Personally I’m using TR for its workout catalog and ease to upload to my wahoo. Outside of that AI FTP is generally pretty bad, training plans aint great, red light green seems to think looking at my bike is to much. The more you add the worse the product feels to me.
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Last year I bought a new gen7 trek madone slr and it has definitely made me faster. That being said the amount i pay yearly for TrainerRoad makes we “way” faster. I spend more on tires every year for that bike than on my TrainerRoad subscription and have no issues with the price increase.
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I’ve got no issue with an increase. Ai FTP detection alone is worth it and the workout levels, Adaptive Training, RLGL, and amazing support crew the few times I needed them are all icing on the cake.
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Using TR last year took me from a 9:18 Leadville 100 finish time to an 8:37 and now that I am taking a year off racing, not having to think about a training plan and having TR always give me good workouts that help me maintain fitness is worth the cost. Oh and not having to take FTP tests. 
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Happy to stay at that figure. I would add one small request. Is it possible to buttress the normal podcast with some that include the ‘successful’ user types of the past. It would be great to hear how people of different life stages, hours in etc utilise TR to garner their success. While I enjoy hearing from the pros - I can’t see myself in them anymore - as much as I’d like to as a 46yrs Young man coming back to cycling after a very long layoff - as much as I squint.
Reason I ask - Is I believe the podcast is such a large part of my enjoyment and ability to use app as intended - however - I feel like recently the pods are starting to lose their original intent.
JMHO and no hate. STill enjoy the product and will use TR as long as I can afford to do so.
TIA
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What no one talks about is that prices have increased over the years, indirectly, with currency conversion and taxes. So $210 is $287 Canadian. With taxes it comes out to $330 Canadian a year. An absolute absurd amount. If it wasn’t for Legacy pricing, being with TR for over 10 years, I would cancel.
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No issues here. TR’s costs aren’t going down, in fact I’d be surprised if your compute costs with all the ML hasn’t crept up quite a bit over the last five years.
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I agree with Power13. You just raise the price. Everyone understands that it cant stay the same. The few that you may lose are offset by the increase in revenue.
I am an accountant and we raise our prices every year. How else do you keep employees happy?
I advise clients to have a pricing policy that is just regular increases. It just seems fairer for customer, owner and employee.
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so much better than what starts sounding like a “Support PBS” telethon. You enjoy our programming so much, don’t you want to pay more?!
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Thanks for explaining. Two comments for consideration.
The increase itself isn’t that much, but what gets me is I was paying $99/year since I enrolled in 2018. When I got the notice it didn’t feel right to me to stay at that legacy pricing in 2023. Now I’m at $189, a year later and price is going up again another $20. Doesn’t seem fair that someone opted not to pay more should continue to get a discount, but those that didn’t stay at legacy pricing get another increase. I get it, dumb move by me, but a poor way for Trainerroad to treat customers.
Second is no one cares about inflation impacts in terms of the messaging. Looking at my bills almost every single one of my subscription services has gone up, but my salary somehow hasn’t gone up the same percentage. At some point there has to be a price ceiling or all these services will cannibalize each other. Not a Trainerroad specific issue, I just get tired of hearing about inflation, but end users aren’t getting paid more on average and have to take the brunt of these increases.
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Personally a $2 a month increase won’t make a huge difference to me. I’ll still keep using TR. I find that it’s not perfect (would like more tri integration, and better calendar scheduling) but in terms of a training platform for reducing cognitive load it gets me on the bike/trainer.
I tend to think of it as TR vs Zwift and I don’t find Zwift’s Tri stuff is there for me. Plus outside workouts etc.
If the increase also means that you can hire more engineers and move faster then it’s something I support.
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Hi TR team
You know your customer base better than I do. You do what you think is best.
However, consider to introduce tier-pricing, please. Library plus workout player as an entry tier. Then build tiers, e.g. next one plans without AI FTP and RLGL etc… Highest tier gets the full suite. You get what you pay for, like in so many other industries/products.
As an example, I am using TR to complement my multi-sport training. Cycling comes at fifth place in my hierarchy of sports only. After some experimentation I learned it suits me most to use it for base training only. For base I just need workout library, RPE/HR and a nice player like TR. At some point I will replace TR by cheaper competition if pricing goes further up.
Best
Marc
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IMO the tiered pricing, ie.combining set of features to fixed packages is not usually a good option. Trying to guess how the users use the app is hard, as there are so many types of users. The tiers you proposed as an example may work fine for someone who trains mainly with the TR, but they may not be very good for someone else who mostly trains outside. The possibility to choose only the features you want would of course be the best option, but I understand adding that kind of functionality to the TR is not feasible.
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Whilst the increase in itself is small and can be seen to be justifiable as per the opening post by @Nate_Pearson , the market in which TR competes has also changed a lot in the last few years.
There are more products out there that are trying to tempt users of the more established platforms to give them a try and to capture new customers as they venture into training for the first time.
Some are cheaper than TR. Some are free. Some use different approaches (e.g. HRV).
My 2c worth (if it is even worth 2c) is that it is probably easy enough for TR to convince its existing core users to pay a little bit more, but that competing with those new products is a different battle altogether.
Reinstating the price premium to Zwift (following its recent price increase) sends a message to the market that TR is a premium product.
As long as TR can continue to convince new prospects that is true, then all will be well.
When I joined TR (Sep 2018), there wasn’t much else on the market that did (or claimed to do) enough to make for much of a choice.
If I was new to the market now, I know I would have a decent choice of options that would do what TR does for me as I use it. It is difficult for me to know what I would choose. Maybe TR, maybe not.
Only TR has the data on user retention, new user sign up rates, average account life etc. to assess that.
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Well, they’ll increase the price anyway. And that’s okay.
But following your statement users wouldn’t even have a choice. Some choice is better I reckon. Like in many aspects in life, options to chose from will not always cater to any individual’s perfect.
Tiered pricing allows for some users to continue using the app while missing out on some features. Likely the features that supposedly set TR apart (and beyond) the competition.
I am sure TR team can come up with tiers that would make sense for both groups of users and TR as a for-profit company.
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The explanation for a price increase is cogent and makes sense. TR has indeed added quite a few features, RL/GL works as advertised for me and PLs have completely changed how I pick alternate workouts (for the better).
I don’t think that’s a good idea. You want broad adoption of such features, and it’ll always cause friction, because some people might initially think they don’t want feature X … until they try it and can’t live without it.
In my experience, tiers suck in almost all cases for customers and lead to problems for the company down the road, because they have to keep a separation between the tiers.
Tiered pricing only makes sense when you have good, clear separation between the tiers. E. g. TP has a tier for coaches, which use entirely different functionality than regular athletes. Here, a tiered pricing scheme makes sense, because it serves different purposes and targets very different customers.
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Cycling is an expensive sport (eg: “Wow, these $250 bibs are on sale for $120. What a GREAT price!!”). I wouldn’t think twice about paying $2/month/$24 per year more. I’m barely aware of the monthly charge as it is. It’s a great product. Take my money.
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I came back to TR last month after using another platform for the past year, and I must say, TR just works. I love the Train Now feature and the three different workout options. If I’m riding early in the morning, I choose the Endurance ride. When I ride later in the day, I pick the Climbing or Attacking workout. I can ride indoors staring at TR for however long the workout takes—it doesn’t trouble me. Zwift and other platforms just don’t work for me.
The simplicity of the TR app is brilliant. The app opens in a few seconds, sensors are paired, and my choice of workouts is right there. No fussing around, no input needed from me, and I’m riding my bike immediately. Plus, I know exactly when the workout ends, so I can text my family and let them know what time I’ll be out of the “pain cave.”
Feel free to raise the price, but if you could hold off until August, that would be great. I recently switched to a yearly subscription, which is due to renew on July 11th.
Thank you for a fantastic product and for reaching out to your subscribers for feedback. I really appreciate it.
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Oof, another service raising prices.
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integrate the post swimming workout auto uploud into calendar and then take my money;)
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