linkedin has always offered a budget version of its premium accounts, but it has never been easy to find. save $20 or more a month for the most popular linkedin premium features with linkedin spotlight account. (get the first month for free with this link)
new name, same game
last year, I wrote about an unadvertised linkedin premium account called personal plus. priced around $10 a month, the option didn’t show up via any of the prominent links for premium upgrades. instead, users had to access a special version of the premium account page from a text link on their profile page.
this week a reader advised me that my back door method for accessing the budget option no longer worked. I knew I still had the same enhanced features for the same monthly amount, but I couldn’t find where to sign up for it!
it turns out personal plus is still around; it just had a name change. in june, linkedin announced the introduction of its new premium spotlight account. the linked piece in techcrunch follows the party line, but in fact, the “new” spotlight account walks very much like a duck. the pricing is the same. the features are comparable after adjusting for the more visually appealing elements linkedin added for all premium accounts in the same period. and the signup for spotlight is almost as hard to find as for its predecessor. for example, this blog post by the linkedin product manager hails the value of the starter package, but the linked page doesn’t feature the lower-priced account! (that might explain why he is now taking his career to the next level with uber)
source: linkedin blog
one linkedin savant made a video explaining her method of accessing a landing page with the budget option. when I followed the instructions, however, I found a page with information on the old personal plus account (in donna’s defense, the page title did say spotlight upgrade, linkedin just failed to rebrand the product description). I had better results on a july linkedin help thread from a frustrated user unable to find a way to sign up for the new account. the moderator provided a link to a dedicated sign up page for premium spotlight that included a 30 day free trial.
and voila – my latest credit card statement, two years after signing up:
