It could also be beneficial. Imagine a new user that has no idea what fatigue detection is, who gets a yellow day after an outdoor ride, so his planned Threshold workout get swapped out for an endurance one. Keep at it for two moths and said user comes to the forum and expresses frustration about his plan not raising his FTP, because he never knew what the yellow days were and didn’t get the memo that the AI would change their workout. I’ve actually seen such cases on the forum.
Now present the user with a financial choice related to this feature. They’ll be way more likely to read the feature description and not make the mistake I described.
As far as complexity in the platform is concerned, the examples I gave are with features that can be disabled as it is. Setting a toggle to “disabled“ in the settings page and greying it out does not add complexity in any way.
On the topic of other apps not having tiered models: many have a 2-tier model (free vs paid).
Strava, Garmin, Komoot all have premium versions. Sure, they’re not exactly training platforms, although Garmin Connect+ offers coaching and Strava has training plans, but they are widely popular cycling apps.
From the ones you mentioned, Wahoo has free version and subscription, TrainingPeaks also comes free or premium.
I think the question is what would make TR more money. Would a tiered system with lower entry price entice enough new subscribers to make it worthwhile to implement. Once hooked, how many might upgrade? How many current “premium” members might downgrade?
Easy on the assumptions, please. People may also not want or not need a feature. It could also be faulty in some cases. There are many reasons to make a choice. Besides, if someone doesn’t understand a feature, they can’t use it properly, so it wouldn’t make sense to have it. There’s also nothing wrong opting out of something you don’t like.
Please elaborate how a free/paid model is not a 2-tier system with $0/$7 (Strava case)
I left Systm for TR because I was interested in the AI ftp detection, dynamic endurance, etc. Im quite liking it and will likely stay on for the foreseeable future. If they brought in tiered subs, id go back to Systm faster than I dropped Strava for doing the same thing.
While we’re calling out assumptions and/or generalizations:
You said above,
“Workout alternates is inferior to what it used to be. It requires way more time and effort to select an alternate now compared to before.
Your next workout is a blur unless you pin it. AI makes changes without announcing them. That’s functionally different to the 2025 user experience and requires more trust or attention form the user. Trust has yet to be regained.”
This is not consistent with my experience, and I’m sure there are others here for whom this is working as well. Generalizing your experience to be universal to support your own case isn’t exactly going “easy on the assumptions…”
If your current subscription got you the premier level and they introduced a lower priced tier, you’d quit? Or would you only quit if your price went up?
I’m not sure why people are being discourteous to the OP when they have simply suggested market segmentation, with the potential benefit to TR of increasing user base and revenue.
I left TR last year as I was using only a fraction of the features and didn’t feel I could justify the cost. Honestly if TR had a basic tier that allowed me to use the workout player, choose my own workouts or create my own I would probably still be a subscriber.
Caveat: nobody who runs their own business should take advice from me.
Well said - that’s the way I was reading it also. Over the years, I have only subscribed from Dec-Mar, and sometimes only Jan-Mar. If there was a basic package where I could have access to the calendar and create my own plan from the workout library at reduced rate, I would take that package for the rest of the year and only do the premium package during the winter.
Because the tiers never make stuff cheaper. It never happens.
It would end up being $20 is basic, limited version and we’d have to pay more for the higher versions. This is how it happens and has been happening in capitalism for decades. We’re tired of having to pay different levels of Hulu to see “less” ads. Who looks at this and is like “Hell yeah, bring that to TR!”
Honestly none of the AI, simulation, dynamic stuff is particularly intriguing for me. I’d be happy for a basic tier that didn’t include it. Basic plans, calendar, a workout browser, and a ramp test every month for $10-12.
What I said is not generalizing my experience exclusively. I’ve seen posts in various threads over the past 2-3 months complaining about alternates. Sure, it probably works perfectly well for some (or most) people. As with everything, YMMV depending on use. At the end of the day, you get no more that 6 meaningful alternates compared to a large chunk of the library earlier. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in these 6, you have to go and browse the whole library.
Same for the AI changing workouts. Just yesterday I read a thread where a workout was changed overnight, while the person was sleeping. The fact that the platform used to ask for the user’s permission to change workouts and does not anymore is an objective functional difference which is platform-wide.
The post I was replying to had no indication that was referring to my example, and is out of line anyway. “just because … “ is not a valid counter-argument. Why the “just”? Not liking or not understanding something is a perfectly valid reason to want to exclude it from your subscription plan.
I gave an example of how things might be organized. At the end of the day, that would be TR’s decision and one that will certainly not be influenced by a single user’s suggestion.
The difference between what you called “valid” and what I suggested as “core” is AI workouts.
Try rereading my original post. Fatigue detection hasn’t been changed. Plan builder is part of the core product atm (or please describe what you mean by “core product”), but there are people who use TR with plans from elsewhere, it could be separated. The only thing that I don’t like and is been suggested as an add-on is AIFTP detection+prediction and whether I like it or not is irrelevant. It’s eligible to be an add-on because it’s independent of the rest.
I’d pay for a Train Now only Tier. Open the app, have three options, decide on feel. No plans, no calender just barebones workout player with 3 options daily. Would have to have some kind of FTP predictor otherwise leave it barebones.
I really don’t think that’s fair. Yes, you used to get a large chunk of the library, but amongst those choices there was plenty of variation in length of workout and difficulty. By no means were they all ‘similar’, so to compare the old state to a choice of 6 ‘similar’ when you’ve actually got 30 across the time/difficulty spectrum is misrepresentative.
And yet time marches on. I can vibe code the parts I want from TR is a couple days. The only part I don’t have are the training libraries. Software services are a depreciating asset. We expect to get more or pay less through time.