Yeah this is the key to why this hurts. Those of us who chose to support the organization financially last year are now being told we have to pay more. Those who didn’t increase their subscription last year are rewarded and don’t have to increase.
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Yes, that is true. We really appreciate your support.
That email is talking about the price on Cycling Planning, Training, & Analytics - TrainerRoad. Like everyone signing up is that. And the legacy thing did bring some people to that price.
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I agree. It’s hard for us because the vast majority people weren’t part of the legacy pricing thing.
So we’re stuck in a place where we just keep the price the same and not be able to keep up with inflation for our own costs, or try to make it a very small increase that helps in the aggregate.
We really appreciate the support.
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Thanks for the reply. Well I have almost a year to decide to keep or not. Not that $20 is a big deal. Just the whole legacy subscribers didn’t get this email cause they are locked in. So since I didn’t decide to stay at the cheaper price I was locked in as a legacy sub since 2015 I’m no longer a legacy sub. And I have to pay more now again because I wanted to do what was right a one year ago. And now told prices are increasing again. Guess I should have just said no last year and stayed at the $99 I was at.
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I’m out
I let legacy increase to 189 last year, but I just don’t use it for what it is enough to justify another price increase this year. It may be for TR hasn’t been a price increase for 5 years, but for me it doubled last year and another increase…
I’m just using it to suggest workouts with trainnow, but I actually override it most of the time anyway.
I mostly just got used to the workout player. For what I’m actually using, even the legacy pricing is above or around the competition
There are a lot cheaper ways to self sabotage my fitness
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Please!!! +1
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@Nate_Pearson thanks for the thorough update. Looking forward to seeing the updates.
Given that this is tangential to the main discussion about let the conversation return to the main content. Thanks again for the RLGL work!
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I’d love to see a family pricing. That’s not a $2 increase for me but a $4
To be on topic 2$ increase is “fair” if that kind of fairness matters for someone. I like the direction where the TR is going and all the improvements over the time!
For me this kind of “fairness” doesnt matter but i do not know how universal this think process is.
- I wont tell my threshold what i would be willing to pay for vendor/ service provider. If i would tell it would not be free of charge information even if i might be willing to provide details for other customer intelligence topics for service that I really like. Only way to see my willingness is to make offer. Often service providers ask also what kind of offer i have received from competitors. I wont tell that either free of charge.
- I do not really care about service provider cost structure. It is normal in every industry that quality has to go up while the production cost have to go down over time. If this doesnt happen then there will be most likely new service provider who can do this with fresh thinking. E.g. TR most likely have replaced many coaches with lower cost structure gained with automation. In case of monopoly there is left only decision if you pay for what is available or not.
- For me this topic or atleast the reasoning why the increase price is marketing talk. Other half is the customer intelligence. Nothing wrong on either of the topics and maybe it better to do this with own forum than paying to some third party to do the study.
In end of day it is just about the value vs the cost. If there is no better product / service available for current TR users segment i do not think the price change has much impact. But if there is then there is reason to be worried. For example i quit strava subscription in their price increase after many years of use, while all of their features i used i had better or similar option else where. Most likely i would have kept the subscription with the old price but the increase just triggered me to do small analysis about the options. I afraid this trigger will happen for many TR users as well.
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I see it this way:
TR is giving me a lot of training value ad considering the included features
The energy prices have gone up (most likely more than the TR price increase)
The SW needs to be hosted somewhere - and that costs money (most likely more every year depending on the vendor)
The staff wants to be paid
TR is not a charity, so needs to be profitable
Other platforms have increased their prices as well
Conclusion: I am fine with the price update based on the above and my resulting usage gains.
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I like TR.
But because it does not have a virtual world I have to use it with zwift.
Keeping both will be complicated for me. I don’t see myself cycling with only TR as it would get boring for me (i don’t like to watch tv when cycling indoor)
I also use sheiko gold for my weightlifting training so it is starting to add up.
Well maybe time for me to really start exploring TR functionalities to get the best of it
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It will be interesting when Zwift launch their new training API, and if TR use it
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This would be reason for me to subsribe for Zwift. But still would not pay for full Zwift cost. I would be ok just to use this feature along the GUI. If the cost would be full i do not see much benefit while it is possible to run Zwift and TR on parallel today and let TR control trainer.
One thing that stands out is a $2 per month price increase set against the budget of cyclists on here.
Despite that we have the CEO of the business engaging, explaining and communicating with customers directly. That says an awful lot about the culture.
Chapeau Nate and the team at TrainerRoad
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I know the data will never be made public, but I am interested to know if there are more or fewer paying subscribers today than there were this time last year.
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Subscription wise there will have to be some kind of middleground, at least I’d hope there will be. AU$639.99/year for two full 12 month subs. Maybe a plan-only TR tier? That gets complicated, fast.
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I think Zwift should just buy TR and include it in Zwift.
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Honestly I think something like this really has to happen. Whether it is Zwift or a partnership with a platform like indieVelo, these different propositions need to be combined in to a one-stop shop.
Let’s imagine for a moment that TR and indieVelo partnered. The full TR proposition remains as it is, with the same team working on delivering the same stuff, but now you can execute your workouts in a virtual world, with best-in-class erg control, terrain mode, group workouts, etc.
The price could be similar to TR pricing as of today, but the market reach is now considerably greater, because subscribers don’t have to be hardcore dedicated structured training afficionados, they may subscribe for racing, or free rides, or the social aspects. Stronger together.
Unfortunately a lot of these different propositions are convinced they can change the world in isolation, and it’s the end-user that misses out as they have to pick and choose where to spend their money carefully and we lose the platforms that can’t sustain the critical mass.
So Trainerroad has become more expensive:
- In 2020, I paid 79 USD.
- In 2023, I paid 189 USD.
- This year, I’ll (happily) pay 210 USD.
That’s a 166% price increase over four years. For those of us outside the US, the USD’s strengthening has made importing of goods and services from the US more expensive still. It’s worth noting that in the same period, other cycling things have also become more expensive, though not quite as much in relative terms:
- Zwift cost me 18.5 USD monthly in 2020 (they increased their price from 14.5 USD monthly that year), but their price is now 24.5 USD monthly, i.e. an increase of 32%. That’s an annual increase of 120 USD.
- An S-Works Tarmac SL6 cost less in 2020 than an SL8 does in 2024: The former had a list price of 11,000 USD, while the latter costs 14,000 USD. That 3,000 USD increase is 27% over four years.
- The Wahoo Kickr Bike was launched in 2019 at a 3,500 USD price point, and the latest version from 2022 retails at 4,000 USD* , i.e. a price increase of 14% over three years.
- A Garmin Edge 830 cost 400 USD in 2019, while a Garmin Edge 840 costs from 450 USD when launched last year, i.e. 13% price increase over four years.
Considering that services such as TR and Zwift have increased their offering over the last four years, while bikes and hardware have to a lesser extent been enhanced, it makes sense that prices have increased more for services. Skilled people who further improve TR’s offerings are presumably not the easiest to recruit or retain, and if TR cannot offer them an attractive position, then they’ll provide their services elsewhere. Simple market economics.
For my part, I can justify the 2 USD/month (or 21 USD/year) increase by considering that I no longer do the dreaded FTP test (“hey, would you be willing to pay 21 USD to never need to do the 20 minute test again?” “hell yeah, I haven’t done one since 2022 and AI FTP’s getting it right for me”), and the adaptive training and the other stuff TR has introduced over the last couple of years have helped me maintain my biking ability more than the bike and equipment upgrades have cost me.
Cool of you to check in with the community prior to the price increase, @Nate_Pearson, and keep up the good work.
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I don’t see that happening……I guess it will depend on the numbers. IOW, they would have to gain enough new users to offset (and more) the loss of the current two platform subscribers who would switch to the “middle ground”
There is already a chunk of users doing both and paying full pop. If you set a middle ground of 50% of a TR membership (~$10 for easy numbers), some percentage of those dual platform users are going to drop their TR sub and switch to the middle ground. Again, using easy numbers, that means TR would have to get a commensurate number of new users (current Zwift only subscribers) to decide to pick up TR as part of their plan.
I’d have to sit down with a pencil and paper to work the numbers out to see if it makes sense for a middle ground option, but not sure it does.
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