currently the monthly fee is still a little bit expensive for many people, but what make those feel not so worthy is the pricing idea, you cannot ride all the time and you have got other things to do. So I am thinking that Zwift could allow users pay by hours, miles. For example,
Plan A :100 hours for USD 20, 200hours for USD15 and so on,
Plan B: 500km for 10usd, 1000km for 15usd and so on.
What do you say? Share your thoughts pls.
Think if you were to search on here, you’d find this or similar has been suggested before, also don’t forget you get 25km free per month
Unfortunately this will never work. Any business needs predictable source of income due to fixed costs they have (wages, bills, ect.). The annual and monthly subscriptions are more predictable (and still far from perfect) than whether or not people will find time to ride.
Been suggested many many times and only recently has an annual plan been introduced so i doubt any further subscription options are on the horizon.
I ride around 500-750km per month through the winter on Zwift and my longest single Zwift ride is 1,851km! If I paid by the km, I’d have to have multiple jobs…
Flat payment, but discounts for students, kids, OAPs…etc would be fair.
As health services are looking to prescribe exercise to combat obesity and sedate lifestyle rather than pills, maybe there should be medical vouchers for Zwift discounts.
This would absolutely not work. As said above you need a predictable source of income, to support the business at all times, and even more it will remove the most profitable portion of its customers.
Like almost any other subscription based service, the users that pay but don’t use the service are the ones creating the most profit for the company, as well as allowing the overall price of the product to be lower. Your local gym works in the exact same way, where the cost of the people going 4-5 times a week putting wear and tear in the equipment are subsidized by the ones going one time a year.
Doing it your suggested way not only makes your income more volatile, you are also going to anger your core customer group, risking them leaving. Then you are left with the people who don’t use it enough for the platform to be financially viable and finally you’re bankrupt
You’ve ridden 1851km in a single ride? Impressive if that’s the case.
The trouble with offering discounts is where do you draw the line?
Kids are currently free up to 16.
But the pensionable age varies from country to country. So no matter the cut off age you’d upset somebody.
There’s been many suggestions for discounts for armed forces for example and other groups but given that Zwift is a worldwide app you’d always end up discriminating against somebody somewhere.
For some of the groups (veterans, medical needs etc) the subscription revenue doesn’t change, but the source of subsidy does. I’m in UK, and to be honest I’d much prefer the NHS to fund part of the £12p/m for someone to regain fitness than having the NHS having to subsidies drugs at a higher price. Drugs give a sticking plaster to a morbidity rather than a route to preventing the cause. Socialism eh? Those who are squeezed for price should have some aid, but Zwift can run a model where they can give discounted subscriptions to health services and/or the health services giving contributions in the idea of offsetting the astronomical future health bills that will come from diabetes and other sedentary health complications. That can be localised to specific markets and geofenced and the health provider would be doing the protection of revenues - same as pensionable age perks if it’s linked into the health system.
Even insurance companies would be interested in subsidising if they can for a small subsidy to Zwift, lower the customers insurance premium but significantly reduce the customer risk profile so giving a lower probability of a high payout should the customer claim. Some insurance companies are already working on this principle and it wouldn’t take much to integrate the business models.
Nice article and great achievement.
Bizarrely the biggest thing i take from it is you’re the only other person I’ve seen that’s got Di2 mounted externally on a bike.
I thought i was innovative doing it.
I don’t know if there is an avenue for them offering limited km monthly subscriptions for less as long as the user has had say 6 months of continuous monthly subscription in the past year. I’m a seasonal Zwift user and usually pay for around 6 months a year and cancel for the summer when I ride outside. I occasionally use the free 25km in the summer months when the weather is bad and they could get more money out of me if they offered a reduced fee for the summer.
Charging on distance ridden would make me cancel my membership. Too expensive for me given I ride a lot on Zwift.
I’d go back to using PerfPRO studio which costs nothing aside from the initial license I got for the software.
So USD$10 per week for me if I’m riding a lot, or 15 per week if I go all out… which I have done before. That’s really expensive.