Madiha Yaqoob
In May 2024, LinkedIn switched off the service provider matching system that sat behind its Services Marketplace, and it has not come back. A Service Page is still free to create and still puts a “contact for services” path on your profile that any member can use regardless of connection degree, but the part that pushed client project requests out to matched providers is gone. What replaced it is narrower and sits behind a paid subscription, which changes how a freelancer should actually use the feature.
What LinkedIn shut down in May 2024
The original setup worked roughly like a lead distribution engine. A member submitted a project request, and LinkedIn pushed that request out to providers whose profiles matched the requirements. Only former ProFinder Pros were ever eligible for that matching, which already made it a closed pool, and LinkedIn confirmed in its own help documentation that the feature was retired beginning in May 2024.
This matters because a large share of the freelancing advice still circulating treats LinkedIn Services Marketplace as a free inbound lead source you can switch on. That advice is describing a product that no longer exists. If you set up a Service Page expecting project requests to start arriving because LinkedIn matched you to something, you will be waiting on a system that was turned off more than two years ago.
How a Service Page actually works now
The current model is request and proposal, and it starts with the client finding you rather than LinkedIn finding the client for you. Per LinkedIn’s provider documentation, the sequence runs like this:
- A potential client finds providers by searching LinkedIn or asking their own network for a recommendation.
- That client sends a project request directly to a provider. They can optionally broadcast the same request to additional relevant providers.
- Providers reply with a proposal.
- The client and provider agree terms outside LinkedIn, the work gets done, and payment happens through whatever process the provider already uses.
- The provider can invite the client to leave a review on the Service Page.
Two details in that list carry real weight. The first is that clients can contact a provider for free, regardless of connection degree. Normally a stranger needs an InMail credit or a connection request to reach you. A Service Page removes that wall for buyers specifically, which is the single most underrated thing the feature does.
The second is that the optional broadcast, where a client’s request goes to additional providers, is only answerable by people holding a Premium Business, Sales Navigator, or Recruiter Lite subscription. Free accounts can hold a Service Page and receive direct requests, but they cannot respond to the broadcast requests. That is the paywall that replaced the old matching system.
The two numbers LinkedIn will publish on your page
LinkedIn displays performance badges on Service Pages, and the thresholds are specific rather than vague. Your average response time from the past 180 days is displayed only if you respond to inquiries within 24 hours. Your average response rate is displayed only if you respond to at least 80 percent of inquiries.
Both are worth engineering around, because they are the closest thing a Service Page has to the job success score that governs visibility on a marketplace. Ignoring a stream of unqualified inquiries feels efficient in the moment and quietly costs you the rate badge. A two-line polite decline still counts as a response. If you are going to run a Service Page at all, treat the inbox like a marketplace inbox, not like LinkedIn messages.
Is Premium Business worth it for a Pakistani freelancer?
Not as a first move. The subscription unlocks the ability to answer broadcast requests plus some additional Service Page features, and LinkedIn prices it in your local currency inside your own account, so check what it shows you rather than trusting a figure from a blog. The honest test is volume: if your Service Page is already receiving direct requests every week and you can see requests you are locked out of answering, the maths starts to work. If the page is new and quiet, paying to compete for broadcast requests is paying for access to a queue you have no track record in.
The sequencing that makes more sense is to get the free page producing a handful of direct inquiries and a few written reviews first. Reviews and response badges are what make a broadcast proposal from you look different from the other five that landed in the same inbox. Buying the subscription before you have either is buying a louder voice with nothing to say.
Where Service Pages beat Upwork, and where they lose badly
The advantage is pure economics. LinkedIn takes no commission, because the deal and the money both move off platform. Compare that to a marketplace where the same job can cost you anywhere from zero to fifteen percent depending on how the contract is structured. On a long client relationship, that gap compounds into real money.
The disadvantage is the flip side of the same fact. Because payment happens entirely outside LinkedIn, there is no escrow, no funded milestone, no time tracker log, and no dispute process. If a client disappears after delivery, LinkedIn is not a party to the transaction and has nothing to resolve. That is a meaningfully different risk profile from what Upwork and Fiverr actually cover, and it argues for a deposit, a written scope, and staged payments on any LinkedIn-sourced project, especially a first one.
There is also a discovery limit worth naming. Service Pages surface through LinkedIn search, subject to your public profile visibility settings, and services can appear in member feeds. That is genuine reach, but it is passive reach that depends on you already ranking for something a buyer types. It does not replace outbound.
Setting one up without wasting the effort
Treat the page as a conversion asset rather than a lead generator, and the setup decisions get easier. Name the services the way a client would search for them, not the way you would describe them on a CV: “Shopify store setup” gets found, “ecommerce solutions” does not. Keep the list short enough that the page reads as a specialism. Decide early whether the page hangs off your personal profile or a Company Page, because the two behave differently for admin access and branding. If you want to see what a buyer sees before you build anything, LinkedIn’s own services hub is the front door they land on, and the Service Page FAQ covers the edge cases on visibility and eligibility.
Then feed it. The page only works if buyers arrive at it, which means your posting, your profile headline, and your outreach are still doing the heavy lifting. The same groundwork that makes client acquisition on LinkedIn work in 2026 is what makes a Service Page worth having attached to it. The page closes; the rest of your presence opens.
Used that way, it is a good free addition to a LinkedIn strategy. Used as a replacement for one, it is a landing page nobody visits.
