Strava Raises Prices But Can’t Tell You How Much It Costs Anymore

Training
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Hm, I am on yearly, and was billed Jan 12th 2023 for $59.99 USD, the same as I’ve always been billed. I confirmed this using the “Send all receipts” feature. I wonder if there is a deal for existing subscribers, or if I just barely missed the price increase? But I’ve been a subscriber since 2010! Ha.

My opinion is - it was very rude to just raise prices on subscribers without warning. But OTOH I’m tired of social media platforms paid for by advertising and flooded with influencers. I’m glad Strava hasn’t gone down that route - it’s the one corner of the internet (besides this forum) that I actually enjoy. They have to take care of their expenses somehow or start laying people off like everywhere else in the cycling industry right now.

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Well, they are doing that too…they just laid off about 15% of their workforce.

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Yup: Dec 5, 2022

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48

Strava will disappear overnight soon, just like MySpace. It will just take the first wave of users to move over to a better service, that is free, and the tidal wave will follow.

Garmin Connect […and likely many others…] provide social; follow, like & comment on activities, etc. Komoot […and likely others…] provide route planning, and turn-by-turn directions by voice. Intervals.icu and many others provide far superior analytics. [Just me, or did Strava copy ICU’s display format a while back?] Zwiftpower handles Zwift races.

Another app will pickup and offer segments, KOMs, etc, in a flash.

The interface is stale & boring, poorly designed and poorly executed. Simple, un-busy & elegant doesn’t mean “put no effort into this”. It’s not the wall in a dentist’s office lobby in 1993, it’s a piece of software. It’s supposed to be attractive. The graphs look like shoddy Excel default templates. So they can’t even offer “looks better on my screen”. I can get weekly, monthly, yearly totals at a click in Connect, and I’m sure many others. The Strava calendar display even on desktop only shows your monthly summary in hours, kms not visible, and it looks like it was put together between 4:42 and 4:59:59 on a Friday.

They couldn’t answer DC’s simple question: “How much does Strava cost?”

But there’s one even more basic question they have been failing to answer for years: “Why should I even have an account, let alone pay for it?”

There’s not a single unique feature that a free app doesn’t cover. And therefore not a single reason to be on the platform, other than “all my ‘friends’ I follow are on it”.

If your friends jumped off a bridge…

Beyond this, the company can be made profitable through publicity, adds, investment revenue, etc. Dozens of similar high volume apps are free, in and out of cycling. There is zero reason to come to the users and demand we pay at all, let alone pay more. This is a dorkus sitting on a yacht somewhere sipping champagne, laughing, and telling his servants to bring him even more of our money.

I was running free just as a background save-all, but Connect has me covered there, and seamlessly does skiing runs, etc. I haven’t logged in in months, and don’t even have the app on my phone. I’m considering killing the account entirely, just to reduce their numbers.

This is pathetic.

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49

Doh! Oh no. :frowning:

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Theres already one here RWGPS. IMO their app/web site does most things better than Strava. RWGPS don’t do Heatmaps (for free at least).

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52

I for one am not a fan of ads or the advertising business model. It cheapens everything and encourages fake content that is formulaic and sales-ey to get “likes” and views. (which in turn just drives the ad platform). There is no helpful information anymore or authentic stories - it’s all to “influence” what you buy. It’s destroying the soul of humanity.

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53

I know they’ve tried tiered pricing and it was a flop, but charge $3/mo and give me KOM leaderboards and live segments and I’d pay. RWGPS has better route mapping IMO, so there’s really nothing else that Strava offers you can’t get elsewhere for free.

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No. RWGPS is more about outside rides, maps, routes and such. Not really any “training” related function from my experience with it (free version only).

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Komoot looks similar to RWGPS, focused hard on outside riding with no mention of inside rides that I can see on a quick scan.

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Roger & agreed; I really like what you said, Julie, and it’s a good point.

We’ve all used apps where the adds are in your face, and very frustrating. But I think we’ve also all used completely free apps that are successfully financed via other methods, including adds that are side-lined / background / whatever.

I 100% agree with you. Nobody wants a mess in the face. But at the same time, this is totally doable, without a mess. Bottom line, there’s no excuse for demanding money from users.

No?

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When the 1 dude at intervals.ICU works circles around an entire multi million (billion?) dollar company

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Doesn’t Garmin Connect do segments, too? I know they used to…but it has been years since I have used it.

That is enough…it is really difficult to get the kind of population that makes any social platform meaningful. It is one of the reasons Zwift continues to succeed, even through there are arguably “better” platforms out there.

Both Zwift and Strava have the numbers and people are therefore hesitant to leave the platforms.

For an even better example, go look at the dumpster fire that is the current version of Twitter…Musk has everyone fed up, but no one (in any serious numbers) is leaving.

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I fell in love with it for the ability to design routes and then get the directions by voice while I ride. It’s insane nice. I live in a busy city with many cycling deaths per year, and will not ride on busy roads. I have designed a 30km local loop that has 76 turns in 90 minutes. I know it by heart now, but I never would have managed to come up with it without the ability to design the route by map, and get the directions by voice in my ears. [And yes; outdoor rides only; no training.]

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You’re very right.

And yes, I think Garmin Connect does segments.

That’s why I don’t log into Strava, don’t like or comment, don’t check segments, etc. It’s just a database.

While I know that still technically adds to their activity numbers, this is a far stretch from being an active user, and the type of traffic the business model requires to support it, and the numbers / social traffic flow.

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One quote from my sports feed on Twitter:

“use it to embrace one of the most rewarding times of our day - when we exercise - and park the ego” Marco Altini (founder HRV4Training)

Not so sure about embracing $80 :thinking: but Strava is the most feel good app I’ve ever used. Nothing but good vibes.

Found this last night, a Father’s Day card from 5 years ago that illustrates what I love about Strava:

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in my feed it brings out the best in people - camaraderie, friendly competition, and conquering goals.

Scrolling thru Strava is one of the bright moments of every day.

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64

Yeah, the critical mass in Strava & Zwift is hard to combat and not something that would shift overnight, unless either completely ceased to function or exist at a singular point.

As of now, this will be VERY interesting to see what type of exodus Strava experiences of paid users. Sure seems likely to be many dumping the subscription at the very least, or leave the platform entirely.

Assuming that revenue drop takes hold, I don’t know if Strava can hold itself together considering that most free users will likely stick around… unless Strava’s next step is to remove even more features from the free version.

What a bloody mess in just about every way possible. I get that big business can be a challenge from an action to communication side, but this is monumental and seemingly well beyond a “big biz eff up”.

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67

Sounds like you’re venting and even you don’t really believe those statements are true, but there’s A LOT of incorrect content in those statements. So, for facts’ sake:

  1. A company can ONLY be made profitable by making a profit, whether you get revenue from selling adds or selling other goods/services.

  2. Investment revenue is NOT profit. First, “investment revenue” is the profit made by investing cash in other companies or things, which most companies don’t do. And if you meant “invested capital”, that’s also not profit: it’s the money invested in a company so it can buy machines and hire people in order to produce goods/services and thereby make an actual profit. Burning your invested capital and running at a loss à la dot-com is merely burning capital and operating at a loss in the hope of someday making money before your capital runs out and you go broke… but again it’s not profit.

  3. Yes, there is a reason to come to the users and ask for money: to make a profit on said goods/services without needing to sell ads. As a user, I am delighted to pay for an ad-free service. People who think ad-supported services are “free” do not understand the value of their time and attention… you pay in money or you pay in lots of time and attention.

  4. Yes, there is also a reason to come to the users and ask for MORE money. Any company which has added features and improved its products/services, but which has not increased prices in a DECADE, certainly has reasonable cause to ask for more of our money. Whether they’ve done it well or not, and whether the amount is reasonable or not, is a separate issue.

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Its a manual thing at the moment I think.

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Blame those TR users :wink:

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