Almost every person I talk to and train on LinkedIn asks if they 'have' to be premium; 

My answer is always that if you’re 'hunting' (meaning that you’re actively searching for prospects of some nature), then you definitely need to be premium and that you’ll find it’s an investment and not an expense.

For those on tight budgets, you’ve been able to get by on the free level, but not necessarily for much longer.

LinkedIn recently announced that there are limits now in place for “commercial use” of LinkedIn which is tied to the number of searches you do. The limit is not published and it is based on your past month’s activity. If you go from no searching to massive searching, you’re going to hit the limit pretty quick.

That also means that you need to be consistent with your search activity to keep your limit as high as possible within the free level.

You may be wondering, how will I know when I reach my limit?

Well, when you have used 70% of your searches and there are only 30% left, you will receive a message on LinkedIn that you’re nearing your limit.

That message will stay visible and adjust every 5% with your updated usage statistics until you reset at the beginning of the next month. These limits only affect users with a free account. If you’re premium, there are no limits.

The trade off �" LinkedIn is no longer hiding last names for anyone (unless the members choose to with their own visibility settings). So LinkedIn giveth and taketh away.

LinkedIn has streamlined its Premium account levels, but that means that the account level that

I’ve always recommended in the past for sales professionals is now more expensive. The lowest level Premium is $29.99 per month and targeted to job seekers. It does not give you the extra search filters that are critical for developing laser focused prospect searches.

The Business Premium is $59.99 per month. It gives you the search filters you need, extra search results, saved searches and InMails. That’s the level of Premium that most sales people should start at. I always recommend starting with a lower level package and if you’re maxing out the usage of that package’s benefits then upgrade.

Sales Navigator is a whole other animal now. It’s a completely separate platform that is streamlined for prospecting. It’s not going to distract you with conversations, status updates, and groups. It really is for the power sales person who needs to be mining large quantities of prospects. It syncs with Salesforce for a power couple of sales activity. The good thing is that they’ve brought the price down on it from where it started and is $79.99 per month.

The bottom line is that if you’re using LinkedIn for sales and business development, you need to have some level of premium. LinkedIn is offering free trials for you to see the benefits for yourself so take advantage of them.

Crystal Thies, The LinkedIn Ninja, and Art Sobczak