Legacy Pricing of TR

My n=1: Grandfathered at 129.-
When I look at my usage over the past few years (maybe 3 months spring indoors and 4-6 months summer outdoors, not racing) I would probably opt for the new features but drop the annual subscription if it saves me money.

Also, there is a realistic risk of me moving to Zwift or other platforms for winter/spring preparation once my TR subscription is cancelled. Since I am not racing, the best platform for me is the one that’s motivating and easy to use…

If TR can replace my Strava subscription (run, swim, hike) that might make a difference / free up some money and incentivize me to keep an annual subscription.

To summarize:
I think there is a real risk for TR to lose a share of their annual subscribers if monthly memberships become financially favorable (similar to Zwift). And once that has happened, customer retention vs. other platforms will become a lot more difficult.

I do understand (and appreciate a lot) this discussion, just wanted to add my perspective as requested.

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If I’m not mistaken, if you’ve been grandfathered in, you’ve also likely provided a very rich and long data set for TR to develop a lot of these new features. I do think that is something to bear in mind as well. Without good quality data these new features wouldn’t have been developed. Yet another reason why long term subscribers should be recognized by TR by maintaining the current pricing level.

While I understand there are financial considerations, there was a clear expectation that a reward for long and continuous support to TR was to lock in your subscription price.

Been a loyal and happy subscriber for many many years. It would be a real shame if TR goes back on its word.

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I guess we disagree how to interpret these statements and others like them. To me neither imply that users who are grandfathered in are granted access to all new features in perpetuity. E. g. if TrainerRoad introduced a Pro tier, I don’t see anything that would imply that existing users automatically have access to the hypothetical Pro tier. To me the same logic applies if they stopped adding new features to a Classic version for people who are grandfathered in.

This isn’t really new territory. Adobe did this with Lightroom: they have Lightroom Classic for people who don’t like subscriptions and the new Lightroom. Not all features of the new, subscription-based Lightroom are available in Lightroom Classic.

However, while I disagree what Nate’s promise actually means, I do think that there are plenty of people who are closer to your interpretation than mine. And these would be upset if TR wants more subscribers to pay the current subscription fee.

I don’t think this is wiggling out of anything. He was very open about it in the podcast and this topic has been discussed a few times on the forum. I always thought this was a stupid promise to make, and users should not expect that their subscription fees are never raised. I certainly never expected this, and I am totally ok if my subscription fees are effectively doubled — I get value out of it. Of course, it sucks if that makes TR unaffordable for you.

If TR created a Classic version for grandfathered-in users, to me that’s not wiggling out, but an extra effort to keep his promise. Having a carrot for these legacy users is not breaking a promise, TR would have to earn the upgrade.

Yes, but TR does not monetize its dataset through third parties. Their only source of income are subscription fees. That’s one thing I love about TR, because I hate to be the product.

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Tbh, I’d be a bit more hesitant to feel this way in light of a now very robust discussion in how to go back on a promise by TR about maintaining a grandfathered pricing structure…

I’m lucky to be grandfathered in at $99 and I have only kept subscribing because of that. There is no way I’d pay double that as a new user and would have dropped TR if my subscription had kept increasing in pricel. There is lots of competition out there which I’m sure Nate & his team are aware .

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I said agreement in place is in place for those that fall under it… if you grandfathered in you are… as per Nates own statement, which locks us in on price and features… current and forward

(It wold be crazy to try and pin each member to a set of features to which he has access to based on his joining time), while new features are added,

Nothing stopping them going forward under new agreement for new members.

G

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I don’t get that at all. Look at how TR makes money. I’m not put at ease by any of Nate’s promises, but their business model. Same with Apple’s iOS vs. Google’s Android OS: Apple makes most of its money by selling devices, Google makes almost all of its money by selling ads based on customer data.

I think you’ll find this article interesting.

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I’m on the $99 annual and to be honest the price is a major factor in my thinking regarding keeping it year round whether I train or not. Particularily as many of my friends and even my federation race on a competing platform, I don’t bother joining them because I don’t see the point in paying for two platforms.
Yes I agree it isn’t sustainable to keep adding features without bumping the price but there has to be a balance between losing out on some extra subscription money and losing users who would see their price effectively double overnight.

Nate mentioned having Trainerroad basic at $15 and Trainerroad+ at $20 as an idea. As I balance, might I suggest that the grandfathered price continues, but those users are given the option top top-up from their respective base price to the Pro version (if it ever comes in) as the original post said. Say the top up is $5 a month or $50 a year, then those on the annual plan could pay $50 to add on the extra features regardless of what they pay for the base model.

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Is listening for a few minutes of Nate describing the new features that are coming and then explain why he wants to extra money too hard to do?

Start at 28 minutes in to minute 47 of Nate describing new features and then 3 minutes up to minute 50 of why they want more money to pay for more development teams

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Liked
Can read Nate’s personality in there, as we’ve gotten to know him over the years/podcasts.

G

So. I’m on a $89 legacy pricing as I’ve been here since the very start.

I’m 99.9% sure I’d just cancel if prices went to the standard level for a number of reasons:

  1. I train outside most of the time and use TR only bad weather/specific occasional indoor sessions - its simply not good value for me at todays price

  2. I dont see much value in the plans any more - see #1 - as they dont suit my training. I’m not time crunched, they dont work properly on outdoor rides with a Wahoo anyway and most of the workouts are not well designed for training on real roads here. I have a huge library of TP workouts that work just fine.

  3. The newer features recently, and what I hear coming, is of little use to me anyway. AT is pointless when you dont use the plan, estimating FTP I already get from multiple sources, PB nope, TN very occasionally if I need extra inspiration. Amber says the new estimating FTP function uses previous ride data, yet TR cant analayse outdoor rides, so again pointless…

  4. I like TR as the interface when training indoors, and I haven’t found anything thats anywhere near as good yet, but its not a deal breaker for a small number of indoor sessions. I could easily run custom sessions from any number of platforms and am pretty sure I’d get over bad graphics and layout pretty quickly.

I stay as its not expensive enough to be an issue for me, and I’m loyal. I think TR has transformed the indoor training arena and I’m happy to keep supporting it even though I dont use it much. Right now the value equation works, but it wouldn’t if the numbers changed much.

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I think that the grandfathered price structure should be replaced with something very similar but different.

I think that you should be able to earn a 10% discount (off the current full price) per year of continuous use up to a capped discount of, say, 50%.

This would be more sustainable as at least the most heavily discounted subscribers can have their subscription increased when necessary due to inflation and/or cost of new features. It also means that everybody has the same chance to get the full 50% discount leading to less of a preception of there being haves and have-nots with regards to low subscription costs.

But TR will have to do their own sums and do whatever makes sense to them to retain customers without putting off new ones.

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or every year a free month or 2 for grandfathers but full price as all others, would be simple to implement?

Not going to beat around the bush. If I wasn’t grandfathered into the current price I’m on I’d have to give up TR as I simply cannot afford it.

And before anyone mentions bike and kit costs…my bike is 2013, cost £300 new back then, I’m on a TACX Vortex and got a pair of Le Col bibs on a Strava offer using birthday money.

This is not a “woe is me post” just I think sometimes cyclists forget that not all of us are riding about on the latest £5k each year.

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I’ve just checked and I’m on the $99 subscription rate, joined late 2016 so 5 years in. As a household we have two subs, so have probably paid in the best part of $1,000. I have done 300+ TR workouts, so minimal average cost per workout. I feel the TR product represents excellent value for money. However, I also believe the ‘grandfathering’ of subscriptions is an exceptional goodwill gesture that, in my mind, adds significant value to the TR brand. I fully understand the need to grow revenues to develop the product, but surely the way to do that is to grow the subscription base via a better product, I understand this is a Catch 22. I would imagine the marginal cost of adding an additional subscriber is basically nil, therefore each new subscriber should lead to greater revenues and profits. I hate two/three tier pricing systems, standard v deluxe, undermines the product for me and creates a bit of an ‘us and them’ culture, if you pay a subscription you get the features, if you don’t you don’t. I have supported TR for 5 years, recommended multiple times and thoroughly ‘enjoyed’ the product, which without doubt has developed significantly in that time. Once the grandfathered pricing is dropped, it is dropped forever, that marketing ‘angle’ can never be recovered, what is the value of that?? I have no idea what the breakdown of subscribers is, who pays what etc but how many firms can boast that they have grandfathered everyone? Not an easy decision to be made!

… this entire idea of locking Grandfathered members in on say $15 for features they have and then making all the nice new things $20 is simply changing to a basic plan and then a pro plan, which really means everyone on the basic plan will be watching all the new features get added to pro, and see that gap get bigger and bigger… sorry… this is not really fair to those Grandfathered people either, whom have all been members for a number of years, some very actively using the system, some not so active, but still paying.

G

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Thank you! I’ve been waiting for someone to share where this all stemmed from.

Just increase the price for the new guys, they won’t know the difference :laughing:

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OK, I just listened to the 20 minutes mentioned above. Nate specifically asks for feedback on the forums, so I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty for giving feedback here. I am of the opinion that adding any extra cost to grandfathered plans is breaking the “your price will remain the same as long as I am in charge” promise. I understand that the lawyers will say “he didn’t specifically say for what”, but I feel it’s entirely reasonable to assume he meant “for everything” and unreasonable to assume he meant “but I will charge you more for other things later” after he just said “your price will remain the same”.

My takeaways on what is in the pipeline and coming soon;

  • Plan builder will soon allow us to select hours we want to workout per day of the week
  • Incorporating outside workouts
  • Talk of having users give feedback to Red light/green light new functionality → examples I can think of that we see requested frequently on the forum: green light masters plans; green light importing other types of workouts
  • Talk of incorporating HRV, sleep data, step data, “how do you feel today traffic light”, menstrual cycle, etc. to drive daily intensity

Now, what is getting a bit lost in the conversation in this thread is that he was talking about how everything up to and including AT would still be at whatever rate you pay today. Grandfathered customers could then opt to pay 5 more dollars a month for any new features after that. Examples would be the incoming FTP estimation, along with future functionality like incorporating HRV and whatever other new stuff comes along. As I said above, I still feel that is breaking the promise, but it’s not nearly as drastic as some of the comments made it sound.

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