Sub Club Podcast: Value-Driven Growth — LinkedIn’s Billion-Dollar Subscription Strategy with Ora Levit

Podcast: Sub Club by RevenueCat
Hosts: David Barnard, Jacob Eiting
Guest: Ora Levit (VP of Product Management, LinkedIn Premium)
Date: September 17, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into how LinkedIn has built a subscription powerhouse by focusing relentlessly on value-driven growth. Ora Levit, who heads product management for LinkedIn’s Premium subscriptions, shares how her team thinks about adding real value for users, balancing a thriving freemium ecosystem with premium offerings, and running over a thousand experiments a year to refine both product features and growth levers. The conversation explores the metrics LinkedIn uses, tactics for personalization and retention, the complexity of running experiments at scale, the nuanced use of AI/LLMs, and practical advice for other subscription app builders.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Value-Driven Growth Philosophy

Timestamps: 02:04–04:49 / 08:53–09:54

• Core Idea: LinkedIn focuses on driving growth by consistently delivering value that helps members achieve their “jobs to be done” (find a job, grow a business, build a brand, etc.).
• Over the past two years, LinkedIn Premium has added 20+ distinct benefits, including new insights, profile enhancements (like rotating cover photos), and learning opportunities.
• The team structure reflects this focus: there are dedicated teams both for continually increasing the value of the product and for more traditional growth drivers like packaging, pricing, and promotions.

“We provide benefits and value that helps members achieve those tasks…[and] the more value we provide and explain to members how to use it...the more likely they are to come for that value and stay for that value.” — Ora Levit [02:04]

• Value creation is continuous, not one and done. There’s a commitment to disrupting the classic product lifecycle plateau by consistently launching new value.
• Features are rigorously defined by their intended user and job-to-be-done, and the value delivered is formally specified in product specs.

2. Freemium-Premium Balance in a Two-Sided Marketplace

Timestamps: 11:11–13:53 / 15:06–18:12

• LinkedIn prioritizes a robust and accessible free experience aligned with its mission of “economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce”.
• Free users can build profiles, access and create content, search and apply to jobs—these basics remain untouchable by paywalls.
• Premium features are carefully chosen to add incremental value rather than gatekeeping fundamental functionality. Examples: enhanced cover photos, business promotion tools, and ability to “mark a job as top choice”.
• The product must balance the needs of both job seekers and employers, making changes that benefit both sides without tilting the ecosystem.

“[We] wouldn’t add anything that would ever make something related to finding a job or applying to a job a paid functionality. We want members to be able to find, apply to jobs, et cetera.” — Ora Levit [13:53]

3. Metrics and North Star Focus

Timestamps: 06:48–09:54

• Key metrics include subscriber acquisition, retention during and after trials, and “premium session” engagement (frequency of using Premium features).
• The ultimate North Star metric: long-term revenue, not short-term boosts. Initiatives are evaluated for their impact over a five-year horizon, not just annual bookings.
• Willingly forgoes short-term revenue that could harm the long-term funnel or ecosystem.

“We always optimize for long term longevity and believe that members pay with their feet. If we deliver value, they would buy the product. And if you continue delivering on it, they will stay with it.” — Ora Levit [07:17]

4. Experimentation at Scale

Timestamps: 18:40–24:14

• Over 1,000 A/B tests are run yearly just within Premium subscriptions.
• Anything that gets launched is tested—from new features to subtle UI or messaging tweaks.
• Product managers own their domain’s experiments, focusing on outcomes and learning over internal debate.
• Strict cultural limits: never test offerings not aligned with brand values or which could harm the member experience.
• Experiments are carefully sequenced and tracked to avoid conflicts, leveraging LinkedIn’s vast surface area for parallelized testing.

“I don’t believe in sitting in office just ourselves and figuring out what it should be because we have millions of members, they know better what works for them.” — Ora Levit [19:05]

5. Personalization Across User Experiences

Timestamps: 21:41–26:47

• Personalization pervades plan offers, feature placement, and messaging.
• On Premium upsell, LinkedIn asks users about their goals (job-seeking, business growth, hiring) and tailors the experience accordingly.
• Increasing use of machine learning and, recently, LLMs for deeper personalization, such as content recommendations and profile editing suggestions. LLMs also enhance search, job matching, and content discovery.

“Every time we tailor the experience more, we make it more relevant, our members find more value in it.” — Ora Levit [21:41]

6. Retention and Boomerang Tactics

Timestamps: 28:42–34:16

• Retention is driven both by delivering and clearly communicating new value, and by practical tactics: annual plan discounts, family/friend plans, and new feature highlights.
• “Boomerang” users—previous subscribers who return—are an increasing segment as the product matures.
• LinkedIn tests win-back offers, potentially offering returning users renewed free trials, especially when the product has materially changed. Experiments are ongoing to refine when and how to offer this.

“As we’ve grown, a much larger portion of our signups became boomerangs. And today they’re just a big population that we see comes back to use our products and resubscribes.” — Ora Levit [30:29]

7. AI and LLM-Driven Value

Timestamps: 25:32–39:48

• AI/ML underpins much of the personalization—plan recommendations, job matches, and more.
• LLMs are increasingly used for user-facing features: drafting and editing LinkedIn summaries, sorting connections, and commenting suggestions to prompt engagement.
• AI isn’t marketed as a feature in itself; instead, tools are positioned as helping users achieve their goals more easily.
• AI-powered automations are especially valuable for small businesses, helping with lead generation, job postings, and applicant ranking.

“You don’t come to LinkedIn for AI...AI is a way for me to do that when it’s applicable and helpful.” — Ora Levit [38:57]

8. Partnerships & Bundling for Added Value

Timestamps: 40:16–42:24

• Partnerships (e.g., Notion, Duolingo, Spotify, Headspace) offer Premium users rotating perks, increasing perceived and actual value and thus retention.
• Engagement with these perks is a strong signal for long-term retention.

9. Learning from the Subscription Industry

Timestamps: 42:24–45:57

• Despite LinkedIn’s scale, Ora and team actively learn from industry peers, financial reports, knowledge sharing forums, podcasts, and audiobooks.
• Ora publishes summaries of subscription industry trends based on public earnings reports, seeking new insights to accelerate LinkedIn’s learning.

“The subscription space is fascinating...we know only what’s in our four walls. We don’t know what happens out there and what other great companies are learning. And we can accelerate that learning speed and time if we better understand...best practices that we can leverage.” — Ora Levit [43:03]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the philosophy of retention:
  • “Members pay with their feet. If we deliver value, they would buy the product. And if you continue delivering on it, they will stay with it.” — Ora Levit [07:45]
• On boomerang users:
  • “If you leave for whatever reason, I want to make sure that...you left us happy so that you come back at a later point.” — Ora Levit [30:29]
• On AI integration vs. hype:
  • “You don’t come to LinkedIn for AI...the magic of AI is a bit too, because—right, like, what is AI really?” — Ora Levit [38:57]
• On experimentation culture:
  • “We gain more insights testing over debating when we all feel that the experience is worth testing.” — Ora Levit [21:06]
• On partnerships and perks:
  • “If you get more out of the subscription, you’re more likely ultimately to see this value and stay with us.” — Ora Levit [41:48]

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [02:04] Value-driven growth defined; Examples of new Premium features
• [06:48] LinkedIn’s key North Star metrics & optimizing for long-term revenue
• [11:11] Balancing freemium and premium in a two-sided marketplace
• [18:40] Experimentation culture: over 1,000 tests a year
• [24:30] Personalization in plan offers and user experience
• [28:42] Retention strategies (annual plans, family plans); Introduction of "boomerang" users
• [33:22] Rethinking free trials for returning users
• [35:47] AI-driven value for small business and hiring
• [40:16] Bundling, partnership perks, and their impact on retention
• [42:24] Learning from the industry and knowledge sharing

Final Thoughts

This episode provides a rare inside look at how one of the world’s largest subscription businesses stays relevant and drives growth by making value—not extraction—its true North. From balancing massive free and paid user bases, to relentless and thoughtful experimentation, to quietly but powerfully leveraging AI, Ora Levit details a pragmatic, member-centric approach that offers lessons for product managers, growth teams, and founders of apps both big and small.

“Ultimately, if you’re living in an ecosystem that has a free component and a paid component, continuing to grow your free ecosystem...is going to help your paid ecosystem as well grow over time. And you have to always balance the two.” — Ora Levit [18:12]