I should have written that “TR would be pressured to sell access to data by the investors”. I totally agree that companies don’t need to do this to survive — yet many startups do. And I am super glad that TR isn’t among that group. I value my privacy and I’m very happy that you (as TR’s CEO) does, too.
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Oh yah, some investors are not ethical. They could force us to do all sorts of things if they had power.
If we ever do get investors it would be from someone who has a track record of being ethical and good to their companies. The way I’ve heard to do due diligence on this is to talk to the CEOs of all the companies they’ve worked with before.
If you hear any horror stories, run away. 
But I do think there are good people out there who are investors.
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I’m sure, and I hope that if you invite investors on board, you are lucky and your interests align. I’m also glad that — no matter how you end up deciding on this particular issue — that you are open about it and ask for feedback from the community. 
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I think it has to go a bit beyond that in that the investor shouldn’t be primarily interested in making money off the investment and more see a long term for the business which will hopefully lead to long term growth of their investment. Less about the ethics
I think ethics is part of the equation: there are unethical ways to make money, and not wanting to do something you consider unethical even if that were profitable for you is part of the decision making I’d say.
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Just listened to the podcast section on this, I’m a legacy user at $99. Recurring costs are something a scrutinize much more than one-off expenses, although these days that seems less common (See Whoop pricing as an example - I would have strongly considered it as a purchase, no way as a subscription.
Maybe a generational thing???) Thank you to the people that highlighted the section of the podcast on this topic.
(Side note - I’m pretty sure it was on this forum that the racist origins of ‘grandfathering’ was brought to my attention. I appreciate that this is a forum where we can learn about many things, not just cycling and physiology.)
I do like hearing about the direction that TR is going with new features, and I like the features that were discussed. It’s hard to be patient, but it is nice to see some of the plan. That said, I think it would be good to pay attention to some of the smaller ‘quality of life’ changes that people bring up. Even with great big features, many rough edges are still a drag on the experience.
Some bullet point thoughts on the legacy pricing:
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As much as I love the legacy pricing, this isn’t sustainable indefinitely. Even dollar tree is now $1.25
I think most people realize that this can’t go on forever. Legacy pricing is going to end, it’s just a matter of how and when. TR is not near ‘we turn out the lights without raising prices’, so the timing can be planned well ahead of time, and the determining of the ‘how’ should not be rushed. As much as the end is inevitable, I do think that ‘why now’ should be explainable, even if it isn’t an existential crisis. Also, just because there isn’t a crisis, doesn’t mean that the status quo can be maintained. (See Intel’s lack of focus on their fabs as an example from the tech industry of a crisis that was long in development) -
This is an example of why you should be careful when you make promises/commitments - especially very public ones. Not sure if this is relevant, but what does the ‘Radical Candor’ philosophy say about promises that are unrealistic/over-committed? How should a promise that can’t be kept be handled? Maybe this is overly philosophical, but I think that’s the basic situation that TR is in, the only question is when/how. I really don’t mean to pick on Nate here, as I truly believe he meant what he said regarding not raising the prices, and that it came from a place of genuine respect for his customers.
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I think the suggestion of ‘freezing’ the version that legacy members get while new features are added for others is TERRIBLE. This is a language-lawyering way of ‘keeping’ a promise, and I think Nate and TR are better than this. On a more practical level, this will likely create some ongoing dissatisfaction and complaining every time a new feature comes out. I think it would be better to rip the bandaid off than maintain a festering wound. Forget about thinking about this objectively - how will this make your customers feel. Is anyone really going to walk away satisfied that Nate is a man of his word? (This is about as satisfying as Obi-wan’s explanation of how him telling Luke that Darth Vader killed his father was correct, ‘from a certain point of view.’
) -
This could maybe work if there was a logical way to create a tiered subscription model for everybody without removing existing features from the lower tier, but this is likely not possible to do. This would require rolling out several major new features at once to justify the higher tier, and I don’t think that kind of feature release is feasible. Don’t pull a Strava here.
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how idea: End the legacy pricing, but allow current legacy pricing people who want to keep it to pay N years ahead at the current rate. (no refunds) This allows people who really want the fixed cost to ‘lock it in’. This is similar to some industries that provide ‘last time buy’ opportunities when a product is discontinued. This does favor people who can spend more at once. (I’m sure there are some revenue accounting issues that make this more problematic than it sounds.
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how idea: Roll out the increases to legacy members slowly. Certainly don’t announce it and then increase the prices next month
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how idea: When it happens, acknowledge that a commitment is being broken, and how people will feel about that.
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how idea: maybe offer 2 and 3 year payment options as a way to lower the monthly fee. This will have refund/revenue accounting problems that may make it not viable.
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when idea: time it after significant new features have been delivered. Maybe once AT and all that ML stuff is completely done
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features that only appeal to a specific subset of users are not a reason to justify an increase in prices. Specifically I’m thinking of run/swim enhancements, but many similar things could be imagined. Features like this can expand the user base, but are going to be irrelevant to (I expect) the significant majority of users. If you added yoga, weight training, rower integration and increase the price - those all add ‘value’ to some people, but I think will detract from the overall value proposition for the median/typical/average user. This might be an area where tiers are appropriate - a triathlon tier where you get run/swim integration. (And if this model isn’t financially viable, then maybe you shouldn’t make all the non-triathletes pay for it either.) I know there is a bit of chicken/egg problem here, but for specialty features I think this is a reasonable way to think about value.
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I thought bullet points would keep me from being long-winded. I was wrong.
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I wholeheartedly agree with this.
It’s also worth noting that IMPLEMENTING a more complex tiered billing system will take software development away from new features. Short term, perhaps, but it would still sting to know that’s happening. And nothing with software development is short term. All complexity, once built, needs to be maintained.
Just admit it was a mistake to make the promise in the first place and increase the price.
Or, even better, just accept the current rate of development. I think it’s going well and more teams doesn’t necessarily scale well.
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No, it isn’t necessary for me to use all or most features, but it is important to me that least some of the functionality that would be beneficial to me does get worked on. I’ve accepted that I’m no longer in TR’s target market, so the places it is making it’s bets aren’t beneficial to me, but I keep using it because at the moment, the legacy functionality still works, and the amount I’m paying is reasonable. I’d like TR to succeed, and I have a bunch of emotional attachment to TR, as TR launched in beta shortly after I got my Kickr - I even have super old support emails from Nate and Reid, back when they answered beta users support questions.
For my needs, TrainerDay is close to being perfect. The only thing it is missing is a Mac app.
For now I’m sticking with TR, but I fear that that won’t be an option much longer, as I expect the current Air based workout creator to stop working. It’s already developed an annoying bug with entering workout names. But I can get around this by cutting and pasting the name I want from a text editor. But as TR is investing zero effort into a new workout creator, when it goes, that will probably be it for me.
It’s why I created a post asking TR to devote some amount of resources to things besides AT. I get that is their big bet, but while they chase it, the rest of the service is getting creaky and functionality that has been requested for years just languishes.
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Your point is entirely fair. Like I said, I want TR to compete for subscribers and if you feel they are falling short for you, it’s good that you let them know.
I also wish they would integrate a workout creator into the app and add basic calendaring functionality into the iOS app.
Again a Legacy here with another ruminating thought . . . I love the AI direction that TR is going, however when thinking about another theme of this past week’s TR podcast being “goals” - let’s be real about results. In reality this AI development is novel, cool, and should help. . . but is merely a “process goal”. Getting us faster as they have focused on doing is the true "outcome goal". Maybe they need to show in at least 90% of us legacies (who do meaningful work) that this actually makes us faster before any price increases. Faster needs to not just be a higher rated FTP, but we can actually get through harder and harder work-outs at higher more accurate FTP’s. I have been doing this long enough, like many of you, I don’t need a computer necessarily telling me the FTP is practically the same. TR, let’s put your money where your mouth is on the absolute goal at hand. If I am still the same . . . you did a lot of work to have something fancy tell me what I already know. However, if this takes us to new sustainable training levels that could not be achieved prior, then you got something worth paying more.
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That way he would disappoint many legacy users. Also for the legacy users the only barrier to drop the service in summer would be gone. It would also break down the lock in and folks would start looking left or right. Especially because the competition is significantly cheaper. In a nutshell, lost users, lost revenue and won nothing.
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It’s true. When I found out about the legacy pricing I basically committed myself to paying annually while I still have cycling legs. Hopefully many more years to come. If the pricing needs a reality check, so too will my loyalty.
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@toyman
Terrific post!
In my experience that is usually a sign of limited resources: polish can take a huge amount of time, but is very important in a subtle way. You also noticed that a lot of second-tier features haven’t received a lot of attention: e. g. there is no proper calendaring in the iOS app. The workout creator is built on top of Adobe Flash, a technology that has been deprecated many years ago, and that Adobe asks people to move away from.
So good.
And I’d add that: you can make honest mistakes, like making a promise that you fully intend to keep, but perhaps shouldn’t or can’t.
Further, I would say that thinking what’s best for TR’s users should not always equate to what makes TR users happy right away. The whole subscription thing reminds me of taxes: most people don’t like paying taxes, but on the other hand, they also don’t like when their roads are full of potholes and they aren’t being fixed. Should you raise taxes to fix roads? How many people make the connection between better roads and higher taxes? Same here.
One of my take-away messages is that @Nate_Pearson feels hampered by the promise in that he can’t raise enough revenue to build the teams necessary to fulfill his vision of TR. I’d also add that perhaps the last price increase wouldn’t have been so steep if it was shouldered by all users and not just those who have newly signed up afterwards.
While I think it is doable, simply admitting that the promise was a mistake, have a grace period and/or perhaps lower the subscription fee for everyone slightly would certainly be easier.
But let me add another facet to the discussion: what percentage of users actually know of Nate’s promise to keep rates constant? I’m not saying that to suggest it should be easier to break a promise to a lot of people when many (most) don’t know there was a promise in the first place.
My point is that we should put ourselves in the shoes of an average users instead of someone who is hyperaware of what TR does. Most will see a potentially large jump in their subscription fee, not knowing why — especially when it might double. Like you wrote in your post, that has to be timed perfectly if they wanted to pull it off.
I think that’s quite reasonable. Personally, I’d also just admit it was a mistake and then deal with the fallout.
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Why was it a mistake when the grandfathered pricing still reflects the market prices of the competitors? Hard to make that a believable statement. In the end all that sticks is that he has broken his word. Quite reasonable that he doesn’t want to do that.
It was a mistake, because it evidently does not allow TrainerRoad to implement the features it wants on the schedule it wants.
And I don’t see how locking in pricing forever has anything to do with pricing of its competitors. I don’t think I have subscribed to another service where pricing was locked in forever.
Also, I don’t think TR is overpriced. Wahoo SYSTM (aka The Sufferfest) and Zwift cost $15/month. TrainingPeaks costs about $24/month where I live. Peloton asks for $39/month and a lot of people buy a Peloton bike for roughly the same price as a Stages or Wahoo stationary bike (at about a 40 % margin from what I read). Now we might quibble whether or not this or that service really is a competitor. But I think TR is right in the price bracket of its competitors and at the low end if you are grandfathered in at, say, $10/month (or $99 per year). Plus, I think TR works better for me than TP (I canceled my subscription last year), and neither Zwift nor Peloton are what I want. So paying $5 more per month is worth it to me. Although YMMV and you may come to a different conclusion.
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I take this as they would be grandfathered at whatever the product offered when they joined, so would only pay for future developments beyond that point.
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As most of the core TR team are cyclists I think they’ve really underestimated what a hassle it is to manually create calendar entries for other sports every day.
I was previously a TR user on legacy pricing, but got sick of manually creating my runs and swims on the TR calendar, so looked elsewhere. Found Intervals.icu and was blown away how much better the calendar was. Pulls in data from all sports, pulls in my daily HRV4T data, plus has a built-in workout creator.
Once you’re using a different site for the calendar, analysis and building workouts you start questioning if you’re getting value from TR. For me, I wasn’t.
After cancelling my TR subscription I now use:
- Intervals.icu (subscribe as a supporter) - use for Calendar, Analysis, Workout Builder.
- RGT (subscribe to Premium) - use for Workouts, Group Rides, Races, Magic Roads (created race courses I’ll be doing this year to train on).
Both those subscriptions together are cheaper than the TR legacy pricing I had. Looking at the TR pricing now I’d personally say it’s overpriced.
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The grandfathered pricing is what keeps me as a paid up tr subscriber (and I’m not at $99).
I know people are quick to compare it to the price of X bike part… But I actually don’t spend on those either. Cycling is generally an expensive sport but plenty of people trying enjoy on a budget
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This is an excellent point. If athletes are using TR on a more intermittent basis by dipping in and out then the quality of data produced may become questionable and far more difficult to analyse reliably, making development of new features more troublesome. Long term subscriptions go a long way towards ensuring they have quality data to work with I suspect.
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I had a look, and it seems RGT doesn’t really have any training plans to speak of. They only list five different plans, but each of them only lasts 6–12 weeks, so they don’t cover even a complete season. Am I missing something? If I am not, then RGT doesn’t come with any of the features that TR does. (Of course, if you don’t need that, then fair enough.)
I don’t know how representative the sample in this thread is, but several people here are saying that they aren’t using TR for many months in the year and only stay subscribed to keep their current subscription price. How much useful data are they uploading to TR?
I think this calculation isn’t easy or straightforward. Even if TR were to lose a substantial number of paying customers, they might still end up making more money overall. I don’t know the answer, but if I were Nate and wanted to take an educated guess I’d just look at how many customers they lost after the last price hike.