1
A confirmation screen
It names the plan, the amount charged and your next payment date. Screenshot it — if anything goes wrong later, that screen is the fastest evidence of what you bought.
To buy LinkedIn Premium, log in on a desktop browser, open LinkedIn’s Premium page, compare the plans, choose Premium Career or Premium Business, pick monthly or annual billing, enter a card, and confirm. Premium switches on for the account you are already logged into, usually within a minute. There is no separate store and no activation code.
That is the whole answer, and it is oddly hard to find. Search this question and you mostly get articles about getting Premium free, written by companies selling something else — several last updated in 2024, one carrying a 2025 headline over a 2026 web address. This page does the boring, useful thing instead: the real click path, the real payment screen, the renewal behaviour, and the two places people lose track of a subscription they already paid for.
LinkedIn is a trademark of LinkedIn Corporation. Searcora Digital Ltd is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially partnered with LinkedIn unless stated otherwise.
LinkedIn sells several paid tiers and the names hide the differences. Picking wrong is the expensive mistake here, because switching later usually means cancelling and re-buying.
| Plan | LinkedIn list price | Built for | The feature that decides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Career | Widely reported around $39.99/month | Job seekers | Applicant insights — how you compare with everyone else who applied |
| Premium Business | Reported $59.99–$69.99/month | Founders, consultants, business development | Unlimited profile browsing and fuller company data |
| Sales Navigator Core | $119.99/month | Individual sellers | Lead lists and saved searches with alerts |
| Sales Navigator Advanced | $159.99/month | Sales teams | TeamLink, Smart Links and buyer-intent signals |
| Sales Navigator Advanced Plus | Not published by LinkedIn | Enterprise | CRM sync; sold through LinkedIn’s sales team only |
| Recruiter Lite | No single clean public figure | In-house hiring | Candidate pipelines and hiring-specific search filters |
Check LinkedIn’s own site for your price. Published third-party figures for these plans conflict badly — we found the same annual Premium Career price quoted as two numbers 50% apart in the same month. Our full breakdown of that mess is on the LinkedIn Premium cost page.
Two honest steers. Most people weighing Career against Business want Career; Business earns the gap only if you browse profiles heavily. And if you prospect for a living, Business will not stand in for Sales Navigator — different search engine, different data. Read what Career does, what Business adds, or whether Sales Navigator is worth it before you spend anything.
Do this on a desktop browser, not in the phone app. The reason is further down this page, and it is the commonest way people lose track of a subscription they paid for.
| What LinkedIn asks for | Detail | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Card details | Name, long number, expiry, security code | Credit and debit both work; virtual cards are sometimes declined |
| Billing address | Street, city, postcode, country | Determines the tax added and the currency you are charged in |
| Alternative methods | PayPal in some markets | Availability depends on your country, not your preference |
| Not accepted | Gift cards, vouchers, cryptocurrency | LinkedIn bills a recurring subscription, so it needs a re-chargeable method |
LinkedIn prices regionally, so figures differ between countries. Your billing country follows your payment method and address, and misrepresenting either to reach a cheaper market is a terms problem you do not want attached to a professional account.
If you are eligible and have not used one recently, take the trial before you buy anything from anyone, including us. It is the cheapest month of Premium available and it is the honest first answer to this question.
The trial normally runs one month, and LinkedIn still requires a valid card up front — there is no card-free route, and pages promising one are describing something else. Eligibility is checked automatically at the plan chooser: LinkedIn’s help pages state you cannot start one if you have had a trial recently or already hold a paid subscription. If you are not eligible the option simply does not appear, which is why people assume it has been withdrawn.
Conversion is what catches people. The trial does not lapse quietly. On the day it ends, your card is charged at full list price for whichever plan and billing term you chose when you started — and if you picked annual during the trial, the first charge is the whole year. You keep the free month only by cancelling before the final day. Cancelling does not end the trial early, so there is no reason to leave it late. You also cannot usually switch plans mid-trial.
The genuinely free routes — trials, veteran and student programmes, employer-provided seats — are listed on LinkedIn Premium free, with the Sales Navigator equivalent on the free trial page.
Annual billing lowers the price per month on every LinkedIn plan. That does not make it cheaper. It makes it cheaper per month you use, and the whole year is charged in one go on day one.
| If you need Premium for | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Cheaper in total |
|---|---|---|---|
| One month | One charge, cancel after | Twelve months paid up front | Monthly |
| Three months | Three charges | Twelve months paid up front | Monthly |
| Six months | Six charges | Twelve months paid up front | Monthly |
| The full twelve months | Twelve charges at the higher rate | One discounted charge | Annual |
| Indefinitely | Twelve charges a year, every year | One discounted charge a year | Annual |
LinkedIn displays the annual saving on the plan chooser itself; read the figure there rather than from a blog, because it varies by plan and country. The trap is the renewal shape. An annual subscription does not roll into monthly billing at the end — it renews as another full year, in one payment, on the anniversary. The people surprised in January are usually the ones who bought a year for a job hunt that finished in March.
So the real question is not monthly or annual. It is how long you actually need this. A job search runs two to three months; a sales quarter runs three. If your honest answer is under a year, the annual discount is a discount on months you will not use.
Four things, in this order, normally inside a couple of minutes.
It names the plan, the amount charged and your next payment date. Screenshot it — if anything goes wrong later, that screen is the fastest evidence of what you bought.
It arrives at the email address on your LinkedIn account, not the one on your card. If it has not appeared within an hour, check that address rather than assuming the payment failed.
A gold Premium badge shows next to your name on your own profile and in search results. Nothing else about your profile changes — same connections, same history, same URL.
InMail credits, applicant insights or lead lists appear, depending on the tier. If the interface still looks free, sign out and back in once; the session sometimes needs refreshing first.
If your card was charged and nothing at all has changed after refreshing, do not buy again. Contact LinkedIn support with the receipt and the transaction date. A second purchase creates a second subscription, and untangling that is slower than fixing the first one.
There are four places to look, and the difference between them is what tells you whether something is wrong — and where.
| Where to look | What you should see | If it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Your own profile | The gold Premium badge beside your name | The upgrade has not landed on this account — check you are signed into the right one |
| Settings → Premium subscription settings | Plan name, next billing date, payment method | Billing is being handled outside LinkedIn — almost always Apple or Google |
| Your email receipt | Merchant name, amount, plan, date | Search for the plan name; the receipt may be filtered into promotions |
| App Store or Google Play subscriptions | An active LinkedIn entry with a renewal date | Nothing here is normal if you bought on desktop |
One case generates most of the confusion, and public support forums are full of it: buy Premium inside the iPhone app and the subscription belongs to your Apple account, not to LinkedIn’s billing system. The badge appears and the features work, but LinkedIn’s own subscription settings page can look empty. People conclude the payment failed and buy a second time. Android purchases behave the same way through Google Play.
It matters beyond tidiness: LinkedIn cannot cancel or refund a purchase it never processed, so an in-app subscription must be managed entirely in Apple’s or Google’s settings. Buying on a desktop browser avoids the problem, which is why step one says desktop.
Every LinkedIn Premium plan renews automatically until you stop it. Where you stop it depends entirely on where you bought it.
| Where you bought it | Who charges you | Where to cancel | Who handles refunds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop or mobile web | Settings → Premium subscription settings → Cancel | ||
| iPhone or iPad app | Apple | Apple ID → Subscriptions | Apple only — LinkedIn cannot |
| Android app | Google Play → Payments & subscriptions | Google only — LinkedIn cannot | |
| A fixed-term activation service | Nobody — no card is stored | Nothing to cancel; the term simply ends | The provider, under its own terms |
Cancelling never deletes your LinkedIn account and never touches your connections. It stops the next charge, and your Premium features run to the end of the period you already paid for. There is no partial refund for the unused remainder of a monthly cycle.
On refunds, LinkedIn’s published position is narrow: a short window from the charge, generally only where the Premium features have gone unused, with a wider statutory right for buyers in the EU. Those terms change and vary by region, so read LinkedIn’s current refund page before you rely on any of it. Practically: cancel the day you decide, not the day before renewal.
LinkedIn sells you a month or a year. If what you need is two months for a job search or three for a quarter, that gap is why services like ours exist. Here is the route, plainly, including what it is not.
Searcora Digital Ltd assigns a licence seat to your own email address. LinkedIn sends the invitation there, you accept it while logged into your own LinkedIn account, and Premium appears on the profile you already have. We never ask for your password and never need it. Thirty days of working support follows activation.
| Plan | 2 months | 6 months | 12 months | Effective monthly at 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Career | $25 | $90 | $140 | about $11.67 |
| Premium Business | $30 | $100 | $150 | about $12.50 |
Sales Navigator Advanced runs 1 month $30, 3 months $90, 6 months $170 and 12 months $340 — see the Sales Navigator price page. Core is $30 a month; Recruiter Lite is $50 a month. These are Searcora’s own service prices, not a LinkedIn discount, promo code or official rate.
This route is not for everyone, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Buy directly from LinkedIn instead if you are eligible for an unused free trial, if you need a VAT invoice in your company’s name for expenses, if your employer needs a supplier on record, or if you simply prefer billing to sit with the platform. Those are good reasons, and none of them is served better by us.
| Route | What you end up with | Risk to your account |
|---|---|---|
| Buying from LinkedIn | Premium on your account, billed by LinkedIn | None |
| A licence seat on your own email | Premium on your existing account; no password shared | Low — you accept the invitation yourself and keep control |
| Buying a ready-made “Premium account” | Somebody else’s profile, not yours — often flagged “new accounts only” | High — breaches LinkedIn’s terms and can be restricted |
| Sharing your login with a seller | A stranger holding your credentials | High — account takeover and terms breach |
| Using a VPN to buy in a cheaper country | A subscription bought on misrepresented billing details | Real — payment declines and a terms problem on a professional account |
If the fixed-term route is the one you want, the full price list, activation timeline and terms are on the buy LinkedIn Premium page. If you would rather ask something first, that is fine too.
Written by Muhammad Amir, Founder & Local SEO Consultant at Searcora Digital Ltd, 78 Dulverton Road, London, SE9 3RL, England. Top Rated Plus on Upwork with 609 completed jobs and a 99% job success score over five years. Published and last checked 21 August 2026 — LinkedIn changes its prices and its interface, so verify anything time-sensitive on LinkedIn’s own site. Questions: contact.amirjutt@gmail.com. Our terms and company details are public.