LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator: worth the spend?

Key takeaways

Is LinkedIn Premium worth it for business? Only if you actively prospect. Premium and Sales Navigator help you find and message specific buyers, which pays back for B2B firms doing outreach every week. For businesses that mainly post content and wait for enquiries, the free version does almost everything needed.

• Worth it if you prospect specific buyers every week.
• Sales Navigator suits structured B2B outreach to named accounts.
• Free LinkedIn covers posting, a company page and messaging contacts.
• Use a free trial with a written goal before paying.

What does the paid version add?

Premium plans add features such as seeing more of who viewed your profile and InMail credits to message people outside your network. Sales Navigator adds detailed search filters, saved lead lists and alerts when accounts change. Prices and features vary by plan and change over time, so check current UK pricing.

• Social media budget for a UK small business
• Reaching B2B decision makers on social media

How do you know it will pay back?

Work back from one client. If an average new client is worth thousands of pounds in gross profit and Sales Navigator helps you start even one extra sales conversation that converts each quarter, it pays for itself. If you will not use it weekly, it will not.

How should you test it?

Start a free trial with a written goal: build a list of 50 target accounts, send 20 personalised messages and book three conversations. If you hit it, the paid plan is earning its place. If the trial ends with the list half built, the problem is time, not tools.

• Build a list of 50 target accounts.
• Send 20 personalised messages.
• Book three conversations.
• Decide at the end of the trial.

Is LinkedIn advertising a better use of the money?

Sometimes. Premium suits one-to-one outreach by a founder or salesperson. LinkedIn ads suit reaching many people by job title, but usually need a larger budget to test properly. For most small B2B firms, a free profile, regular posts and personal outreach come first.

• LinkedIn ads mistakes that burn B2B budgets

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a founder pays for Premium for a year but never builds a prospect list, so the subscription becomes a cost with no return. A weekly half-hour outreach routine is usually the difference between Premium paying back and not.

• See client work
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

LinkedIn Premium checklist

• Decide whether you will prospect weekly.
• Choose Premium or Sales Navigator by your outreach volume.
• Set a written goal for the free trial.
• Block weekly time for outreach in the diary.
• Cancel if the goal is missed.

• How much to spend on retargeting ads
• What a £100 a month social media budget can do

Next step

Write down how many new prospects you would contact each week if you had better search tools. If the honest answer is very few, keep the free version.