How Much Does LinkedIn Learning Cost? (Updated)
LinkedIn has become the premier social media platform for business networking and job hunting. The site has always been at the forefront of helping people to score jobs (and help employers find the best employees). This resulted in them purchasing the e-learning platform Lynda.com in 2015. When Microsoft purchased LinkedIn, this was rebranded as LinkedIn Learning. The platform bills itself as one of the top e-learning platforms for gaining qualifications to assist in grabbing jobs. It is just one of many e-learning platforms, though. So, it comes as no surprise that people are interested in the LinkedIn Learning cost. After all, in this tough economy, particularly when people are hunting for jobs, you probably don’t want to splash too much cash on the platform, right?
I have been using LinkedIn Learning for a while. I actually got started on the platform when it was Lynda.com, so I am pretty well-versed in everything the site has to offer. In fact, when I am looking to gain a new skill to add to my LinkedIn profile, I always check LinkedIn Learning first. On this page, I want to take a look at the LinkedIn Learning cost. I then want to go beyond this and help you to decide whether it is worth the cost.
What Is LinkedIn Learning?
LinkedIn Learning is an e-learning platform. As I mentioned, it was founded under the Lynda.com banner, but LinkedIn picked it up in 2015. It remained in operation as Lynda.com until Microsoft purchased the company and decided to rebrand it as LinkedIn Learning at the tail end of 2017. So, this is a platform that has been around for a good 8 years now, and it has been building up its collection of courses for a long while.
Despite the name, LinkedIn Learning wasn’t originally part of the LinkedIn website. It was separate from the LinkedIn platform. Although, LinkedIn has now started to do a little bit more to incorporate it into the main website. For example, you need a LinkedIn account to access LinkedIn Learning. Although, don’t worry. It only has to be a free account.
LinkedIn has over 17,000 courses (mostly individual short videos) spread over three broad areas; business, creativity, and technology. The goal of LinkedIn Learning is to provide people with the skills that they need to score more jobs. So, there are courses that teach a person how to become a digital marketing specialist, others that teach about JavaScript programming, etc.
Basically, this is a very employment-focused platform. This isn’t an e-learning platform that you would head to if you just want to pick up a couple of skills to help you enjoy life more. It is about gaining real, attainable skills that can help you to thrive in a competitive job environment. I have gained a number of skills from LinkedIn Learning courses (Excel courses, mostly) that I believe have helped me to gain positions I would have otherwise been overlooked for.
Now isn’t really the time to discuss the LinkedIn Learning platform as a whole, though. I will come to that. For now, I want to discuss the LinkedIn Learning cost.
LinkedIn Learning Cost For Individual Courses
LinkedIn Learning allows its users to purchase individual courses. This isn’t really something I would recommend. The cost of individual courses is probably going to work out much, much higher than buying a subscription. Sure, you will get permanent access to those courses, but most of the courses on the LinkedIn Learning platform are pretty short anyway. If you are looking to gain a lot of skills, then you would easily spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on LinkedIn Learning courses, and I just can’t see the sense in doing that. Perhaps for businesses offering training to their employees, but not much else.
A good chunk of the courses on LinkedIn Learning are not even available for individual purchase. This means that you could be left in a position where you are halfway through one of the learning pathways (basically, a guided plan for gaining qualifications), and discover that you need to buy a subscription to finish it off. It’s just pointless.
Still, the individual LinkedIn Learning cost is $25-$40 per course. On average. Some can be a bit more expensive than that. It is a bit inconvenient to buy them, though. You can only add one course to your cart at a time. It is also clear that LinkedIn Learning is trying to push people away from individual purchases. It makes sense, really. Their owners are Microsoft, the king of subscription fees.
LinkedIn Learning Subscription Costs
I recommend that people sign up for LinkedIn Learning through the monthly subscription plan. Let me give you an overview of the prices (in $), and then I will give a bit of an explainer afterward. This is because there is one route that I highly recommend most people go down.
| Cost | |
| LinkedIn Learning Monthly Subscription | $39.99 per month |
| LinkedIn Learning Annual Subscription | $274.89 per year (works out to $24.99 per month including the first month free) |
| LinkedIn Premium Members | $39.99 per month or $29.99 per month for annual subscriptions. |
Every one of these options includes a free month at the start. So, unlike some other e-learning platforms, you don’t have to pay a single cent upfront. If you cancel your subscription before the rebill date, then you owe absolutely nothing.
The LinkedIn Learning monthly and annual subscriptions are fairly easy to understand. You pay your cash, and you get access to the service. Both offer the same access i.e. access to every single course on LinkedIn Learning for the duration of your subscription.
It’s actually the third option I want to draw your attention to. This is the LinkedIn Premium account. At the time of writing, and I assume for the foreseeable future, every LinkedIn Premium account will also provide unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning. Since I highly recommend anybody on the job hunt has a LinkedIn Premium account because it makes it so much simpler to track down jobs, that may be a subscription that is worth looking into instead. Yeah, it is a little bit more than buying LinkedIn Learning, but you gain so many more features on the top business social media site that assists you with putting those qualifications to work.
This isn’t really a post about LinkedIn Premium, though. I just wanted to highlight one potential route you could go down if you want to grab LinkedIn Learning. A route that I genuinely believe offers more value. Here is an overview of the LinkedIn Premium features:
About LinkedIn Learning Team Plans
If you run a business and are purchasing LinkedIn Learning courses for multiple people at once, then you may benefit from the LinkedIn Learning team plans.
Unfortunately, I do not have pricing for the LinkedIn Learning team plans. This is because LinkedIn customizes LinkedIn Learning costs based on the business that is asking for access, the number of employees, etc.
While I can imagine that the price of LinkedIn Learning would be significantly cheaper through the team plans, you would probably need to be paying for a minimum of 5-10 people at once, so absolutely not worth it for individuals.
About LinkedIn Learning For Libraries
Did you know that the LinkedIn Learning cost could be totally free? Some libraries (and I must stress it is only some) will provide free access to LinkedIn Learning (all the courses) using nothing more than your library card number and PIN. You will need to check if your local library offers this. It could be a good way to save some money!
There are a couple of downsides to LinkedIn Learning, though. Perhaps the big one is that LinkedIn won’t provide any certification for completing a course due to legal requirements. They are not allowed to capture the name from your library code. So, if you are looking to take courses to get something of value, then LinkedIn Learning through libraries probably isn’t for you.
Supported Currencies for LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning allows subscribers to pay in a variety of currencies. Do bear in mind that this can change the LinkedIn Learning cost a little bit. I gave the prices in $s, and the LinkedIn Learning cost should hover about the same price when converted into a different currency, but it is not exact. It may be a $1-$2 difference from that price. Nothing too crazy.
LinkedIn currently supports widely used currencies e.g. $, €, and £, as well as dozens of lesser-used currencies including SEK, Kenyan Shilling, Qatari Rial, and more. Basically, if you are reading this page, chances are that your currency is probably supported by LinkedIn Learning. I don’t think I have found another e-learning platform that has gone to these lengths to cover as many currencies as possible.
That being said, if your currency isn’t supported, it won’t matter too much either. LinkedIn Learning has PayPal as one of the payment processing options. PayPal will allow you to pay in your local currency. Although, the price will be based on a rather awful exchange rate given by PayPal.
Supported Payment Methods for LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning offers a variety of payment options:
| Payment Method | Notes |
| American Express | All Currencies |
| Discover | All Currencies |
| MasterCard | All Currencies |
| Visa | All Currencies |
| JCB | All Currencies |
| Diners Club | USD Only |
| PayPal | Supports multiple payment methods. This includes:
|
Personally, when I am paying for LinkedIn Learning, I use PayPal. It is much more convenient for me. I often have money flowing into my PayPal account from a variety of projects, and PayPal will use that cash to pay for my LinkedIn Learning cost. It is much more convenient. Not to mention the fact that you can use way more payment options than LinkedIn Learning offers.
It doesn’t matter which payment option you use, there are no additional fees. So, go with whatever feels right for you. I prefer PayPal.
How To Subscribe to LinkedIn Learning
Subscribing to LinkedIn Learning is easy. If you already have a LinkedIn account, you can head on over to https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ and get registered. If you don’t, then follow this process:
- Select the button ‘Start My Free Month’
- Select whether you want an annual or monthly plan.
- Follow the process for creating a LinkedIn account.
- At the end, select how you wish to pay.
- Complete the checkout. You will NOT be charged for the first month.
Once you are registered, you can start to dive into the wealth of content that LinkedIn Learning offers. You will have full access for as long as your subscription lasts.
How To Cancel LinkedIn Learning
All new LinkedIn Learning subscriptions get a free 1-month subscription on LinkedIn Learning. If you cancel within the first month, you don’t have to pay a single cent. This includes annual subscriptions. Cancel within the first 30 days, and you don’t owe anything.
While I imagine that many of you may be keeping LinkedIn Learning for the long term, times can often get hard. This means that you may need to save a bit of cash here and there. Here is how to cancel your LinkedIn Learning subscription.
You can cancel from both the main LinkedIn website and the LinkedIn Learning platform. The process is exactly the same.
- Select the ‘Me’ button on the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- Select ‘Premium Features’
- Look for ‘Learning Premium Subscription’.
- Select ¨’Manage Subscription’
- Select ‘Cancel Subscription’.
Is LinkedIn Learning Worth The Cost?
With a plethora of e-learning platforms out there, you may be wondering whether LinkedIn Learning is worth the cost. While I don’t intend this to be a complete review of LinkedIn Learning, I do want to share a few of my thoughts. This is because, as I said, I have been using LinkedIn Learning since way back when it was Lynda.com.
Affordability
For the sheer number of courses available (over 17,000), I don’t think I have seen a single platform that has as much content as LinkedIn Learning. So, you are really getting bang for your buck here. Although, I suppose that this is the benefit of LinkedIn Learning purchasing an established platform.
I love the fact that if you get a LinkedIn Premium subscription, the LinkedIn Learning service is included. Since I reckon that the vast majority of people serious about advancing their careers will pick up a LinkedIn Premium subscription, there is genuine value there.
So, the LinkedIn Learning cost is worth it. I wouldn’t really go for individual courses, as the price is a bit too expensive to buy individual courses. But, if you are buying a subscription then I am struggling to think of a site that offers more courses for your cash.
Course Content
When there are 17,000 courses on a platform, it is pretty hard for the editors to ensure that all of the content is absolutely sublime, especially since there are 60 new courses added each week. This means that the quality of the courses at LinkedIn Learning can be a bit uneven. But, to be honest, that is an issue with almost every single e-learning platform I have encountered.
Most of the courses focus on skills designed to help people succeed in business or to gain new qualifications to work as software engineers, etc. This makes sense since that is the purpose of LinkedIn. Although, if you hunt around, you should have no issues tracking down courses across a ton of different niches.
I have yet to come across a course on LinkedIn Learning that didn’t teach me something. Everything brought value to the table, even if some of the courses were a little bit ‘worse’ than others. Although, even the ‘worse’ courses beat pretty much everything that you would find on platforms like YouTube or free course websites.
All of the courses are run by top people in their field. They are all delivered via video, with digital notes and tests available. All courses can be completed offline (you have to download them first).
On top of it all, courses are offered in multiple languages. This is one of the only e-learning platforms to do that.
Be sure to check out our list of the top LinkedIn Learning Courses.
Certifications and Qualifications
When you complete a course at LinkedIn Learning, you get a printable certificate. The course completion can also be added to your LinkedIn profile, hopefully helping you to secure new jobs. I have found that employers actually pay attention to these certificates. Most know what LinkedIn is, so it carries a lot of value when searching for jobs. Plus, I love kitting my LinkedIn profile out with more qualifications.
Final Thoughts
LinkedIn Learning is one of the premier e-learning platforms, ever since it started as Lynda.com. It now boasts over 17,000 courses. It is the best way to gain new qualifications to score jobs in a crowded job market. These qualifications hold value too since they are tied to a massive brand name.
The LinkedIn Learning cost will vary depending on your currency and the length of your subscription. Monthly plans start at $39.99 per month, with the annual plan working out to be $24.99 per month. I recommend that you purchase LinkedIn Premium. This will automatically include access to LinkedIn Learning. It costs a little more but offers more value.
FAQs
Does LinkedIn Learning Have a Refund Policy?
LinkedIn does not offer a refund policy for its subscriptions. However, all subscriptions include a 30-day free trial. If you request a cancellation within the first 30 days, you don’t have to pay a cent. If you buy an individual course, you can get a refund within 30 days.
Does LinkedIn Learning Offer a Free Trial?
Yes. They offer a free 30-day subscription to all new subscribers.
Does LinkedIn Learning Include LinkedIn Premium?
Yes. When you subscribe to LinkedIn Learning, you get access to LinkedIn Premium.
