Going back to when I was an active member in the training center I mentioend above…I kept my membership much longer than I should have because I was locked in at $99 / month. In the end, it would have been cheaper for me to just pay the monthly rate for the ~6 months that I actually used the center.
Will probably go the same way w/ TR again when my yearly runs out next year…I just don’t need / use it during the summer months. So I’ll pay for it from November to May and then let it drop until the following NOv.
This is exactly it. I worked in an internet subscription based business. A large portion of the income ends up coming from people that sign up and never use the product. You know, they have the best of intentions and are meaning to get back on, etc.
What happens when you contact those legacy users for any reason? They quit in droves! What happens when you raise the price. You have to tell them and then they quit in even larger droves! Our business was loath to email customers for any reason. An email for us was a reminder that they had this subscription and were not using it. They would email back asking to cancel.
TR has the data. They know exactly what percentage of legacy users never even use the system.
FWIW I posted some upcoming Black Friday deals, because after all this thread is titled “Black Friday Deals? …” and the not-coach-chad moved them to the Deals thread.
Yes, because this thread was directed at TR specifically (and it happens to be in the TrainerRoad Software category for more clarification), not the wider landscape of cycling or training related deals.
We continue to place those broader options in the same place we have for 3 years. So I moved your comment to the appropriate thread.
Nah, they’re not subsidizing me. They’re paying me for the hundreds of hours of data per year I contributed so that TR could make the product they contributed nothing to.
I’m on the other side of it and I don’t care. Legacy people have a great deal. $189 is still a great price for what TR offers. Anyone complaining should seriously get over it.
I’ve been a trainerroad user numerous times over the years and the current pricing is simply not value for me, so I won’t come back.
If it was $100-120 odd dollars for the year I’d probably drop that year on year and dip in and out of plans as the year goes… With the current pricing I simply won’t pay it either per month for a few months or for the year upfront.
It’s as simple as if I use TR from January to August, I have to pay 4 or 5 months for something I dont use, since I can build by myself the offseason and base period, also part of the season I’ve adapted the polarised plans with more interesting workouts, so not pay and forget, for me, and I believe most experienced and old users too. Still is worth, sure.
The thing is this grandfathering thing provides a steady cash flow for TR all over the year. This bussiness is seasonal by nature, so keeping subscriptions active it’s important even if implies loosing little of margin, because costs, salaries, R&D, marketing, whatever can’t ease because its September and most users don’t wan’t go that serious until January.
So if that is positive for me. Like outdoors workouts, that help a lot with keeping subscriptions when weather is good.
Not quite sure who you were replying to here.
If me my assertion is that TR is overpriced for the market, just an assumption that it could be hurting the uptake of new subscribers.
I don’t care what anyone else pays, but if it’s artificially inflating the price of the product and making people look elsewhere then everyone should care.
But the market should bear this out….as I noted above, back when I was a member of a training center, for a long time demand outstripped supply so the owners kept raising the monthly fee (as they should have). Finally they reached a breaking point where the cost outweighed what the market would sustain.
If the price of TR is being inflated, artificially or not, the numbers will bear it out and then you now where the breaking point is and adjustments can be made. At this point, the evidence which we are privy to indicates that their pricing model is working.
For me TR is a no-brainer when you calculate the watts gained/ $ spent. However I do understand everyone is in different situations but this is what worked for me. The annual subscription is the same cost as a decent bottom bracket.
Let’s look at the alternative, we can call it the “Energy Provider Approach” or the “Credit Card Approach”. Which is that new customers are offered special and often fairly long term deals which are much better than the rate being charged to long-term subscribers.
In this scenario you’re being penalised for loyalty (and in fact is something there’s rules for UK energy companies about). I know which I prefer!
I wasn’t replying to any one in particular (I usually quote people directly when that is the case), and was just commenting on the general sentiment that was shown in the thread.
As to how Legacy Pricing affects the price for others, who knows? We can only speculate (most likely badly at that ). But I would guess that the actual percentage of Legacy Pricing customers is a relatively small percentage of the overall TR user population. I can’t remember how many actual price steps there were (3 or 4 now?), but considering the typical churn where people leave and return, I would guess its well less than 25% and maybe 10% or so? (again, worthless guess, but trying to consider the more practical reality of the situation vs just broad strokes).
Ultimately, I would expect the actual impact on the bottom line to be minimal in the grand scheme, but I really have no idea.