I think that is a problem in the offering though. TR ceased to be a good value proposition for me years ago, because I only wanted the workout player. All the other features that added cost I don’t use. I hung on for several years, mainly because at 99 bucks why not, but this year I finally let the sub go after almost a decade, simply because I can’t justify it anymore. If they offered just the player and a small library for 99 bucks a year I’d be all over it.
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Sadly, this only confirms that your perspective is out of touch.
I’m in the US and have a job, even in this case my situation does not allow me to pay a subscription. I mentioned developing countries because I have friends and relatives that use TR. However, I know I’m not the only one in a similar situation in the US. Being able to pay is not the same as being able to afford. I’m also aware I’m probably in a much better position than a large number of cyclists in this country.
There are a lot of people in the US who have a job (or more than one) and still don’t have a liveable income. It’s also very common in the cycling world for workers to make less than enough to satisfy their basic needs, including mechanics, bike shop personnel, cyclists, etc.
Btw, I’m not even arguing against the price increase. I still think TR provides a good value for the money. However, the notion that $2 for a cycling app is not a large for any worker in the US is completely disconnected from reality. It’s also offensive for the people who make an effort to stretch their budgets to use TR because cycling is an important part of their lives. Not to mention the large number of athletes that are starting out and want to become professional but don’t have the resources. I guess they aren’t part of the market you are trying to serve.
I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind but, if anything, at least you should be aware that your point of view is at odds with the reality of a lot of people. Many of them are users of your product.
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This is not what I said or meant.
For those who can’t afford the increase, we understand. For those who can, we hope to continue to build the best app to make you a faster cyclist.
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This thread is feeling a bit over-ripe now. The increase is happening, we talked about it enough. People are happy, unhappy, ambivalent, want to complain about other things, great. Let’s move on.
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It’s the same dull conversation that was had when zwift increased their prices.
It’s completely moot to discuss whether the $2 is ‘worth it’, that you can buy one less Starbucks, that everything else has gone up in price, that inflation dictates it has to happen. Ultimately it’s simply a question, and a very individual one, as to whether you think a service is worth the cost. It’s simply a question of value, and you have to weigh that up with everything else that tugs on your purse strings for monthly subs. You also have to consider the competitive landscape. If there are now 5 alternatives that can offer 80% of the functionality for 50% of the cost, the cost/benefit analysis changes again. There is no objective right answer.
What I’d like to see TR (and Zwift) do is give with one hand when they take with the other so that the value proposition changes for most people if not everyone. For example:
Hey guys, we’re putting the price up $2 per month on the 1st Aug. On this date we are also going to release a new version of progression levels so that outdoor and unstructured rides are fully accounted for, and we are opening up integrations with 3rd party platforms so that you can do your workouts using any of the virtual cycling propositions that wishes to integrate with us.
Keep adding USPs, because AI workouts is becoming less and less of one (there are now loads of AI workouts providers out there, and by the nature of AI, they will all keep improving fast).
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Nate & TR is the only party that can consider this ‘done’ and close the thread.
- For those people that are done commenting on and/or reading this topic, you can simply stay out of it as desired. It’s even possible to mute the topic if you don’t want to see it in your forum feed at all.
- Outside of that, this topic is open for discussion as all the prior pricing ones before it.
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I’m sorry for putting words in your mouth.
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I’m landing here as well. I was getting hesitant to re-up my TR subscription next week at the new rate, but after looking at alternatives/comparables, I don’t think there’s the same or better value to be found elsewhere. At least for this next year, I think I’ll stick with it.
For an established, relatively mature cycling training app, ~$20/month seems to be the going rate. The different apps offer different value propositions/use cases, so it’s a matter of picking what’s important to me/you. And, in particular with Fascat, it’s at a similar price and a different take on AI training but it’s not as mature as TR for the price. I’m not convinced it’ll have better outcomes. Maybe the experience is different but doesn’t seem fully baked yet.
For the price and for what it does, I think TR is a fair value based on the market rate. I have been on it for a few years and feel like it’d be nice to mix things up, but at the end of the day I’ll still be doing similar training and TR takes a lot of the mental exertion out of it for me. I can add some novelty/variety within the training program.
I can understand people being upset around legacy pricing and expectations/promises around that – this is a different issue, certainly.
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You might be interested in this thread! It looks like there are a good number of athletes using TrainerRoad and indieVelo simultaneously 
.
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Actually I don’t think anyone is. indieVelo doesn’t currently allow you to ‘hack’ a dual usage like on zwift where TR controls the trainer, and indieVelo takes the power reading.
George would be VERY open to syncing with TR for the daily suggested workout via API, if TR were open to it.
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Some sort of family plan would be really nice.
recently signed my wife up (most likely just for one month) just to purely use it for exercise so all of the features for her really doesn’t matter. I think there is SOME value in seeing the measurable growth (ftp) for her. hoping it will give her some traction and keep her going. Also have a young daughter that would love to do some workouts here and there but that much money to be used a few times just can’t make it makes sense.
I hope that one day it will make sense for my daughter. She is currently racing in the local XC circuit, but she is just getting her feet wet. 
Me personally, $22 a month is vary fair. I feel like I get plenty of value.
Keep up the good work.
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Accurate. I’d been blindly paying for a strava subscription for years until their recent fiasco when I took a deep breath, looked at the $$$ / features I cared about and stopped paying them.
You’ve added a bunch of features, and I’ve taken a similar review. This customer’s experience included above… +7.0 if my math is right… Its worth the $20/year increase to me…
Now if only I could convince the rest of the household to drop a half dozen streaming services…
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Might be misunderstanding but I don’t know why the TR could not control the trainer and IndieVelo take the power. I use my Garmin Edge 1050 to control the trainer and use IndieVelo to take the power on a regular basis.
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Indeed, IV could change to offer the same Trainer Control toggle like Zwift, MyWhoosh and others.
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This thread made me take a look at our household subscriptions. Dropped Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Music & a few add ons for Sling TV (that itself might be next). Most shows we watch just wrapped up & will likely will start back up when our shows come back… but just saved about $50 a month right there. It adds up.
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If you increase the price, demand will surely drop, the question is, by how much. This sounds like a modelling problem. Surely you can tell what the previous impact was, how much the customer base changed? I guess this then you need to remove the effect of new people joining, due to the product gathering momentum.
For what its worth, TrainerRoad had a great impact on my fitness in the past, particularly during Covid, and its an excellent tool, so I would keep paying a subscription. If I think of the downside, letting my fitness go, then paying for the subscription is worth it. Sort of like an insurance policy.
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It could, but it’s a pretty terrible way of doing things all round. You need to run in windowed mode, you don’t get any of the screen prompts or awesome ERG management, it doesn’t work on mobile devices, etc etc etc.
I assume I’m missing something in your description. With Zwift, when I’ve run TR and Zwift in parallel I just run TR on my phone letting it control the trainer via Bluetooth then on my laptop run Zwift with ant+ adapter and allow Zwift to read power.
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Yes I understand. That doesn’t give you any of the Zwift (or indieVelo) workout functionality though… arches, etc. It’s more relevant on indieVelo because the workout mode is much more impressive (erg interval transition smoothing, anti spiral of death, terrain and flat mode, virtual gearing, etc)
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What I came here to say. I don’t know what would be best for both sides, but some kind of adoption/incorporation/partnership would be cool.
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