find everyone who sees or visits your LinkedIn profile.
- Contact all LinkedIn members directly via InMail.
- Increase the impact of your interactions.
- Send more cold emails.
- Free access to LinkedIn premium company pages.
- Get more visibility, etc.
Once again, it’s up to you to assess your prospecting needs on LinkedIn or elsewhere, so you can choose the best solution. 🔎
LinkedIn Paid Disadvantages
However, there are a few disadvantages to LinkedIn premium, firstly premium subscriptions are expensive, and secondly, you’ll quickly be limited in your LinkedIn actions, i.e. the number of searches, sending connection requests, and much more. 😩
That’s why we’re presenting you with a solution to bundle all the features of LinkedIn premium + automate for your multichannel prospecting (e-mails) at a lower cost: Waalaxy subscriptions, of course!
🤫 But we’ll talk more about this solution, right after. ✨
How much does a LinkedIn paid subscription cost?
Now it’s time to reveal the prices of LinkedIn Premium subscriptions. 🤐
LinkedIn subscription prices
- The annual fee for the “Career” / Essentials subscription is €24.78 per month.
- The “Recruiter Lite” recruitment account costs €85.25 per month, annually.
- The “Pro” / Business subscription costs €44.62 per month, annually.
- The “Sales Navigator” is €59.49 per month, annual.
(Psst! You’ll see, this has nothing to do with Waalaxy’s annual rates. 👈)
How to get LinkedIn Premium for free?
Nevertheless, if you need to take out a paid LinkedIn subscription, of the Sales Navigator type for businesses, here’s a “hack” that will save your sales team a lot of money! 🤑
Let’s take a look at what it’s all about? 💡
There are 2 methods to get a free premium LinkedIn account and benefit from its features for free. 👇
1. Subscribe to the LinkedIn Premium free trial
The price of LinkedIn premium depends on the subscription you choose. The cheapest is around 25 euros per month (Career Premium). 🤔
However, you need to be convinced of its usefulness before taking out a premium subscription. For example, LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to test premium offers free of charge for one month. 👀
Here are the steps to subscribe to LinkedIn Premium for free:
- Connect your LinkedIn profile.
- In the tab that appears, click on Free Premium Account next to the “Products” tab in the top right-hand corner.
- Answer the question, “What do you expect from a premium membership?”
- And choose from the available answers, so that LinkedIn can offer you a paid subscription tailored to your needs.
- Then click on “Start my free month”.
However, if the premium plan you’ve chosen doesn’t meet your expectations at the end of this free month, remember to cancel or risk being billed. 🔔 You can manage your LinkedIn Premium account here! 👈
2. Get a free LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is one of LinkedIn’s most comprehensive Premium offers. It’s supposed to be a prospecting tool, but it’s much more than that! 👀
It allows you to expand your network, to look for candidates as a recruiter or to look for a job, but also to develop your sales if that’s your goal. 🎯
However, it’s still a pretty expensive tool, especially in case you need to acquire it for all your sales people, and you’ve just launched your business. 🙊
That’s why we’ve concocted a little article on how to pay for just one LinkedIn Sales Navigator account for your whole team, with multiple Waalaxy accounts. 🤫
Of course, this is only possible when you have a paid subscription in Waalaxy.🪐 For example, with our “Team” subscription, your team will have access to other members’ campaigns and lead lists. (This subscription is the most comprehensive of all!) 😍
How to get LinkedIn Free?
To get LinkedIn free, you can subscribe to the basic plan. 🪙 The free plan gives you basic LinkedIn functionality.
It’s perfectly possible to use free LinkedIn to develop your business and your “personal branding”, without paying for a premium offer. However, if you want to go further and access certain features, you may be prompted to choose one of the 4 LinkedIn premium subscriptions, seen above… 👀
However, we have a solution to this dilemma: Waalaxy! 👽 You’ll be able to have the benefits of a LinkedIn Premium offering, like Sales Navigator + the features of free LinkedIn + a CRM, all with the same automation tool.
Crazy, isn’t it?! 😜
You can enjoy all of LinkedIn’s premium features, without paying a single penny… Want to know how? ⚠️
How to use LinkedIn without paying?
If you don’t want to pay for LinkedIn Premium, the solution is to combine a paid LinkedIn trial period with a Waalaxy plan!!! 🚀 With Waalaxy’s “Freemium” version, you’ll have all the benefits of LinkedIn premium, but doing your wallet some good. 😇
You’ll be able to search for prospects on LinkedIn, and transfer them to your Waalaxy CRM to then send them automated sequences of actions (connection requests, messages, visits, follow-up emails…). 🔥
No need for a promo code or restrictive trial periods, you can test Waalaxy in advanced version for 7 days, without having to register your bank card. 🙏
You can then use the free or paid version, as you wish. ⚡ It’s uncompromising, and if you ever want to cancel, it’s just a click away!
Conclusion: LinkedIn Free or Paid?
You now know more about the different packages offered by LinkedIn Premium. 🤑 If you use LinkedIn daily to look for work or as part of your professional activity, it would be wiser to consider taking out a LinkedIn Premium free subscription. 🤔
However, why bother with several paid tools (emailing and LinkedIn), when you can manage all your B2B prospecting in a single automation platform? 👽
Think about generating more “reach”, more easily and more quickly with Waalaxy, than with LinkedIn’s premium subscriptions. 🤫
Don’t hesitate any longer and try it for free today. 👽
FAQ: LinkedIn Free
Is LinkedIn Premium useful or not?
Once you’ve optimized your profile and set your goals, you can see if a premium offer is of interest to you. 🤨
If you’re a jobseeker, you’ll want to put all the chances on your side, and premium offers can help you do that. With more visibility, you can contact recruiters directly, etc. 💼
Having a LinkedIn Premium account can be nice, but it’s really useless if:
- You don’t have enough connections on LinkedIn.
- You’re not prospecting and/or don’t have a CRM.
- You don’t hire often.
- Your profile is not optimized.
It’s nicer to have a LinkedIn free subscription and an automation tool that does everything for you, isn’t it? 😉
How do I cancel my LinkedIn free trial?
Would you like to cancel your Premium subscription, but don’t know how? The cancel button has recently been moved to the new version of LinkedIn. 😬 But don’t worry, I’ll show you how:
- First, go to your “You” profile and choose “Preferences and Privacy” from the drop-down menu.
- Then go to the “Account preferences” > “Subscriptions and payments” section of this page. Then click on “Change” in the “Premium Subscription” section.
- Inside, you’ll see the “Manage subscription” > “Cancel subscription” or “Close” option.
- Afterward, you’ll be redirected to another LinkedIn page to show you your “After cancellation” subscription, and they even offer you to “Change plan” instead of cancelling (they really don’t want you to leave! 🤪).
- Click on “Continue cancellation” anyway.
- You’ll still get a pop-up to reconfirm whether you really want to cancel or not.
- Then select the reason for cancellation and click the “Continue cancellation” button again.
- Finally, you’ll get a final pop-up to “Confirm cancellation” but they’ll still present you with a 50% promo code to stay. 🥵
Oh la la, this is very exhausting! 🤯
There are +7 steps before you can cancel, whereas with Waalaxy you can do it at any time from your “Configurations” and with just one click, but I guarantee you wouldn’t want to do that! 😏
Is it free to have a LinkedIn profile?
Yes, having a LinkedIn profile is free! Besides, it’s possible to consult LinkedIn without an account, but there are limits. 😬 You can access public profiles via a search engine like Google, by typing the person’s name on LinkedIn.
However, you’ll only be able to see public information, such as job title, key experience and core competencies. 👉 To find out more, such as publications or interactions, an account is required.
Some sections, such as groups or company details, are completely inaccessible without a subscription. ❌ If you plan to use LinkedIn regularly, you should create a free account for a better experience.
Now you have all the info about LinkedIn free or paid. But, why pay more, if you can have an all-in-one automation tool with Waalaxy? 😉
