I quit Zwift after two years due to a price hack and ultimately I will quit TR for the same reason.
1 Like
My reaction when going to the forum today. 
32 Likes
I guess from my point of view, it would seem odd to send out a mass email to all subscribers to essentially tell them āYour price isnāt changingā. Thatās just noise, and if the effect of that email is causing a bunch of people who werenāt yet subscribers to jump in before the increase, you kind of hurt your overall goal of the price increase.
If I didnāt stumble across this forum post, Iād have no awareness of the price-increase, and I would likely never have awareness of it, not next month, not four months down the line, not in a year.
If I were a seasonal subscriber-- Iād just expect there to be an alert on the subscription cancellation page to let me know the renewal costs, so I can make that āhmmā¦ maybe Iāll stay subscribed year roundā choice.
3 Likes
- That is only one avenue of notification that I suggested above.
- Personally, I can make a case either way in the email to current user instance.
- But the apparent āsilenceā exhibited with a lack of any official channel at all is just out of place to me.
- Again, itās largely as a result of their prior level of notification. That same effort could have been applied at the release date (not necessarily before), and yet we still have nothing approaching the info of the last update.
- That is simply timing. I stated that the the notification could have taken place at the SAME time as the change, not necessarily before.
- As I said above, the choice to do a pre-notification or not is one option.
- Short of this thread/complaint (or the potential for a similar one by an observant person), there may have been no notification at all.
- Maybe thatās fine, but it sure strikes me as odd considering the rather open line of communication that this group has set in the past.
It all boils down to expectations. TR works better than most companies I experience, with respect to customer contact, turn around time, and overall openness. That trend seems a bit tainted with the current approach they chose.
3 Likes
Hi @Nate_Pearson,
It would be really helpful if you could put on the account page the expiry date of the card that you have on file. I couldnāt see this so I proactively updated my card details last week just in case before my annual renewal. I would have hated to have lost out on grandfathering because the card on file had expired.
Keep up the good work
6 Likes
12 Likes
Not sending out an announcement to current subscribers concurrent with implementing the price increase was a missed opportunity. I understand not wanting to announce it in advance but TR missed an opportunity to personally remind us all of the very generous lifetime price lock! How do you pass that up? Instead, Nate just gave each of us as much as $90 a year and we find out about it on the forum in a complaint thread?
And, the current subscriber base is a huge source of referrals and viral marketing. We need to be in the loop.
5 Likes
Good point-- some people might get a warm fuzzy feeling for locking in a saving, but itās not a missed opportunity, if TR think itās worth doing so. At the moment only a literal handful of people have read this forum, so compared to the entire TR subscriber base essentially no-one really knows thereās been a price increase. They could send out an alert, literally whenever-- the timing makes no difference to existing subscribers, since theyāre all on the legacy pricing.
Iām guessing the balance is the wider you announce a price increase, the more likely a new subscriber will feelā¦ burnt, maybe even enough to turn away, e.g. if I were signing up for a TR subscription today, or even next week and learnt they increased their prices yesterday, Iād be a little annoyed. The only way to help prevent that pain is invisible price increases, like at any normal retail shop.
I especially see @mcneese.chad frustration/concern because of the awesome amount of time they put in on this forum, and I can see why he might feel a breakdown in communication because of it-- that business vs. community decision making sometimes doesnāt swing the way you might have chosen yourself.
2 Likes
And there is was, considering putting my subscription on hold since i havenāt touched the trainer in over a month.
maybe thatās the kick in the nads i needed to get back on 
6 Likes
I like to think that I spend my money on things that will actually help me improve. I bought a cheaper bike, because it sits on the trainer most of the time and weight doesnāt matter there. Iām not as skinny as I can be so the additional weight of the bike fails in comparison to the weight I need to lose. I donāt spend a ton of money on clothes because of the reasons above. I donāt spend a lot of money on brand new, light-weight, components because of the reasons above. But I did spend money on a good power meter and a training subscription. Those things help me become faster and healthier. I allocated my money to where I would see the biggest improvements.
I still think TR is worth the subscription fee. It can actually make people faster and healthier. Those things are worth spending money on IMHO.
9 Likes
This.
Iāve been using TR for just about a year and it seems to me the focus is very much on competitive athtletes (which is not my case). But with Zwift and this apparent trainer boom, Iām guessing a lot of potential new users donāt race, they just want to get fitter (faster).
I know that TR has plans for mostly everyone, but the other resources ā basically the podcast, thereās not much else really ā seem to deal with race situations. And the forum, of course, but that depend on the users.
Maybe this specificity is what theyāre going for. If you can ditch Training Peaks and have everything on TR, perfect.
I canāt complain. I joined literally DAYS before last yearās price increase, sĆ³ itās still very much a good deal.
On a slight tangent here, but the majority of users in the UK (and I assume others outside of the US) have two options. To use paypal and get screwed on the exchange rate, or to pay via your debit/credit card and have an additional non-sterling transaction fee. As the price goes up so does this fee. Zwift at least has the option of paying in GBP
6 Likes
All the āpaying for a TR subscription is still an absolute bargain compared to hiring a real coachā posts are seriously missing the point. 99% of new users arenāt deciding between paying for a real coach versus TRā¦ theyāre deciding between TR @ $19.95 p/m versus Zwift @ $14.99 p/m versus Sufferfest @ $12.99 p/m etcā¦
Unless they release a new feature that blows the competition out of the water pretty sharpish TR is going to be a real difficult sell to new users (I say this as someone who has always recommended TR in the past).
14 Likes
Being cynical, grandfathering is a very good way of locking in more casual users who would otherwise have chopped and changed indoor cycling training providers.
Thinking of leaving? Itāll cost you more to come back if you doā¦That might sway some users.
1 Like
Yes. That is what this feels like.
The optimist in me says they have something they are planning on launching soon-ish - maybe ahead of the fall decision time (typically August/September) for the northern hemisphere
Your kids will probably want nothing to do with TR and will instead want to be the āFittest on Earthā, thus be part of the CrossFit community 
2 Likes
I agree. I appreciate @Nate_Pearson trying to reward long term subscribers but Iām a grandfathered subscriber I donāt think itās fair or logical.
It feels like new subscribers are subsidising us and being penalised because they happen to discover TR or cycling later.
If my son or wife (both of whom are showing a interest in cycling) want to join TR itāll cost them x2 what I payā¦
IMO better to think through the pricing policy more strategically and have one reasonable price paid by all subscribers (with no more than one annual marginal increase). Personally the value I get from TR is something I would pay more for (off the top of my head 140pa seems reasonable). Itās a rounding error compared with what I spend on cycling annually
1 Like
The realist in me says thatās like a company telling their stocks will rise with 120% in 3 months. Good luck investing.
1 Like
Maybe - depends on how you look at the world. If you think everyone is out to get you then you donāt trust and perhaps live a little safer life holding onto your wallet at all times. Sometimes its nice to forget how tough the world can be and look for the silver linings