Legacy Pricing of TR

I’m a legacy “user”. I think TR should keep the legacy price but charge an “upgrade” fee for major software enhancements. This is what software companies do. Typically charge a reduced rate for current users, but still get charged a one time upgrade fee.

1 Like
  • That is an unnecessary and prejudicial take on people using a system openly offered from Nate & TR. Not a fair broad assessment at all IMO.
  • Holy straw man argument, Batman! That is totally over the line and beyond hyperbole. I’d recommend you remove that from your comment as it bears nothing even close to the situation in play here.
22 Likes

Man I have never gotten a entitled attitude from anybody who has a legacy pricing. If by that you mean people whoa re defending this option, then I would argue those who are against it are also entitle and stubborn. Neither is actually right or bring value to the discussion.

I also don’t understand how having legacy pricing actually keeps you from committing to TR. It doesn’t change one feature of TR and the only person who can determine the value (not price) TR has to you… is you. Not the community.

Overall, I am sad about your comment since it pulls on a lot of erroneous and quite insulting comparisons…

BY THE WAY…I AM NOT LEGACY PRICING USER.

3 Likes

I knew you would focus on the meat (slavery) and not the skeleton (the legacy principle) but if I had used Apartheid, it would not have had an effect on you as most of you have never and still never will live through that. It sucks, and was never right from the off. To the close minded and entitled individuals, it was the only way.

So I made it relevant to what was common to most people to apply the principle.

Do what you need to do.

But you fail to hear what is likely a new user base and existing non-legacy users saying the system is not fair. I hope Nate has a boatload of legacy users to uphold his company.

Insurance companies, for one. If your premium goes up, and you haven’t made a claim, chances are, you’ll start to look at other providers in that sector.

Many people happily point out that TR is already priced at a premium within this sector. Why risk possibly losing a proportion of that customer base to the competition?

1 Like

Constructive contribution and constructive debate on the topic of TrainerRoad upholding Legacy pricing needs to remain within our Community Guidelines.

If any clarification is needed on what this looks like, feel free to DM me as well.
Thanks, all.

10 Likes

Rewarded price - This is the so called legacy pricing in which the longer you say the more benefits you get. The idea is that the people who have been most loyal to your brand should get rewarded while also setting a barrier to you leaving by implementing a leave-and-lose it reward

Generally I go back to things if they are good, not because I am being given a discount. I have half a dozen or so cycling related subscriptions (not just training apps - e.g. Eurosport to watch cycling) and none give me a discount aside paying a reduced rate for annual over monthly… Honestly I would like TR all year round but I baulk at the $189 rate, its just so much more than anything else I pay for.

One thing that seems to be missed out on this discussion, is how much better could TR be if everyone paid the same rate? How many of the promised features would already be available?

1 Like
  • Good grief. I never lived through slavery either. But I am an educated person with empathy and a willingness to look at things that I have not experienced. In that same light, I would have called out any mention of Apartheid in a similar fashion.

  • You are using excessive comparisons that have little if any resemblance to the issue at hand here, legacy pricing.

  • Again, you are placing value judgements and criticizing people in a way I find is not productive.
  • I fail to see the connection between someone literally owning another human being, and paying a reduced price for a service as the CEO has created and promoted. The only place that has any parallel might be Bizarro world or some other place in the multiverse.
  • Again, you are reading far too deeply in the tea leaves. I have followed this thread all the others like it closely as an interested TR users, moderator and general interest overall. I believe I have a firm grasp on the takes shared along the entire spectrum of users here.

  • Calling you out for an overly drastic comparison is a personal choice because I find it offensive on a number of levels.

7 Likes

Imagine being TR and having to keep people like the one’s complaining in this thread happy, while simultaneously making/keeping legacy customers happy.

In the cycling industry, professionals earn discounts on products; manufacturers choose the discount (if any) and the written and unwritten rule is don’t talk about it to folks outside the industry

This isn’t the same exact thing, but it’s similar. It’s TR’s choice to offer a discount to its customers who’ve remained and supported. Would I pay full price? Probably, but I’d have to really think about it! TR is smart to know there are probably a lot of people like me that have their account set to auto-renew and any price hike might affect that account setting…

5 Likes

One wouldn’t lose a customer base if you product had value. Hence why I asked, how many legacy payers would stay and pay the updated current user price should TR implement this action? Would those legacy paying users see the same value and nearly double the price of what they pay now?

Of course it would. People can only pay what they can pay. A new thread only recently opened to discuss this very topic. Some current TR users wish to remain TR users but, recent economic hardships in the UK are influencing their decision.

Value or not, people only have what they have. It wouldn’t make good sense to risk a reliable revenue stream. Obviously this is a calculated risk and a ‘one size fits all’ price might offset the users and the revenue you potentially lose.

Cards on the table, would I pay more. No. I’m not going to justify that. I simply won’t pay more.

5 Likes

A differentiated subscription model would be great! I suspect from reading countless forum posts, that I am not the only one, who primarily use the app, the workout creator and the library. That have little interest in the AI, plan builder etc.

Maybe a tiered subscription would be an idea? I for one am seriously considering stopping my subscription at renewal and go with Trainingday etc for the limited functionality I need and use.

You’ve hit the nail on the head for all non US users.

2 Likes

I think my post was a bit misguided. I still think the 189$ a year is good value for what you get. I’d pay it if I didn’t have the LUXURY of legacy pricing. I do see it as a major bonus. My post was more coming from a position of frustration from that fact that buying anything in USD with our current situation here in Europe has made “stuff” expensive. Other posts and users have pointed this out already. I think that my Strava premium is going to be the first thing that I drop from my cycling budget this year to offset other costs in the sport I find give more value.

2 Likes

< wishes for loyalty program instead of legacy program >

2 Likes

Agreed - and by being forced to only pay in USD customers in the rest of the world have no certainty over what their monthly price will be.

My price has increased by 20-30% in the last few months just throw being on the wrong end of FX. That strikes me as a much more fundamentally issue than the perceived rights and wrongs of the grandfathering pledge.

3 Likes

I guess most would stay.

They obviously like, and use TR regularly to stay subscribed constantly for 7+yrs. (I think thats the timescale)

2 Likes

It’s been suggested more that once. Here is one instance in this topic:

What I do think would work is to change “legacy” pricing to Loyalty Pricing. Say you’ve been 3+ years as a subscriber, you enter loyalty pricing at a flat 20 or 25% discount to the current, new subscriber pricing. Not locked, just always lower. Isn’t this what we all wish our cable and phone companies would do? But instead they do it backwards and discount for new subscribers and hope old ones will never notice the price going up and up.

3 Likes

I think your point here is valid. However, what you lack in history and context is that this is less about money and value and mostly about Nate making a decision to keep a promise that he made. For right or wrong, Nate publicly stated that he would not raise prices to existing customers. This happened before this topic existed. This post originally explicitly explored ways that he could keep that promise while continuing to expand the product. He went through a few iterations, including having multiple tiers for legacy pricing versus new feature pricing and ultimately decided not to do that. He did this knowing that some “experts” don’t recommend this approach financially and that some customers may not understand, but that to Nate, having a user base that he was connected with, that trusted his transparency and believed him at his word was more valuable to the brand at that time. He also said they may revisit and I suspect they will eventually. Either way, this is not simply an argument about the value of a Trainerroad subscription, but also the integrity of the company and the CEO. As someone who may not have been present at the time, I don’t think you can understand what it was like and what the sentiment was and simply saying those impacted by that decision are entitled or selfish is unfair. Many, if not most were willing to pay more at the time. I think there is still more of a family feel to this company that any other I’ve been in business with, but I’m not sure many would disagree that it’s a bit different now…

8 Likes

Loyalty pricing doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. Of course, I’m happy with my legacy pricing but I can’t blame a business for wanting to make money

1 Like