Some days, I just can’t decide if Strava tries hard to hurt their reputation, or, if it just comes naturally. Today, however, I’m left flabbergasted.
When I started writing this post, I thought I had it all figured out. And then each time I dug further, the rabbit hole deepened, and the absurdity of it expanded. So, I’m going to attempt to unravel this, but realistically, this ball of spaghetti is such a mess that I don’t even think Strava knows what they’re doing at this point.
In short: For some people, prices will double overnight. For others, it’ll be nothing. Others still yet will split the difference on a wide-ranging scale in between those points. The determining factor? Theoretically a combination of which country you’re in, when exactly you signed up, whether you’re on annual or monthly plans, and finally, exactly what today’s date is, relative to the date of your subscription renewal. I’m not kidding, you can’t make this up.
But the real kicker? Strava refuses to provide the actual price you’ll pay for Strava. In a nearly 24-hour long volley of e-mails that ultimately triggered them to publish a statement on their press site, they still refuse to simply state what the price of Strava actually is. I’m not kidding.
Getting the Ball Rolling:
Before we go too far, it should at least be noted that Strava has never increased prices in the last decade. If you go into your account settings, you can actually choose to have Strava send you a single e-mail outlining your entire payment history since the beginning of time (“Send All Receipts”). And this is what mine shows – that I’ve been paying the same $59/year since March of 2013 (though, I’ve actually been a member since September 2011):
And in fact, it also shows my upcoming renewal in March will be $59 as well:
However, before we get back to my account (and my wife’s account), let’s look at the storm clouds brewing.
Back a month or two ago, a few readers noted that their Strava subscription was showing a higher renewal price than before (free accounts still exist of course). Of course, as noted when I checked my account, everything was still the same. At the time it seemed specifically tied to UK accounts. Not other countries. And the exact change % varied depending on whether or not you were on an annual plan, or a monthly plan.
The UK Beginnings:
In the case of the UK monthly plan, Strava had raised UK rates from £6.99 to £8.99, about a 29% increase (though other people apparently have a £5.99 plan, so that’s a 50% increase). Whereas, for the annual plan, it’s far more subdued, raising rates from £47.99 to £54.99. That’s only £7 per year, or about a 15% increase. I think we’d all agree a ~50% increase is pretty substantial, yet at the same time, outside of temporarily trying Strava for a few months, I’m not really sure why one would buy it monthly. I mean, that’s what I wrote till I noticed my wife was signed up monthly for the last 5 years, which, is actually my mistake. I had upped her account to Subscriber to test something years ago and never thought about it again. Doh.
(Fun fact, in order to go from monthly Strava subscriber to annual Strava subscriber you literally have to cancel your membership account, wait for your current month to expire, then finally remember to re-subscribe. WHAT!?!??!)
Looking at the UK piece specifically, what can’t be ignored is the simple economic reality that two things are probably at play:
US inflation last 12 months: 6-8% (depending on which source you pick)
GBP to USD Exchange Rate last 12 months: Down 14% (GBP value to USD decline)
These UK-specific changes seemed to start shortly after the British Pound (vs USD) reached rock-bottom back in late September. Remembering that Strava bills UK users in local British Pounds, but ultimately Strava is based in the US and the vast majority of their employees/costs are in the US. Just as we saw with numerous other companies, the cost of business has simply risen. Companies have to pay employees more to stay competitive (especially for tech companies), and other infrastructure costs have also risen.
Then More Countries:
Now, fast forward to the last day or so, and Reddit has blown up with some people showing huge annual price increases as well, from $59/year to $99/year, and others up to $79/year. And monthly prices from $5.99 to $11.99 (a price doubling!). A few other people living in other countries reported price increases as well. Here’s an example e-mail of a price increase from $59 to $99, a 67% increase:
The problem though? It’s super random. Some people got e-mail notices with upcoming price increases, while others got no e-mail and their account shows upcoming renewals at a higher price. And plenty more still, like myself and my wife, show no price increase either (nor did I receive an e-mail).
If however, you sift long enough through Reddit threads, you eventually find a thread that talks about a support article Strava posted (or updated) on Saturday that attempts to outline what they are doing, price-wise. I say attempts, because clearly ‘Meg’ was tasked with writing an article to explain the most confusing policy possible. For all the hate other companies like Amazon, Netflix, etc get for their price increases, at least we can decode them. It’s straightforward: On X date, the new price will be Y. I mean, except TrainerRoad, which also said “…but only if actually you want to pay more”.
In any case, there’s a table in this Strava Support article, which your eyes will naturally gravitate to:
Unfortunately, if your eyes did gravitate to that table first, then you missed the slate of ifs/ands/buts that were prefaced in the block of text above it. Which I’ve included below for funsies. Again, I don’t envy poor Meg’s task here. She did the best she could with the paper bag of poop she was handed:
So, let me try and simplify this for you, here’s the distilled version:
We, Strava, will increase your price if you live in a random smattering of countries. However, we won’t show you said new price until 30 days prior to renewal. Nor will we put that price in a handy table anywhere on our website, because honestly we wouldn’t want you to know just how much we’re gonna increase it. Also, if today is before February 2nd, 2023, then, frankly, we have no idea what your account renewal status should show (but whatever it is, it’s probably not right). Shrug.
P.S. – If you just signed up for this dumpster fire of a situation since November 23rd, 2022, then we won’t increase your price for now. Pinky swear. Maybe.
Hugs and kisses,
Strava
Seriously, that’s literally what it says. I can’t make it more serious than that. And their support article directly contradicts what people have posted in Reddit showing things like $79/year renewals coming in May.
So in the case of our household, two different things are happening:
A) Me: In my case, theoretically, my price will increase when it renews on March 14th, 2023, because mine is listed as a US account. Except, I have no idea what it’ll increase to, and I will apparently receive a notice 30 days before.
B) My Wife: In her case, her account is actually listed to our Netherlands address (we live in the Netherlands). Currently, she’s on a monthly account (doh, again), but hey, as it stands now, her price isn’t going up. Had we left our previous France address on there from a few months prior, then it’d increase.
Also, fun fact: I can’t actually find any place to update said country/address. Both of our accounts are actually billing to US credit cards (directly on Strava’s site). At the moment, that seems to be a good thing for my wife. And, I suppose it’d make sense for me to switch my account to being a Netherlands-based person before March…if only I could figure out how.
Finally, A Proper Strava Response:
So, as I started mulling through this, I shot off an e-mail to Strava’s PR person aiming to get some clarity. I was just looking for a simple table of what the USD/EUR/GBP final prices were (monthly/annual). I wasn’t gonna try and get greedy and get actual explanations or other prices. Nonetheless, some number of hours later, I got an official answer, which Strava is also going to cross-publish to their Press Blog site.
Here’s the official response I received from Strava:
“At Strava, we are consistently investing in the value of our subscription experience to deliver a best-in-class digital experience. A price change was recently enacted to reflect the growing subscription features, as well as local market changes. We remain committed to delivering value to our active community on a daily basis.
The last pricing release for annual subscriptions took place about a decade ago while monthly subscriptions have seldom fluctuated.
Price adjustments will vary depending on region and preferred platform.”
Meanwhile, that’s actually different than what they posted to the press site about 20-30 minutes later:
“As we continue to invest in your experience, our prices may change to better reflect new features and market conditions. The decision to change our price was not taken lightly and we want to share why this is happening.
Our priority is giving you a unique experience for a holistic view of your active lifestyle. This happens through delivering you value on a daily basis through new features, product updates and services. In the past 10 years, Strava has added countless new features including support for more than 40 sport types, Beacon, route recommendations, an online route builder tool, global and personal heatmaps, segment leaderboards and custom goals and progress. These additions are made based on your valuable feedback, what we are hearing from the active community and research.
While our subscription price has largely remained constant for the past years, we also take local market conditions into consideration. When costs and plans are adjusted, we’re always working to improve your experience and invest in the value delivered to you on a daily basis. Pricing decisions will continuously be evaluated to ensure we are offering the best value of our growing features to our community.
Price changes will vary depending on region and preferred platform.”
Well, that’s at least slightly more clarifying than the statement e-mailed to me 30 minutes prior.
Except, that didn’t answer my original question on what the actual prices are (or whether or not they’re going to notify end users)? So, I circled back again, asking again in one line what the USD/GBP/EUR pricing is for monthly/annual subscriptions. Silence. Then, one more poke, this time getting:
“That’s our full press statement.” – Michael Joseph, Strava PR Lead
Wait, are you kidding? I’m actually mildly angry at this point. Strava actually can’t tell me what its price is? So, being the generous guy I am, I just wanted to make it clear the road they were travelling, saying in the nicest way possible, “Wait, sorry, just to confirm: Strava can’t tell me what the price of Strava is anymore?”
To which, Strava stopped responding.
This is arguably the most insane conversation I’ve had with a company in the 15 years I’ve been writing about sports tech. A company “with more than 100 million active people in 195 countries”, literally can’t tell me the price of their own product in even just the three biggest countries/regions. And mind you, if you think it’s published anywhere, it’s certainly not. Even if you go to sign-up for a subscription, they won’t list the price.
Gonna Do This Myself:
So given Strava is unable to provide their own product pricing, for even just one country, I’m gonna figure this out myself. So I cracked open some VPN software, and then an incognito browser session and got to work. I connected to every country on the list as if I was setting up a brand new account, to get the current new subscriber pricing. I also picked a few other countries along the way, just for fun. Here’s the current pricing for signing up for a new account in each of these countries:
(Reminder: Your account will not likely show this new pricing until you’re within 30 days of your renewal, and said renewal is after Feb 2nd, 2023 – per the screenshotted support article up above.)
Generally speaking, this matches what other people are seeing. And, it also explains some things. The $99 seen earlier for the annual sub? That was apparently a Canadian person. Whereas the US pricing is $79/year. However, indeed, the new monthly price does double to $12.99.
The only quirk though is actually my wife’s account, which shows both the previous renewal 4 days ago, and upcoming renewal in 27 days as 7.99EUR, versus the 10.99EUR it should be for a Netherlands account. Of course, the challenge is that there’s actually no way to see on Strava’s site what your billing origination country is. That appears to be set from whatever country you instantiated the account at (like, where the computer was). So it’s plausible we were travelling in Spain or Italy sometime in the fall of 2018 when we clicked ‘Subscribe’ on her account. Or, something else entirely.
Either way, that’s the best we’ve got for now. Maybe Strava will wake up and decide to publish their own price list like every other company on earth. Or not.
A Wrap-Up:
Here’s the thing, Strava seems to be hoping that nobody notices this price increase. Problem is – people are, and when they get notified, it’s nothing more than a short and terse e-mail saying their prices are increasing upwards of 67%. Unlike other platforms which at least attempt to smooth over things, outline all the new features a user got over the past while, or basically explain things a bit.
When Strava replaced its CEO a few years ago with one of the original founders, they pissed off a lot of non-subscribers by removing features for free accounts. But long-term, they focused on subscribers as their singular revenue source. The idea being to focus on features subscribers wanted. And to their credit, they’ve largely done that. Sure, all of us could name one stupid thing Strava hasn’t done or hasn’t fixed. We all have our ‘this seems obvious’ thing we want changed, but practically speaking, companies can’t change every thing every person asks for. However, on the whole, Strava has done a good job at adding plenty of new features.
Unfortunately, whatever goodwill Strava built up over the last few years, they’re flushing down the drain through non-communication to end users. Like most consumers, I’m a pretty reasonable person when it comes to understanding the world reality that prices are going up. I get it. I really do. But just be honest and clear about what those prices are going to be, and then, at a minimum – attempt to justify them. I don’t know how you justify a 67% price increase. Perhaps you do it by noting that Strava prices haven’t increased in a decade. But, that’d require opening your mouth and doing it, not just flipping a switch and hoping money rolls in.
In our household’s case, for my account, I’ll renew it. Mainly because it’s my job to write about new Strava features. The only premium feature I actually routinely use is creating routes. I have virtually no use for Segments. Meanwhile, for my wife, we’re just going to cancel it. This was probably a good reminder that she doesn’t use any premium features at all at this point, so there’s really no reason to stay premium. So ultimately, in our home, Strava will gain maybe $40 in revenue to concurrently lose €95 ($102). A net loss of $62/year.
At the end of the day, only Strava will truly know whether or not their strategy is going to work. But I struggle to see how this approach helps the company long term. And I fail to see how hiding your price from consumers is a good business practice.
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>> paying the same $59/month since March of 2013
Almost fell off my chair, think that should be $59/annually?
Thanks!
For one second I just thought somebody would really be willing to pay that much money each month for Strava… and then I looked at the receipts :-D
The numbers in the table are local dollars, right (Australia, Canada)? And the UK should be pounds, not euros.
Yup, correct for AUS/Canada, local dollars. and yes, good catch on GBP symbol. Thanks!
My account is in the UK and I seem to be billed in Euros for some reason. Currently showing my renewal price as the same €54.99 I’ve always paid, bit not due until end of November 2023.
This isn’t quite correct. In Canada and mine was charged in USD when it renewed mid-December, so with the exchange rates it came to $82.53 CAD.
Consider adding units to the table for AUD/CAD/USD to make this clear. $99.99 CAD is about $75 USD, so the table makes it look like Strava is more expensive in Canada than in the US, when it’s actually the other way around. Adding specific currency units will at least make it easier for someone to notice that the units aren’t the same.
It’s not the other way around, it’s considerably more expensive in Canada in raw dollar terms. I’ve always been charged in USD for Strava (and Zwift, and TrainerRoad…).
I had also (and still have) different price if i try to buy through my mobile app or web app. On webapp it’s much more expensive and it’s in different currency on mobile i got it in my country currency (PLN) but it’s definitely not conversion of the web price.
Routes creation was my only use for premium. Guess I’ll do with Garmin or Komoot then.
I guess the issue is about Data center storage since they have introduce Video Media.
They probably have come up with a formula per country, how much data is now posted since Video is available …
That maybe just an idea but who knows so far :)
PS: I remain on 59$ for renewal in 29 days (Poland)
I would not assume that they are charging proportional to the costs of the users, but proportional to what they think they can get away with…
I was thinking exactly the same. This smells like the result of “market research”. That would explain the bs communication as well. “Hi Ray, the prices are determined by an AI / market research team from user data, as the highest price the person is willing to pay.” – wouldn’t be a communication that they can get away with.
In the UK, and I’m pretty sure EU, it’s illegal to offer different pricing to different people in that way. I guess in the “land of the free” things are different, but they’d be in big trouble if they tried to do that. I worked with a holiday company that charged more for Mac users on the assumption they would pay – that was stopped. Also worked with a company who were trying to offer lower bids if you gave more detail (you were keen to sell) and again legal stepped in.
IDK, the compassion they use in the video is so bad, they probably aren’t paying that much more. My AWS pricing hasn’t changed on me yet
I am not even sure it is legal to charge different amounts for the same online service in the EU.
I’m fairly sure different charging between EU countries is legal. However pretty sure preventing you shopping around between EU prices is illegal.
Pretty sure it is legal
And yet, prices differ all across the board for the EU, with Germany “getting” the highest increase.🤬
I subscribed when the founders plead for financial backing, but i don’t think I’m going to be renewing my paid subscription.
This makes sense, but why not make video uploads a subscriber only feature?
Instead they are still making previously free things like your year in review a subscriber only feature.
Well if we take a look here, it seems charging different prices in different EU countries could be illegal, unless it is due to different delivery costs, different VAT rates, etc. Maybe a US company that doen’t have any offices in en EU country can get away with it though.
link to europa.eu
Price discrimination
As an EU national or resident you can’t be charged a higher price when buying products or services in the EU just because of your nationality or country of residence.
When you buy goods online in the EU, prices may vary from country to country or across different versions of the same website, for example due to differences in delivery costs. However, if you buy goods online without cross-border delivery – such as when you buy something online which you intend to collect from a trader or shop yourself – you should have access to the same prices and special offers as buyers living in that EU country. You cannot be charged more or prevented from buying something just because you live in another country.
The same rules apply when you buy services provided at the trader’s premises, for example when you buy entry tickets for an amusement park, book a hotel, rent a car, or when you buy electronically supplied services (such as cloud services or website hosting), you are entitled to have access to the same prices as local buyers.
Budget Airlines across the EU have been doing something similar for years. For example – you go onto get a price for a flight, and when you go back to recheck and possibly book, the price has gone up. This is to fool you into booking now before the price goes up again!
The trick was to clear your cookies and fool the website into seeing you as a unique visitor and hey presto the price is back down again. The system is fairly low tech.
There are no laws of discrimination based on whether you are using Safari or Google Chrome as a browser, even though such a practice would be pretty despicable. “Caveat Emptor” I guess.
As mentioned below. There is a EU policy against Geoblocking (2018/302). This includes pricing. Relevant Articles are 6 + 18. Translations are linked at the top:
link to eur-lex.europa.eu
Quote article 18:
“In order to increase the ability of customers to access information related to the sales of goods and the provision of services within the internal market and to increase transparency, including with respect to prices, traders should not, through the use of technological measures or otherwise, prevent customers from having full and equal access to online interfaces[..]”
You can find all relevant information on how to contact your countries authorities to report this here:
link to digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
For Germany thats the Bundesnetzagentur:
link to bundesnetzagentur.de
Strava EU offices are located in Dublin Ireland. Happy reporting.
AFAIK they can charge differently within the EU but they *MUST* provide the possibility to change your location so that you can get the cheaper Spanish price, too. As it is it’s a distortion of the single market and disctiminates consumers in high-price EU countries vis-a-vis consumers in low-price EU countries. Foul play!
Excellent info! So nothing should stand in my way from signing up in Strava Spain and actually saving money.
I don’t think this is true.. you can’t discriminate prices based on race, gender, religion, etc.. but you can certainly charge whatever you want as long as you ignore those characteristics..
The winners are the Spanish guys. All the listed EU countries paying in Euro like Spain does, just significantly more. Surely Strava can’t argue this is due to € to $ exchange rate. If I was German I’d right pissed off.
So can we VPN to Spain and set it up cheaply that way?
You should consider that salary are far higher in Germany.
What’s that got to do with anything?! Are they selling their product under the market value in Spain out of the goodness of their heart!?
And you’d be dead right about that!
I moved from Spain to Greece and I’m paying 59.99 since 2020, salaries here are way lower than in Spain
I’m based in the UK. Just checked my account, the new price, from 27 October, 2023. will be €59.99, (same as last year) yes, that’s right it will be priced in EURO’s, no idea why. This seems to have happened in October 2021 when the price increased from £18.99 to €59.99, not arguing with that increase I guess it was when they changed the ‘bands’
I’m based in the UK and mine appears in dollars? Dollars would work out cheaper for me 😀
They aren’t providing the “real” price until 30 days prior to the renewal date. So your may jump on 28 September.
Only reason I use strava premium is to get the best from veloviewer, hopefully it will find another way to get the same kind of info…
Thank you for reminding me why I pay for Premium.
That used to be my reason, however, I’m done expanding tiles for the moment. Cancelled my subscription per sep ’23. However, if this settles down I’ll probably re-subscribe as I think it is OK to pay for services. (Yes, I was a DC supporter for a year or two and will be again once I use a review for a buying decision again).
Strava would not be the first company having different prices not only per country or payment option, but also depending on whatever information they can get regarding the customer (may be his historic data as a free Strava user, may be whether he is using an expensive iPhone or not, …).
Would not really surprise me.
Still true that they need to communicate better. Even if they do not want to tell “a” price.
Looks like Strava is going with the Plane Ticket Pricing Model.
Customer: “How much with a ticket from Amsterdam to Seattle cost if I book 10 minutes from now?”
Airline: “Call us in 10 minutes to find out.”
That “Plane Ticket Pricing Model” gives a different price per individual. I have understood with Strava they are not.
But I get your point; the prices seem somehow calculated based on Strava’s perception what people want to pay.
This is such a clusterfuck. The thing is, I like Strava. I like their product. I like that there is no advertisement. I like the social aspect. This is why I pay for Premium. I don’t use Premium features (apart from routes which I could easily do on Komoot). But with this kind of behavior… Don’t know how much longer I’ll continue to pay.
100% this. I’m happy to pay my way for an ad free platform. I don’t use premium features either, and I do have Garmin to see data.
I’ll downgrade if the price rises and I’ll downgrade if they do anything dodgy. There’s no scenario where this goes well for them except making the platform reasonably priced and being transparent.
I have not been a premium member to Strava for a few years and have been thinking about upgrading. After reading this article and seeing the price increase, there is zero reason for me to upgrade. All of my stuff goes through Garmin anyway and I have all the information I need there.
I’m a premium member for the heatmap and the segments.
I realize these are silly, but I like them. But it KILLS me that garmin has never been able to make garmin segments as good as Strava has been able to make strava segments. Same goes for the global heatmap and your personal heatmap. They’re small things, but I like them.
But, man do I hate strava sometimes (like this)
I’m in NL, €59,99 since august 21, renewal per August 23 still listed as €59,99
Same in Finland. Renewal @Sep ’23 €59,99. Subscriber since 2019.
Doesn’t the story say that you won’t know your real renewal price until 30 days before the renewal date?
I don’t have those receipt lines on my screen. Odd.
No price increase next renewal either – still £47.99
I wonder if it’s an EU mandated thing?
Maybe.
Oh for the days when I was in the EU…….
And I’ve just seen that my price will in theory go up in July for my august renewal.
I don’t have that button either despite having a EU account…but I’m currently also not effected by the price increase (I think, who knows?).
This compared to Trainer Road’s price increase approach is night and day. I really want Strava to succeed, it’s a big reason why I stuck with this sport at the start and motivated me quite a bit over the years. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
I have used Trainer Road on off for years, cancelling when it gets to summer etc. This was the first year I paid for the annual, purely out of respecting them for a solid product and offering.
Just checked my account. I’m based in the US and have paid them since 2016. Says my account will renew for the same $59/yr in October. Even if it doesn’t end up increasing, I should probably take this pricing nonsense from them as a reminder to decide if I really need the paid features any more instead of just letting it roll along unchanged.
Remember that any renewal dates beyond Feb 2nd, won’t necessarily be correct for all countries (per their support article above).
Not saying that’s logical, just helping to clarify.
I pay via an apple subscription that is showing £54.99 for a renew 7 months away!
I’ll probably cancel, the main thing I use it for is creating new routes. I do find the heat map useful, is there anything else there that provides similar for running and cycling?
If you have a Garmin device (or even if you don’t – I believe there is nothing stopping you from creating a Garmin account with 0 Garmin devices) – you can use Garmin Connect Web which has Garmin’t Popularity Routing.
I believe you need to have a device. Oh and I don’t understand why would people using Garmin Connect pay for Strava. What does it offer to justify paying subscription?
You can make heatmaps for free on my website (link to jonathanokeeffe.com). Works with both premium and free accounts.
what strikes me the most is the different pricing for the european countries, all using euros.
how can they justify the price difference between The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, (Belgium?)?
Taxes for an example.
I agree that I don’t understand these different prices for the European countries.
It’s easy for people in the EU to buy in other EU countries. The euro and the European market are big enablers for that. It promotes having the same price in different countries. Strava somehow doesn’t seem to get that.
Taxes are a differentiator (and a reason to buy in another country), but it is not that big. I mean, the price differences Ray showed in his list are not due to tax differences.
If that were true, prices in Germany should be lower than in the Netherlands, 19% VAT v. 21% VAT. Yet monthly seems to be the same and yearly is more expensive in Germany acc. to Ray’s table.
Same as anything. Wages are different. 10 in Germany is nothing compared to eastern Europe.
As before: Strava has all the rights to charge different prices in different EU countries. BUT they *must* enable their EU customers to shop the cheapest EU price – whether they are based in said country or not. 101 of How-to-trade-in-the-EU.
–> Four Freedoms. –> principle of non-discrimination
“Bureaucracy is the death of any achievement”.
– Albert Einstein
i guess back to komoot and interval.icu! thanks for everything strava and bye bye
But to your point at the end of the video…there are really very few reasons for users to subscribe to premium. Your device manufacturer (e.g. Garmin, etc.) likely already provides way more in-depth analysis of your data (emphasis on YOUR data).
I recall discussion every time Strava has to go through another round of funding regarding its profitability or lack thereof. Do you have any more recent data regarding that?
I wonder why Strava opts to charge for subscriptions in local currencies? Most similar kinds of companies charge is USD and leave it to the payment platforms to figure out exchange rates.
Could it be an Apple App Store requirement?
Most likely to adapt to local markets and purchasing power. That would explain the difference between Italy, Spain, Germany, and Netherlands (which all use the same currency).
Pretty sure this has got nothing to do with Apple.
If they have an operating presence in Australia then Australian law says they must charge in Australian dollars, and the offer to treat must include all fees, duties and taxes in the headline price. These are reasonable consumer protection laws. The ACCC routinely take US websites to court for non-compliance.
Even a video about a website, wearing two watches for testing?
none of it makes much sense other than the fact that inflation is different in different countries… not sure how they can argue that Spain should pay €7.99/€49.99 but Italy pays €7.99/€59.00!
seems a bity random as you say…
what are the subsciber benefits, i need to review whether im going to pay the addition £6.99 next August… assuming its still £54.99 then!
So here’s an interesting quirk to add another country to list list – I started as UK subscriber then lived in Japan and now I live in the Philippines.
If you follow the Netflix/other country specific subscription model, you’d expect here to be cheaper on account of the generally significantly lower income level but it’s telling me it will renew for 6300 PHP annually. Thanks to the current currency markets, that equates to around 99 GBP so double the UK rate which presumably means they are pegging it to the USD and placing it well outside the affordable/justifiable range for people.
After I saw the increase, it triggered me, much like your household, as to whether the premium features were actually being used, and I found they aren’t.
I foresee Strava losing subscribers just due to this subscription awareness trigger they’ve induced.
Great article, albeit I can feel the frustration.
Rate changes definitely trigger shopping behavior. When I was trying to decide whether to spring for the paid service (after 10-11 years of free), I lost track of the number of paying friends who replied “I have no idea” when I asked what they like about the paid version.
“support for more than 40 sports”? I wonder just how many people take advantage of e.g. roller ski? (Maybe it’s a thing in other countries – lol!) I’d much rather be able to filter my strata feed to weedle out short activities like warm ups and cool downs. Yes – they’re important, but not for kudos surely?
Count me as one of the Roller Ski users! An activity Garmin does not have (that I see). Training mode for cross-country skiing without snow :).
Funny since I upload and record via garmin, I have to edit the strava activity from nordic skiing to roller skiing, but pleased it exists.
I also don’t get the download old receipts option.
incredibly bold 🤪
Obviously Strava needs some new PR staff. My eyes rolled into the back of my head when I saw corporate babble speak like “we are consistently investing in the value of our subscription experience to deliver a best-in-class digital experience” and “Our priority is giving you a unique experience for a holistic view of your active lifestyle. This happens through delivering you value on a daily basis through new features, product updates and services”. Do they really think that such language resonates with their user base? They must think that following the lead of phone and cable tv providers in maintaining confusing pricing structures makes them “best in class”. Wonder how much of these price increases are needed to cover the costs of their mainstream advertising campaigns?
What Strava needs is less PR staff. This looks like a number of warring factions having each promised a different solution to an impossible problem and then pretending that they don’t disagree with each other because some company culture document mandates harmony.
What a mess lol.
How do they justify 4 different price points within the EU where a euro is a euro regardless of where you live? And even if there is some dubious justification for that, how can they justify that there a four different monthly euro prices, and four different euro yearly prices, but those four prices are not in line with each other for the same country of origin – ie if I pay monthly in France I pay €2 more a month than Italy, but the same annually. Whereas in Spain I pay the same monthly as Italy but €10 less annually. And the same between Germany and the Netherlands, same monthly but different annual? WTAF?
As a Brit, none of that even affects me personally, but having given them the benefit of the doubt the last time they messed with the payment structure (pay per feature), I’m really starting to think that just not paying at all is the best way to solve the issue.
Bye bye Strava!People, vote with your wallets!!
Errr mine is £39.99 in the UK. Renewed in October.
While I understand what you said about their costs being in USD, I have to suggest that’s irrelevant. I don’t pay in dollars and £54.99 is a lot of money in the local currency for what Strava offer. They have to set prices to what the local market will stand, not align to US costs.
I guess they have until October to sort it or they’ll lose at least one more subscriber (and then their USD costs won’t be paid regardless).
I gave up on Strava a while back, I actually deleted my original account and started a free account again after about 9 months, only because a few friends said that they missed seeing my rides. However, since starting again, I only have a few close friends and family on there as ‘followers’, and for everything else I’ve found somebody somewhere else is doing it better for cheaper or for free. Garmin Connect, PlotaRoute for route planning (which is miles ahead of anything Strava does) and intervals.icu for analysis.
Once you take out the broken segment nonsense, it’s like the Emperor’s new clothes, there’s nothing really there that is any good.
Interesting re: PlotaRoute. Have you tried RideWithGPS? I’m curious as to the differences..
That looks like 6300 JPY to me? So $49 USD?
Great post, thanks for you work.
> Some days, I just can’t decide if Strava tries hard to hurt their reputation, or, if it just comes naturally. Today, however, I’m left flabbergasted.
This is 100% on purpose. They don’t communicate the change in any meaningful way because they hope the damage from people noticing will be smaller than the increase in their bottom line. By the very nature of reading this blog, we are all a bit more focused on this stuff than your average consumer.
By asking them for a statement, you are basically messing with their plan to have this fly under the radar.
As for my opinion: This will probably work in the short term by increasing revenue and bite them in the ass later for abusing our trust. This seems to be the Strava way, where management seems to be severely lacking long-term vision every so often. I will start to look around if the price goes up for me, basically just looking for the routing features (which is very nice in Strava, especially the integration with Garmin devices).
“By the very nature of reading this blog, we are all a bit more focused on this stuff than your average consumer.”
To a degree. But one of the reasons Strava spent 9 hours drafting a response (based on them confirming receipt and saying they’d have it by EOD) is that they know whatever I write will be quickly picked up and or echoed by all manner of more mainstream news orgs (cycling, tech, running, even papers).
As of this writing, there’s just a handful of UK-focused stories from the past few days from just cycling outlets. I’d say give it 6-9 hours and this will be atop every tech website and many sports sites. That’s the part they’re afraid of. How they handled it was the mistake.
In effect, the cover-up became worse than the crime. The crime was the doubling of prices, the cover-up though is trying to hide it from consumers and the media.
Brilliantly written. Shockingly bad (by Strava) 👏
Would it be cheaper for you to switch to using your wife’s account for your testing and drop your account to the free level? Not saying that you’d want to do that (for example because of DCR branding that comes along with your account), but would it be cheaper than dropping her to free?
But I’m in the UK and I pay £3.99 a month?
I had no idea people were paying different amounts?
I noticed something similar with MyFitnessPal recently. The annual cost if I subscribe via Google Play is €49.99, but if I subscribe via their website it’s €79.99. So I emailed to ask about the discrepancy, and whether I was able to get the lower price via the website (Google Play subscriptions are infuriatingly difficult to get a refund for if anything goes wrong). I got this baffling response from their customer support:
“Thank you for reaching out to us. Our apologies for any confusion. From time to time, we run tests on the MyFitnessPal app which cover a range of items, including adding new features to testing different pricing options that may or may not be presented to all MyFitnessPal users. We are currently running both types of tests on our platform.”
So basically, if you use MyFitnessPal, it’s the luck of the draw as to how much you’ll pay 🤷🏻♂️🙈
that’s done often, e. g. when you sign up for Netflix they show different prices to gauge what people would be ok with to pay. not sure if they actually ask for that price though.
Yep, absolutely, A/B testing is a thing… but usually the same user wouldn’t be offered two totally different prices. All that’s going to do is irritate the consumer. They also did the same thing when i was logged in vs. logged out – which, more frustratingly, meant that when I saw a cheaper price on the website while I was logged out, as soon as I clicked subscribe and logged in, it told me my price was actually going to be a huge amount more. Poor user experience.
Garmin Connect does a pretty good job for free.
I’m not renewing Strava this year. The stuff they added has been more “social” vs technical. @$60, OK have my money – but I mostly use Premium for routes. @$80+, that’s RWGPS pricing and routes there a better.
All of this said, I still get the most actionable functionality out of Garmin Connect and might only pay for Veloviewer this year.
There’s more weird stuff going on with subscriptions; I’ve paid $59 4 years ago and my subscription was never cancelled. My receipts show 1 payment of $59, no further charges whatsoever. It says it will cancel in March 2021 but I can still access all features.
I pay through PayPal and after going through my PayPal history it seems I haven’t paid Strava since 9/26/22 but I remain a paid subscriber with all the features. Something similar has happened before with SiriusXM where I receive service for years after canceling a vehicle but keeping others active.
Wow! A tire fire on Strava’s decision here. Based on your article I 100% agree with your assessment. I enjoy using Strava, but hiding an increased cost and hoping people don’t notice is straight up bad business.
I have no idea if I joined Strava with a US VPN or CDN VPN – so I’ll wait until my annual renewal date on Oct 2023 to find out? 👎🏼
Hey DC, when you say they didn’t raise prices I distinctly recall years ago they suddenly carved the membership up by what state you were after. For me it suddenly meant I had to pay a lot more to get the same info and I cancelled. I’ve since just stuck w Garmin and I don’t want to be in the deathgrip of anyone holding my data for ransom.
What STATS.
Yes, that was the three tier Strava Summit model. They eventually dropped it as it was a bit confusing or more likely, people would only use one tier and pay less per month then otherwise.
Absolutely scathing article, which I love as it makes it clear your opinions are your own. At this point Im not sure I’ll renew Strava. At the end of the day it’s just another time suck, and painful reminder that I’m not getting faster as I get older. All these subscriptions these days also add up.
C
Super awkward. Some side by side European countries have same price monthly but different yearly. But others have same yearly but different monthly. Pretty absurd.
Feature development has become much much better except for the Segments front. These are getting messed up more and more and no curating process or flagging on mobile apps possible. No love any more for what made them big in the beginning?
Wow, this was an eye opener. I’ve been a premium member since 2013. Everything was $59 a year but was changed to a monthly model back in 2020 at a cost of 7.99 a month (or $96 a year) and I can’t seem to find an email documenting that change. Then to make matters worse, if I create a burner account, if I go premium with that, its only $80 a year so $16 less then I’ve been paying for 3 years.
In what country is that, if I may ask?
Good ole’ US of A. Home of the variable pricing model. Maybe it will be like cable. If I complain, they’ll give me a year at intro rates?
well that communication is just ridiculous, lol.
no way I’m gonna pay 75€ going forward. I love the segments for some competition against myself to push myself when out for a ride. The route painting by finger is also neat – but for anything more complex I still prefer komoot by far. which is still free for the core features (I. e. all you’ll need)
the fact they added new sports… wow.. so what? all OEM smart device apps support dozens of sports
I still can’t even analyze stuff in the android app. the fact the graphs like heart rate, power, etc. are still static is quite ridiculous
I’m a UK premium subscriber and mine has just auto renewed (no advance warning, just a receipt from Paypal) @ £47.99 which is the same as every other year except the first where I seem to have paid £18.99 (presume a one-off deal). Like others here, I am considering whether I actually need the premium version. No interest in Segments, occasionally use the route planner, but I also push my Connect output to SportTracks and Runalyze which give me far more analysis than Strava. The main purpose of Strava for me now is as a social media platform to share activities with selected friends and to see what they are up to – do I really need to pay £50 a year for that?
It’s called Mather Pricing. Newspapers do the same thing. We will charge you what you will pay.
Ray, how did you get the monthly subscription fees/prices?
I couldn’t get them, perhaps Strava has changed this in the meantime to not show it?
I just tried to subscribe as a test, with my chair+desk+myself+computer in Belgium. The only price I found was “Free trial €0.00, €5.00 /mo* after 60 days” and the asterisk refers to “* when billed annually”.
So that is €60,- per year, which is very close to France and Italy (but not e.g. neighbours Netherlands or Germany).
You can see it briefly in the video around the 8-9 min marker when I start the VPN.
But basically I had to:
1) Create a VPN connection to the country in question
2) Open an incognito session
3) Create a new account with a legit e-mail address
4) Then upgrade said account to paid
5) When I do that, it’ll finally show me the annual price, but I can click ‘More billing options” for the monthly price.
6) Rinse/repeat for every country on the list
Thanks for being a DCR Supporter!
OK, I didn’t create an account, I just gave up. But I understand you received the monthly price when upgrading that account. Love your dedication (and your writing style).
Wow, what a mess. I subscribed via Apple In-App purchase and still see the old price. Can they just raise the price for existing subscribers? BTW you really need a Mastodon account ;-)
I’m not super great with it yet, mostly a Twitter back-up, but it’s: @dcrainmaker@mas.to
Yeah! Glad to see this link 😁
I went into my subscriptions on my iPhone, and I saw the old monthly price too. Then out of curiosity I tapped the “See All Plans” button, and that’s where all of a sudden it shows the new price. If I hadn’t done that I’d have never seen it. I also haven’t gotten any email from either Strava or Apple detailing this increase.
I see a lot of plans there, with different pricing. I was on a monthly plan for some reason, just switched to the cheapest yearly plan. Around 32 eur, converting from PLN :)
And to follow up on that, as I am an iOS dev. All subscriptions need to be registered in the Apple’s App Store Connect system. Afair per country. Seems they registered all of them, and Apple makes it possible to see all available ones under Subscription settings.
The app, in this case Strava, can filter them as it sees fit though when presenting an option to pay. So they are allowing themselves to decide in runtime which offer they will present on iOS when a user wants to buy a subscription.
“The only premium feature I actually routinely use is creating routes. I have virtually no use for Segments”, I couldn’t agree more. The route-creator with the heatmap is working so good in Strava, its the only reason why I have a premium account. I have actually no clue what the other premium features are. Never used them.
Garmin (if you use their stuff) has popularity routing as well.
Less users than Strava but I’d argue it’s more focused that way. In my area ( at top 6 US city) – the whole area is a “heat map” on Strava. Kinda hard to weed anything out. Only value I get is trolling local clubs to see what their frequent routes are.
I’d like to see Strava offer more analytics to get real “value”. Uploading videos, colors for routes ridden, etc is not “value”. If you want to make it more “fun” – a tile explorer would be cool.
It is possible this all stems from the good intention of only raising prices as much as every specific case in every geography requires. Between the accountants and the software people every company can certainly forecast pricing with a high rate of detail & churn. It is just that the people with the numbers have to be moderated by the pricing & marketing people so it appears a bit more smooth & graceful.
I read the entire article and about a dozen comments before I realised, in my mind, I was thinking it was about Zwift! D’oh 🙂
Mmm I’m in NL with an annual subscription that says its €69, stuff that I’ll just cancel and be done with it and use a free account with my komoot
I subscribe to Strava primarily for route planning functionality. I like being able to drag/drop to adjust a route and how I can easily get those routes to my Garmin head unit.
What other platforms are available that offer similar/better than Strava in this regard using PC/smartphone app?
I’ve never got on too well with Garmin Connect’s route planning, but maybe I’m due another try…
If I were you, I’d pay some attention to GC. There’s also Garmin Base Camp software (Win, Macs) to which you can load free OSM maps and more. With it route planning works superb and sync with devices work excellent.
RideWithGPS is fantastic for route making on a PC.
Did you try komoot ?
The Brazilian pricing seems the cheapest, will reactivate mine with a vpn (or start a new account)
Having different prices for the same service within EU is prohibited under EU competition law in some cases. I think its called Geoblocking or Price Discrimination. I’m not a lawyer but this might be the case here?
link to europa.eu
link to eccnederland.nl
Peter, you can have different prices, you just can’t discriminate on the basis of nationality. Eg price for Portugal is X and everyone in Portugal, regardless the nationality, pays X, which can be different to Y in Spain. You also can’t be denied access to a service based in your nationality, so in theory we should be able to subscribe by the Spanish prices. It’s the beauty of the internal market.
However you may argue that by not providing transparency on pricing in different countries and using geofencing they effectively blocking access of customers to eg cheaper offer in Spain. I would like to see opinion of one of ECCs on this case.
But they are discriminating on nationality! You can only get acces to these prices by pretending you are spanish via VPN, as you can see in the video (9:04). If there was a spanish website I could easily acces your point would be correct.
I did some more digging and the EU specified this exact case in their anti discrimination geo-blocking poclicy from 2018. First quote is from a summary, the second is from the actual regulation.
Quote:
“Sale of electronically supplied services
When a customer wants to buy an electronically supplied service, such as cloud services, data warehousing or website hosting, from a trader established in another Member State. Such customers are entitled to do so in the same way as local customers are.
Example: A Bulgarian consumer wishes to buy hosting services for her website from a Spanish company. She will have access to the service, can register and buy this service without having to pay additional fees compared to a Spanish consumer.”
Source:
link to digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
Or to quote the actual Regulation Article 6:
“This Regulation aims to prevent discrimination based on customers’ nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, including unjustified geo-blocking,
[..]
Such other criteria can be applied, in particular, on the basis of information indicating the physical location of customers, such as the IP address used when accessing an online interface
[..]”
link to eur-lex.europa.eu
Article 18 goes into more clarification.
This is the exact case here. I’m not a Strava user, and not willing to sign up to get data for a case here, but I think its worth a shot if someone else is willing to report it.
Yes, I’d agree with that.
Looks to me like that’s only between EU countries. The US is not an EU member, and Strava is a US company. I don’t know that the rule you quote applies here.
Nope. That does not apply only to EU companies.
To go into more detail on Empewus comment. The EU is a single (digital) market. If a company wants to officialy do business in that market it has to comply with that markets regulations. This is also the case for the US or any other market.
And yes Strava officially offers those services for the EU as proven by giving prices in Euro, doing country specific pricing, listing EU countries in the price increase table mentioned in this article and (ironically) not geo-blocking EU users from the service. They even have an office in Dublin (Ireland) for EU operations.
I guess it just needs the right person to notify authorities of this. A list of EU country specific enforcement bodies where and how you can report this is listed at the bottom on this website:
link to digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
In germany its a simple online form, though it may differ on a country basis.
As mentioned I’m not a user or customer, but maybe someone here who is a user oder customer will take 10 minutes of their time and reports this? :)
What if your subscription is through Apple? My Apple Subscriptions still lists the annual cost of Strava at $59. I am grandfathered in at earlier prices for some other annual subscriptions I purchased through the Apple Store on my iPhone. I will not continue using Strava is the price goes up.
Your subscription price can certainly go up. What happens is that Apple will notify you (email) that the subscription price is increasing, about a month before the increase occurs, so you can cancel if you want. It’s happened to me several times in the past year.
I went into my subscriptions on my iPhone, and I saw the old monthly price too. Then out of curiosity I tapped the “See All Plans” button, and that’s where all of a sudden it shows the new price. If I hadn’t done that I’d have never seen it. I also haven’t gotten any email from either Strava or Apple detailing this increase.
I find it in extra bad taste that they are doing this AFTER laying people off. But I do appreciate when they piss everyone off and I get recommendations for alternatives
I subscribed to Strava for a year, one time, over a decade ago. I see no new features that have me inclined to subscribe again, only the offering of things that were once free. Every single feature they offer is available elsewhere, better, at no cost (Garmin, intervals.icu, FindMy on Apple, etc.).
Regardless, I expect most paying members either won’t notice or won’t care enough to cancel over this, and Strava will come out financially ahead.
I got the $79. renewal notice last Oct. I didn’t fall for it. I then got a $69. offer in Nov. I didn’t go for that either. Then in December, the offer had dropped to the original $59. I went for it. Next year, if it stays $59., I’m in. If not, I’m out.
I don’t see why anyone would pay for Strava premium. Garmin provided the same metrics and give you a device as well for your purchase price. KOMs have been ruined by e bikes, and before that by local semi pro who you were never going to catch. I also find that much like Facebook / Insta encourages constant lifestyle comparisons, Strava did the same for excercise. I felt like I was in terrible shape despite being in the best shape I’ve ever achieved. At the end of three day, social media is on its way out….I am surprised they haven’t sold out to Outside Inc yet.
@mike…thank you! Even before bikes and neo pros there has been and will continue to be “group rides”. So for the average rider, you will NEVER contend for a segment and will never have a ‘fair’ comparison. So there is no point really. Plus watching OUTSIDE ruin everything it touches you’re probably right. Seems like Strava is positioning themselves for a buyout. I’m so tickled that my velonews subscription that I paid for 12 issues now only gives me 6 and the latest issue has a bicycle on page 11, 37, 40, and two of those pictures are in advertisements. FU strava, you’re crapping on your customers and your mismanagement for years of pricing negligence is your own fault.
I found this interesting:
“In our household’s case, for my account, I’ll renew it. Mainly because it’s my job to write about new Strava features. ”
I know you write about Strava features but you write about a lot of other things as well.
I don’t really think your “job” is to write about Strava. Actually if you do not, they will suffer and maybe come back to reality.
Unless you write off the cost, I see zero reason to use that as a means for continuing with a company that can’t give you a straight answer to a very simple question.
Sure, I do write about tons of stuff. In the context of this though, writing about Strava as “my job” is really three different aspects:
A) Testing devices (e.g. bike computers or watches) that have Strava premium features like Strava Live Segments, or Strava Routes integration. So, I need to at least have awareness of how things work on new products, and if they work properly.
B) Testing new Strava premium-only features. There’s been tons of premium-only features the last few years. Since I don’t usually just copy/paste press releases, I want to see how something works. Thus again, needing a subscription.
C) Seeing how Strava compares to the marketplace. How does Strava compare to Komoot for routing, or Garmin Connect for Routing, etc… I might not always write a specific article about this sort of stuff, but it’s super important as background knowledge for me to understand it all.
It’s sorta like Whoop and Oura. As a standalone device, I get no value in my life from either. It doesn’t provide me anything I don’t know from other devices. Yet, I paid the sub fees, because for what I do, they’re among the biggest players, and being able to talk intelligently about how they compare to said other devices, or, when they announce to features, how they compare to previous. Same story with Strava.
Even in today’s post, being able to show my account (and even my wife’s accounts), and what’s going on is argueably a pretty critical aspect to the post. Foundational even.
Cheers!
Jim B,
As a sport and tech enthusiast, I am thankful for Ray’s input. Tech includes devices or software integrations that help me analyze my efforts. This Strava update has been very enlighting. I am thankful for Ray’s time, research, and sharing. I trust Ray’s input and it is the sole reason why I will be continue as a paying supporter. But I am trying to understand your justification to define what is Ray’s job. To be honest, I am offended because defining someone’s else job or status is very dangerous train of thought. He is not an elected official. He is a journalist and a blogger, who I trust.
I am in Spain and have been paying 59 EUR forever.
Can I switch to 49 EUR if I cancel and renew now?
It’s not surprising to me that strava can’t figure out how to communicate a pricing policy, because they’ve consistently not been able to figure out what their product even is. Most of the new features are focused on creating the illusion of a training data analysis platform, but at best it’s just another entry in an already-crowded marketplace. Meanwhile, they sit on a gold mine of crowd-sourced location, routing, and performance data that could offer insights and answers that would be complementary towards training and riding:
1. plot a 30 mile route on roads I’ve never used
2. where can I go do a 20 minute interval at threshold?
or, even more sophisticated
– plot a route to do this workout
or, for the casual rec rider
– plot a route that’s easy
3. show me all the times I traversed this random section of road
These are not new ideas, because I probably started asking them how I could do #2 for probably 10 years, but they have all of the data to answer all of those questions and even more. Yet they seem resolute in keeping strava as some sort of mediocre training analysis platform maps and weak social media aspects.
Keep up the good work!
Not a good start for their new VP of global communications – less than two weeks into his new job.
Price hike is definitely a must have for them, considering they laid off people in December. For the amount I use Strava, I’d be happy to have incremental increases in pricing over the years. Problem here is that it is not incremental and there’s horrible lack of transparency around it. I got an end of year email signed by the CEO last week as part of their marketing, similar email on price hike would have been so they needed. It will eventually come late, as it did when they tried the weird split of premium features and then recombining it (both were similarly poorly implemented).
I guess if every user sent an email Strava support asking for clarification maybe they’ll get the hint
One thing we could all do is cancel our subscriptions now so they see it happening en masse. You’ll have access to your premium until it expires, but it might get their attention if a bunch of people cancel, even if you intend to renew.
Strava will die overnight one day soon, exactly like MySpace did. All it will take is the first wave of users sliding over to a free alternative platform, and the tsunami will follow.
Their ‘competitors’ are free. There are no unique features worth paying for, and the interface is poorly designed and executed, so they can’t even offer “sexier looking on the screen”.
Garmin Connect […and likely many others…] offer social; following, liking, commenting on activities, etc. Komoot […and likely others…] offer route design and turn-by-turn by voice. Intervals.icu and many others offer much better analytics. Zwiftpower covers Zwift races, on that front, isn’t Strava dead irrelevant?
I don’t even have the app on my phone anymore. The graphs are childishly simplistic; they look like a shoddy exported Excel template.
They wouldn’t answer when you asked “What is the price?”
But there’s one question even more basic they’ve been failing to answer for years now: “Give me *one* good reason I should even have an account, let alone pay for it?”
Garmin Connect is a mess. Really nobody is I know is using social features or anything else except storing data.
Strava has still one unique feature and that is segments.
Segments only work with many users. No other company out there has such a bit user base and therefore anything that compares.
I would cancel if I can find a simple site to track miles. I have a Karoo and use Strava to set a goal mileage for summer. It doesn’t work great since I have to manually remove indoor rides but it’s the replacement for Garmin since I switched.
Mine still says $7.99 in the US
Google sheets – simple and free. You are manually removing indoor anyhow.
I create a new workbook per year.
RWGPS?
Intervals.icu
My subscription is through iTunes in the USA. When I clicked “manage your apple subscription” in the My Account area it said I will renew August 3rd at $79.99. So I guess that’s what it’s going to cost me. Good luck to the rest of you!
This sounds like a tax nightmare. And a great way to have some messy money books 😬
Thanks for trying to make sense of nonsense. I’m US based, currently at $59.99 scheduled to renew at $59.99 July 30th. Strava’s marketing department is testing ChatGPT.
Another bit to add to the mix- if you subscribe to Strava through an App Store. My Strava subscription through the Apple App store still says $59.99/year and will renew in June. However, if I want to change my subscription, the new prices go into effect. Also, note there is a large amount of very confusing duplication in the subscription options…
It seems that Strava is also gaslighting me about what my annual subscription rate has been. (ok, lying? maybe just screwed up?)
I went in and selected the ‘Resend all receipts’ option. Check my email and it says I’ve paid $76.99 on Aug 1 for the last three years. Wait… that’s not what I remember. Go over to my credit card website and search for ‘Strava’, and get $62.00 for 2021 and $60.32 for 2022. (2020 was paid some other way)
Currently says my renewal will by $76.99 (USA location) this August. I’ve got awhile, will drop a reminder on my calendar for middle of summer and make a decision then.
Looks like the $76.99 you are charged might be Canadian dollars. That comes to approx US$ 60 with currency fluctuations.
I have been subscribing to strava premium since somewhere around 2014. I have really only kept it up as I like the service and wanted to support it. The premium features just don’t offer much for me over my garmin and other stats.
I have yet to actually see any real useful improvements 🤷♂️ Accessing the premium power features requires a workaround on tablets/mobile devices as they default to opening the app which is very basic. Hitting 100+ bucks a year is putting strava pricing close to training peaks, but only offering basic training features over a free account.
Maybe it’s time to stop paying. I’m really not sure what I will lose?
This like airplane tickets. They try to charge you the maximum amout possible, somif you just check prices and come back again from the same browser, they increase them, because they infer you checked other options and their was the best….
another shady strava subscription feature which seems to have been corrected is, if you were on an annual subscription expiring at date X, and cancelled before date X, they would immediately downgrade you to free usage, e.g. they did not honor the full length of the subscription period despite charging you for it. I know of no other company which did this.
On the plus side, it looks like this was fixed as I just cancelled my premium subscription (losing a 6 year customer) and it seems to have remained active until the expiration date.
Managed to change to the annual subscription via app….thanks for headup.
I want to hear more about the “preferred platform” clause. Does this mean they will charge differently based on the device you signed up with? Or based on your historical device usage?
FWIW I joined June 2016. Based in UK. Subscribed for a few months at £3.99. Last year moved to New Zealand. My account still shows my location as UK. At end of year I noticed I was being offered two different annual subscription prices £ in the app (£54? I think) and NZ$71.24 on the website. I decided to take the website NZ$ option. My next renewal price is now shown as $94.99. Would be really interesting if someone made a little database of everyones situations and spat out some stats.
I move to NZ in 2019. The price has been the same NZ$94.99 since then. (~USD59) . I did a dummy sign up account her and it was also that price.
I will resubscribe for the route plotting features. I just wish they’d add a folder structure to routes. I have over 100 and can’t organise them
No increase, 59$,/year, US, long time subscription, renews in April
I am in the US and have an annual account. The app stated I will renew at $79.99 on Feb 13, 2023. My credit card was charged yesterday (Jan 12, 2023) for $7.99 (monthly rate). Looks like I will be canceling…
I just canceled my account, and put “I agree with DC rainmaker” in there reason questionnaire ;-)
Wasn’t aware of the difference in monthly vs yearly subscriptions (my laziness).
Cancelled monthly and will decide on re-subscribing yearly once it’s expired and see what features I miss (likely just route planning and will investigate alternatives)
Strava is as clueless at business as outside. Maybe they should get together?
I canceled my strava this summer. Not because I can’t afford it (although I watch my subscriptions closely), but because they haven’t added useful features, and mostly because they don’t do anything to make leaderboards, the one unique feature they have, useful. There’s no reason that people accidentally recording their drive home, people who’ve been flagged for ebike use, etc. are left to users to flag. I’d subscribe again, at the old rate, if strava could demonstrate improved features in areas that actually matter. I plan routes on ridewithgps. I have other sites for fitness tracking. Strava needs to focus on what makes it strava. Which at this point is mostly missteps and bad communication.
My annual subscription went up from €54.99 to €59.99 in 2019. It seems it may stay the same but why the heck I pay €10 living in Portugal than in Spain?? That infuriates me.
I just can’t see why I’ll continue paying, the adavatntages are minimal but worse still the lack of transparency is inexcusable and despicable. Strava have the morals of a sewer rat
Oef, bad luck for Strava that you did such a thorough research article. I hope you get some reward by means of extra DCR supporters, maybe some commenters here who save on their Strava premium membership 😉.
That used to be my reason, however, I’m done expanding tiles for the moment. Cancelled my subscription per sep ’23. However, if this settles down I’ll probably re-subscribe as I think it is OK to pay for services. (Yes, I was a DC supporter for a year or two and will be again once I use a review for a buying decision again).
My mistake, this reply should have been a reply to #20
very interesting
I became a subscriber in November 2018 and paid $30.99 CDN through November 2019. It went up to $76.99 CDN in November 2020, and has remained there for 2021 and 2022. As of today states will renew at same price in November 2023….for now.
I’m in Australia:
Your next bill will be on 14 August 2023 for $81.99.
That’s the same as 2021 and 2022, and before that it was $74.61, then $64.99 several years before that.
So:
1. The no price increases in the past comment is incorrect for me.
2. No increase here, and not matching the $99 price indicated…
It seems like it is totally random indeed, the membership is what we Meg spins on those lotto ball machines on the day!
2.
Oh and my renewal date is end of August 2023, and the price is already there.
Unless what they’ll do is 30 days prior to that inform me of an adjustment to go up to the $99/year?
I may be out of my limb here. but isn’t that kind of “procedure” an illegal practice here in europe?
I’m a free user, why?
I can’t find one thing in premium, not one thing I’ll pay for, not even a dollar.
Strava is Sports answer of Facebook for me, share info about workouts with friends, give kudos and comments.
That said, My guess is that strava will have nor net loss then Family Rainmakers
Strava likes to tote all the features they supposedly add, but tbh from a casual user perspective I hardly notice them and I just don’t care. There are better tools for managing training.
The only reason is subscribe is to download routes and at this increased price I’d rather just manually copy a ride I’m interested in doing
Scallies
im glad iv never given them my credit card details
Excellent info and video, Ray.
I’m subscribed Monthly through the Google Play store, in the U.S..
My subscription per Google, renewing on January 31, still shows $7.99/month
My account in Strava shows renewing on January 31 at $11.99 though. Swapping to annual plan shows it would be the new $79.99 price.
So at least it’s not confusing at all… Well done Strava,
I’ll probably be cancelling my premium subscription as soon as the price changes, or just because even if it doesn’t actually change.
Thanks for the work in at least trying to decipher the madness! Watch, soon they’ll get rid of the free accounts as more and more current paid users move to free.
“But long-term, they focused on subscribers as their singular revenue source.”
Yet, there is still a fugton of sponsored challenges with stupidly easy requirements.