Strava rolled out a massive set of changes yesterday – the largest raft of changes in recent memory, in fact. The changes are centered around encouraging users to become paying subscribers, which, as Strava says, “… ensures that Strava can serve athletes decades from now, and in an up-front way that honors the support of the athletes we serve today.” Or in plain English: Strava isn’t yet profitable, but they need to get there. So they’re going to cater to athletes willing to pay a fee for the service.
Given the context of seeking profitability, it’s no surprise that yesterday’s changes expand the features available for subscribers. But Strava has also reduced the features available to non-subscribers, making the subscription service more appealing while doubtlessly driving non-subscriber masses to take up pitchforks and light torches.
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Here’s a quick summary of those changes, in case you haven’t yet read the details:
New features for subscribers:
- A big Routes update, with planning & recommendations on iOS and Android
- Matched Rides: Analyze performance on identical rides over time
- See your full workout history with Training Log on iOS
- Workout Analysis is now available for all activity types
- Grade-Adjusted Pace (GAP) now on iOS and Android
- Coming soon: A whole new way to compete on segments…
Subscription-only features that were previously free:
- Overall segment leaderboards (Top 10 view is still free)
- Comparing, filtering and analyzing segment efforts
- Route planning on strava.com, with a huge redesign launching soon!
- Matched Runs: Analyze performance on identical runs over time
- Training Log on Android and strava.com
- Monthly activity trends and comparisons
Non-subscribers will still have access to the following (not an exhaustive list):
- Top 10 all-time and Top 10 women
- New segment creation (but private segments only for Zwifters)
- Segment detail screen
- Segment explore/search
- Flagging segments
- XOMs and PRs on segments
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How Does This Affect Zwifters?
Depending on your subscriber status, and how you use Strava, these changes may have a big impact on your usage of the platform. Or they may have no impact at all!
Subscribers aren’t losing any functionality – they’re getting a few upgrades, in fact, including an improved route builder and fitness stats on the mobile app.
Non-subscribers, however, will notice a reduced feature set compared to the Strava they’ve grown accustomed to. For Zwifters, this will be most noticeable when it comes to tracking your leaderboard rank on segments, and comparing/analyzing your segment times.
- Leaderboard Rank: non-subscribers will only see the top 10 leaderboard, as well as their own ranking, for a segment. You can’t see the rankings of your friends, club members, etc. If you’re anything like me, you don’t really pay attention to your overall rank on Zwift segments – with tens of thousands of riders competing on each segment, my overall rank just isn’t a useful metric. (It’s very useful for outdoor segments, though!)
- Analyzing Segment Times: What I do pay attention to are my historical times on segments. I like to see how many efforts I’ve made on a particular segment, and those segment times. This segment analysis is going away for non-subscribers.
Veloviewer Changes
Many of you have enjoyed using the Zwift Insider Route Hunter Leaderboards powered by Veloviewer. As part of yesterday’s change, Strava has greatly reduced the data available to third party apps like Veloviewer. The good news is, for paying subscribers, Veloviewer leaderboards will continue functioning just as they did before.
For non-Strava-subscribers, though, Veloviewer (and other third-party apps) can no longer grab your segment times via the Strava API. So Veloviewer’s leaderboards will become more of a checklist of segments, and less of a ranking tool.
Response from the Community
DC Rainmaker posted a rather scathing article about the changes. It summarizes some of the changes, especially the neutering of their API. CyclingTips shared a thorough, measured post explaining the changes. A quick Google search brings up plenty of other posts about the changes, if you’re in for some light and repetitive reading.
Overall the response from the community seems to be quite negative, but that’s not surprising, given that ~95% of Strava’s users aren’t paying subscribers. Strava’s challenge here is that they gave away so much for free for so long. When you try to take all that free goodness away, you’ll get some angry users.
Me? I’ve been a Strava subscriber for years, because I find the service useful and affordable. (How else would I chase live segment KOMs in my IRL rides?) So these changes don’t impact me directly, although I can see how they will make segments less interesting for non-subscribers, which is a bit of a bummer for everyone.
An Opportunity for Zwift, and Others
This is purely speculation on my part – but I’d say Strava’s latest changes open the door even wider for Zwift (and other companies) to step in and provide a useful, free solution to the activity tracking and route-creation needs of their customers.
What if Zwift Companion could show me segment analysis for my Zwift rides? Right now the only PR data I can see is in-game, and it only lasts for 30 days. What if segment PRs were stored forever and accessible to be analyzed? What if we could view KOM/QOM data, comment with user tagging, filter by friends lists and Clubs, and more? All included in the price of your Zwift subscription.
I’d love to see it – but I suspect it’s not high on Zwift’s list of priorities. And that’s probably a good thing, for now.
Your Thoughts?
Are you a non-subscriber who is annoyed by these changes? A subscriber who is perfectly fine with it? Or something else? Do you think there’s a place here for another company to swoop in and build a Strava-beater? Or perhaps such a platform already exists? Share your thoughts below!
Love this comment: “driving non-subscriber masses to take up pitchforks and light torches”
I was a subscriber for years, but when they adjusted the numbers on the fitness and
freshness, I gave up as it became almost useless as Id need to double my weekly training to move the number up!
For me Strava is sort of OK, but it doesn’t give me all that much value for what one would pay for a subscription.
Zwift already logs the rides I do, and for outdoor rides, Wahoo does the same. Sort of. I guess it really depends on how much you care. Honestly I remember the uproar a while back when Zwift raised their prices, and you had all kinds of people complaining about that and looking for cheaper alternatives.
I’m a Strava subscriber too as I think it’s an excellent product that was worth the annual fee. I’m pleased to see the additional functionality as I think these were major gaps for Strava. I recently tried to follow recognised Strava routes whilst cycling abroad but I found it difficult/impossible to download the Strava routes to maps and navigation was a real problem. I can understand the opposition from people who use it for free but I hope it works out for them as they’ve built an amazing product so far with new features adding more value.
Why were you finding it difficult/impossible to download the Strava routes to maps and navigation? What were you using to try and import the maps (and on which device)?
I become more disillusioned with Strava. I only use it to keep track of my training not to route plan or analyse. I did use it for veloviewer and to compare my historical segment efforts but won’t subscribe. I would love to see segments integrated into Zwift. PRs of more than thirty days and Zwift live segments for all courses would be great
As a free app, Strava has been the best and highest impact tool out there for cyclists and runners. No problem at all with the nominal fee – it is still great value and with this we know that new developments will keep coming.
I don’t care a lot about Strava for my outdoor rides. I don’t chase segments outdoors and I log them in Garmin Connect too. What I do care about is my historical data for Zwift segments, particularly Zwiftinsider verified segments. I would love to see that tracked in the Companion App.
I suspect that the Covid pandemic may be playing a part here too.. More subscribers needing more data crunching processing power? Also maybe some of the planned revenue from city planners for Strava’s big data maybe on hold as cities the world over reprioritise funds? Personally I am a paid subscriber so it doesn’t bother me. It does surprise me that 95% of the userbase are on the free plan. Sounds like if they restrict some functions to members they could probably reduce the fees and still generate more revenue. For those using Strava for Route planning, there are plenty of free alternatives. For those obsessed by Segments in the real world, I’m not sure there is any alternative?
I have a feeling Covid-19 has also caused some future venture capital money (which is what has been funding Strava for the last 10 years) to dry up. They had to find a way to replace it quickly and become profitable for disappear.
Although the segments are a big part of Strava, for me, it’s the route planner. Not sure there’s anything out there that’s quite as good. Especially when you start using the heatmap to see where people have been and where they’ve avoided.
At $10CAD I think it’s a bit high for what it is/what I use it for (social and route planning). I don’t use it for the training logs as there are way better apps for that.
With that said, I’ll probably subscribe after they force me to go to the 60 Day Trial (as of right now I can still use the features that were suppose to have been taken away)
Good article – my own opinion is I understand “WHY” but the $$ (or £ or €) amount feels high… As a premium subscriber I pay around £25 (indeed my account currently says “Your next bill will be on March 27, 2021 for €23.49” so I am looking at a 100% price increase… as a Premium subscriber??
Would happily pay say £25 per year, but £50 is pushing the ‘value’ vs cost benefit IMO… to become profitable maybe a “lower cost” with more subscribers would have been a better subscription model….
They sort of tried that, but not wisely, they had a lower price but for many no value, now its a higher price and equally as low value…
Hard to understand what took them so long in terms of making most info access chargeable. Using the example of Zwift when it became a subscription model I could see the likely benefits to me as a user having used it since the early Beta days. I have paid for Strava in the past and happily re up every year for Velo Viewer. Think it could have been communicated better by Strava however.
Have always wondered why Zwift Companion did not give you more data. The 30 day limit on sprints and KOMs is not that helpful as it is quite easy to go longer than that between rides on a given route. Come on Zwift, give us better data!
I am a non-subscriber on Strava. I am a bit annoyed by their change, but I can see why they did it. I would LOVE Zwift Companion to be able to permanently store our segment PRs and KOM/QOMs! These days I’m doing most of my riding on Zwift.
I am currently a Strava subscriber, primarily to get live segments on my Wahoo Bolt, but I also look at the analysis tools and spend a lot of time comparing efforts on segments (both mine and friends or the KOM). Chasing KOMs has kept me motivated to train and ride and helped me lose 30lbs over the past 3 years. Now that I have hit my target weight and achieved what I believe to be my peak speed without dedicating a lot more time to riding, I am questioning if I want to continue chasing KOMs or see if I can find motivation to just go out and ride without any goal in mind other than maintaining my weight.
I will need to see how these Strava changes work out. Route planning, if done right, would be useful to me if it can download to my Wahoo. If I decide I don’t want to chase KOMs, I will consider dropping the paying subscription if I am not getting enough value from the other features. One note about Strava’s e-mail about being all about their athletes- There has been a feature request thread on their support forum going on for 5+ years to get tied KOMs to show on your profile instead of just on the profile of whomever got it first. Lots of people have complained about this and Strava has done nothing or even acknowledged the thread. That is more disillusioning to me than the changes they are making.
I hate paying monthly subscription fees and Strava is one of the very few services I was willing to pay for, primarily because it is relatively inexpensive and I use it a lot. I cancel my Zwift membership every summer because it is too expensive relative to my usage of it during that time. As for the Zwift/Strava relationship, I don’t see the Strava changes having any impact. I have no chance of being in the top 10 on any Zwift segments. I do ride for and check PRs on the Zwift Insider segments after every ride, but it sounds like that will remain with the free version. So, I am likely to continue being a subscriber for the near term and evaluate if I want to drop back to the free version.
$16/month for Zwift is too expensive during summer months? What can you buy these days for $16? 4 cups of coffee or few beers? Even if you throw your leg over the trainer just once a week, it’s well worth it. At the end of the day you are paying peanuts for your own health benefits.
I subscribe and am perfectly happy with it all, not the best approach to taking the steps but they were always going to happen one day if Strava was to survive.
Unfortunately Zwift are too slow to react, i would bet on trainerroad to pickup the segment flame game…. those guys knows how to iterate fast!
Correct me if I am wrong but a quick check by me last night suggests that Strava, with this sweeping change, is raising their annual membership for us paying customers. Am I reading that wrong?
I thought they were reducing it from £6.99/month to £4. Haven’t seen annual fees though
For as long as I can remember, Strava charged you considerably more for only paying monthly, rather than subscribing to be a member for a year. £47.99 has been the standard annual price (so ~£4 a month) for having access to all features.
What did change around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic around March, was that Strava appeared to open up all features, even if you only had one of the Summit packs such as “Analysis” that cost me currently £18.99 for a year. No idea if all features became available for free members too.
I find it hard to complain about the lack of features in a _free_ program, but the loss of these Strava features just highlights the embarrassingly lousy UI of Zwift (which I DO pay for). Why can’t I have a simple list of my all time performances on segments… for $19 CAD per month, why can’t I have that?
The data is RIGHT THERE…. on the website, all my rides are recorded. I can see my Alpe de Zwift ride… full data on power, cadence, heart rate, speed, elevation, and location second by second for the whole ride. Cool! So, can I see my official segment time for the AdZ climb itself? Nope. Ridiculous. Hey, at least I can steer my bike /s
It’s not so much that they’re deciding to charge but their value proposition is way out compared to other things. Strava is fun but I use it maybe 15 minutes/week, zwift I do 5+ hours/week, on a monthly sub Strava is looking to charge half the zwift fee for a bit of willy waving with your mates.
If they’d set it at £20/annually for current free access I’d be interested and then have the current summit (or whatever it’s called today) at a higher fee for those that want more in depth data. As it is it’ll drove away casual users which reduces the “social” and high use aspects at which point you have a load of other options.
€60 a year is way too expensive. €2 a month or €20 for a full year would still be OK for a gimmick but the threefold of that is even more than I pay for my daily used car navigation or my phone contract.
After reading this, I wonder if I should actually really using Strava? I have it linked to my Zwift account, but have never used it IRL. For outdoor activity I started with the free version of Runkeeper because it gives audio updates (no need to look at device) during activities! Also works while cycling…or for that matter driving your car if you want to check your speed 🙂
Like theres not enough spiralling costs in the economy at the minute!
I un-linked my Zwift account from my Strava feed at the beginning of lockdown period, I didn’t need my boss seeing all my Zwift rides when I was ‘working from home’ hehe 😂
Ben that is hilarious!
Strava needs to do more clean-up on the zwift segments IMHO, there’s still way too many. I’d like to hide most segments on all rides, TBH. There’s so many close duplicates that it’s not something I can really find much value in.
You can choose which segments to hide and which to display on the website.
No kidding! Watopia alone probably has about 50k segments. It’s completely ridiculous.
I have been using Strava free for years. I’m adding my subscription today. It’s a small price for everything they do.
I noticed on Zwift rides in Strava when looking at a segment the following tab does not show up. On an outside ride when looking at segments the following tab does show up. I like the following tab as it is where I see how I’m doing against my friends. Has anyone else noticed this and will following come available in Strava for Zwift rides.
It won’t show up on mobile, but works fine on the web to look up
followers
Anyone who doesn’t like the changes can go build their own service. I find this overweening sense of self-entitlement to be colossally annoying. I don’t know where the unlimited expectation to the fruits of the labors of others comes from, but it’s really unattractive. These people need to grow up.
Strava sells our data, we are the product, not the customer. This is them charging us for the original perks we gained for letting them make money off of our information and trends.
I’m a subscriber and I like the fact that my fee is going down. My (non-subscriber) wife will lose some functionality, but nothing she cares about. At £4, she said she may subscribe. £6.99 was too much to tempt her, so maybe they have the pricing right
Without historical ride/segment data, Strava is useless to me. I don’t care enough to pay for a subscription. But I bet there are other free apps out there that will do the job.
Map My Ride?
What I dislike about this change is tha Strava seems now to be holding my historical ride data hostage. Pay the ransom/monthly fee if you ever want to see your ride data again…..
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918437-Exporting-your-Data-and-Bulk-Export?mobile_site=true
You’re welcome
Have been a paying customer for a few years. Understand their need to be profitable. I have no issues with what they are doing…probably would have been a paying customer sooner if they had played their hand sooner
A lot of what makes Strava fun is comparing myself to friends. But if my friends aren’t willing to pay and end up using other or no riding apps then there’s no value in the friends/club leaderboards anymore, anyways. So it’s a decent gamble but also affordable enough that I’m sure I’ll take the plunge once my 2 month trial is over and if not I’ll still use it for ride logging.
Great idea for Zwift Companion. I would like so much to see it.
Death by a thousand subscriptions. Now we can add Strava to the list of ongoing subscriptions that most people never fully use and will eventually silently financially drain a person. I gave up on Strava a couple of years ago, there is only so much information that one can take in. I personally found that the Garmin app that came with my device (for free) gave me everything I really needed to train properly. I guess a lot of my training never happens because it’s not on Strava.
I was already paying Strava by giving them data about where, when, and how long I ride.
Which sounds great but your individual data is effectively worthless. The value is in the aggregated data of thousands of users, you saying you’re paying with your data is like chucking a couple of pennies at Ford and expecting a car in return.
If Zwift did a proper implementation of segments and limited it to official segments they created themselves I would happily pay a bit extra a month.
Even after the recent cull there are still too many inconsequential or duplicated segments on Strava to the extent I just can’t be bothered checking the results any longer.
I was a subscriber for a few years but strava insistence on ignoring bugs and almost exclusively focusing on features nobody wants made me loose interest in paying, why pay for things that have no value.
They raving about the apparent 50 features they released this year, I don’t even know what they are and the list of subscriber only stuff is just more of what I don’t care about.
The route planner is only of any value if your a roadie, the builder too.
These bullshit blog posts that nobody ever wanted and as far I can tell, nobody other than strava uses and then the pin the damned thing on my feed too.
You want people to pay, give them something worth paying for instead of forcing them to pay for the inferiority they used to have for free. Honestly the only value strava has left for me is that it’s the only place probike garage gets my ride data from, once they integrate with garmin I’ll have no need for strava.
The monthly price is cheap enough to be enticing but my issue is how they’ve treated subscribers in the past. Bug fixes for things like connection issues have been on existent. They even dropped support for using sensors in the phone app saying we should use 3rd party programs to record rides (because they couldn’t get it work properly). Now they’re removing leaderboards from 3rd party apps. Seems like they want other apps to do the work for them but then drop them whenever they like, with 30 days notice! Because of these things I will not be subscribing. Will I carry on using strava? Maybe, but without leaderboards it definitely less useful
As a non subscriber the changes dont worry me, i use it as a log book and not phased about leader boards. My concern is my own progress and at 58 i am running out of time 🙂
Same thoughts here, I’m 60 and only took to cycling 5 yrs ago and being a keen sportsman all my life I’m a competitive so and so, though these days the competition is with myself.
I think that £4 is reasonable enough if you want all that’s on offer, it’s a matter of weighing up what you want and if the free app gives you that. Might give the trial period a go just to see.
While I’m a paid subscriber to Strava, I really don’t find anything they provide all the useful, other than logging my ride data. How many years now and I’m still waiting for them to note my End of Week TSS score — I’m still having to go through my training log and add up the numbers myself. Not really sure what their “relative effort” thing is, or how accurate. I still don’t know what their Fitness & Freshness is all about either.
I’m a Strava Subscriber, have been for years. I like to financially support those that do the work that bring me things I use and enjoy. Lots of people want something for free and don’t stop to think about what it takes to create it and the people that do the work. If you use it pay for it, pretty simple.
To be honest, the first thing stava should fix are the segment pollutions due to incorrect calibrated trainers before I would consider a paid subscription.For instance on alpe du zwift, I really wonder how many of the top ten times are accurate.. and not only the top ten times are severely polluted.
Can we have all segment stuff for less per month please. Garmin and komoot does the rest for me.
One less pint of beer a month pays for my Strava subscription. I rather pay than get adverts. (Wins all round)
Agreed, paid subscriber to Strava, I get less data for my money from Zwift which I frankly find more annoying than the changes Strava just made.
Awesome review Eric. Thanks for all the great articles you post.
I’m not in a habit of making comments generally, in fact this is my first time, but I thought it’s warranted with all the bad press the Strava upgrade has been getting.
I have only been riding for one year (next week) and when i joined Strava as a “free” member I saw the advantage in subscribing within the third month.
The majority of athletes are happy to pay for equipment, clothing, watches and energy supplements (none of these are free) so paying a small amount/month to see the efforts of ones hard work shouldn’t be such a heavy debate.
Strava is serving the athletic community but need to keep doing this with the community’s financial support. Hopefully the athletic community at large will get behind this and a good company that has done so well for so long can be rewarded for their efforts too.
Keep up the great articles Mate!
Jon
Against the advice of a lot of people in the industry, Strava kept thinking (or at least saying) that they would be able to monetize their product in a way that keeps most features free.
There’s a decent chance they pulled the plug at least 1-2 years too late. Not only are existing users used to having those features for free, it’s also increasingly difficult for them to generate new users. Those new users are way easier to transfer to paid subscribers because they never experienced that full-feature free version.
If Garmin and Apple joined forces to put some serious effort into transforming their platforms into a combined one with functioning social networking capabilities, Strava would be dead pretty soon.
My yearly $47.99 subscription (training and analytics) expires in a week, and Apple is still giving me the Summit pack renewal options ($23.99 for one pack, $47.99 for two, and $59.99 for all three). I’m curious if Strava will stand by the one-year renewal of training and analytics, since I still have no interest in the safety pack. I guess I’ll select it and see.
Jim – I have the 1 pack and now have all the features……
Pay for a subscription ya cheapskates!! Jeesh. Do you have any idea what it costs to run the infrastructure that supports that site?!? You’d complain if there ads. You complain about subscriptions. Services aren’t free.
Many of Strava’s services aren’t useful to Zwifters. I’d gladly pay Zwift an extra $3/month if they implemented the stuff Strava does for segments (leaderboards, personal history, etc.). Oh, official Zwift segments only, of course! Not some user-defined “I slipped on a banana” segment.
Training peaks far more useful if trying to improve performance, after all your only competing with yourself 👍
Yes Training peaks is great but also about double the price of Strava. I have been a subscriber of both if I was actually racing and trying to improve I would us Training Peaks, but for a more casual user just trying to improve a bit Strava does enough if you use something like the elevate for Strava app for the fitness graph. I did drop my Strava subscription for about a week once but missed some of the features so I re-subscribed. I think this is a positive move for Strava they need to get more people to subscribe or they simply go bust then all the free features go!
I don’t understand why people are so hyped about Strava’s paid route builder app and the new integrations with some Garmin devices. I’ve been using Garmin connect to draw out my routes, using the built in popularity routings where I’m unsure to build routes and send directly to my Garmin for years. Its a great experience and COMPLETELY FREE! Between this and multisport incompatibility, Strava is dead.
I subscribe as it’s the single most useful and motivating tool I’ve used for fitness activities. Ongoing development and server cost have to be covered somehow and I’d much rather be free from intrusive adverts when cycling add I cycle to get away from it all and that includes the relentless bombardment of ads. I’ll find £1 a week somehow.