The ZwiftCast had “peak zwift” predictions. The low guess among the hosts was 38572 by Nathan Guerra (with Shane Miller 2nd at 39555). I’m going to go lower at 33800. This is based strictly on my limited perceptions during events I’ve done this season, with no actual numerical analysis.
Any other predictions?
reference: Here's Why Peak Zwift Is Always a Tuesday
Today, Monday 19:00 CET we had roughly 30000 so not sure if tomorrow’s going anywhere near 40000
Shane Miller did a preliminary report last week. and got 36272. That may be exceeded tomorrow, of course, so my estimate of 33800 is already substantially low. But it will clearly be the lowest it’s been for January in the pandemic era (2020 peak was in April).
Maybe Max 36k, or 33k most probably (all guess estimate)—it seems that participation is trending lower than in previous years, just based on the people I see on the companion app and while riding. My guess the price increase and the abundance of other options are likely factors contributing to this decline. Of course, a lot of people who hopped on the indoor cycling bandwagon during the pandemic have since returned to their natural habitats: sports watching… and chips. Balance, right?
While Mywhoosh is a small competitor to Zwift, it’s gaining attention, with people searching for it:
The price increase seem to have deterred a lot of riders from Zwift. Was reading a post and Zwift haf annual growth. But after the price increase 2025, we can’t even break 30k riders. Looking at the current numbers 20,000 users, say we hit the peak users of 25K, raising rates by 33% only to lose 40% of the user base is probably bad economics. You effectively decrease revenue by 20%. Not to mention you made your user pool upset.
There was a high jump during covid.
The numbers are still quite above pre covid.
It is not reasonable to assume Zwift will continue to grow.
There will be a stable market.
Peleton and most of the bike manufacturers assumed things would grow forever.
That’s what cancer does.
UK weather isnt that bad considering time of year, little cold but mainly wet (nothing new there) and I dont think central Europe has been battered by cold or snow yet so might be a little later this year.
If Zwift isn’t growing their valuation is going to tank. They can’t be value at $1 Billion, getting a $600m investment. Only to generate $200 million revenue and nil profits.
I think those figures might be a bit too optimistic. If Zwift were generating $200M in revenue solely from subscriptions (excluding hardware and merchandise), they’d be in a very comfortable position.
Realistically, Zwift’s year-round subscription base is likely closer to 300k paying users, which would bring in $60M to $70M annually, depending on the split between monthly and annual plans.
As for Min, he’s not a nerd tech guy —he’s a finance guy (ex JPM executive). Somehow, he has managed to keep investors in his pocket, and that’s likely a big reason why he’s sitting in the CEO seat at Zwift right now. 
If it is base on your numbers, Zwift is far from $1B valuation especially with declining growth.
That’s higher than I expected based on “anecdata”, but a clear downtrend.
Of course the price increase has an impact, but the price is inflation-adjusted lower than it was 2019, especially if you consider inflation in the bike industry which with the shift to more expensive technologies has experienced dramatic price increases, even just considering tires. But price is always a factor, of course.
On Zwift Insider it was speculated the sales of Zwift bikes would boost ridership, but I suspect a lot of those buying bikes would have gotten trainers otherwise. Is Zwift attracting the Peloton crowd who don’t ride outdoors at all? In any case, if this happened, it’s only partially offset an even greater loss of demand.
So have people shifted to MyWhoosh? Maybe elite racers, but I don’t think it’s on order 10 thousand riders. What’s “peak MyWhoosh?”
And IndyVelo/Training Peaks Virtual is still a very small number of riders (100s, not 1000s).
I guess one other argument would be technological depreciation. I think everyone here is happy with the Zwift graphics otherwise you wouldn’t be here, but maybe to a high school kid the graphics look terribly dated. I think it’s speculative whether this has an effect.
I’ve hated the graphics on Zwift just as much today as I did back in 2017 when I first tested it and went back to TrainerRoad for two more years. That said, TrainerRoad’s black-and-blue interface is beyond awful—if Zwift’s graphics feel like the '90s, TrainerRoad’s look like they’re stuck in the '80s.
Despite its drawbacks, Zwift is probably the best platform out there. Over the past six years, with the right setup, I’ve never lost a training session on Zwift (whereas I used to lose one or two a month with TrainerRoad). Plus, thanks to events like TdZ, ToW, BMTR 100, and Fondos, Zwift remains engaging to handle long, painful tempo or threshold rides—something TrainerRoad just doesn’t match -or any other.
Platforms like IndyVelo and MyWhoosh feel similar (but not better!) to Zwift, but given Zwift’s stability and overall engagement due to participation, I don’t see any reason to switch to a less reliable option.
I have seen numbers formatted as 36,991 and 36.991 but never 36’991
The $1B valuation of Zwift was likely inflated by several factors. First, the surge in users during the COVID-19 pandemic was driven by a temporary spike, as many people turned to indoor cycling while gyms were closed, but these users may not have stuck around long-term. Additionally, future growth projections were overly optimistic, often assuming rapid and sustained expansion—what’s known as the “hockey stick” model. On top of this, the Fed’s $4.5T stimulus pushed interest rates to near-zero, significantly reducing the cost of capital and leading to inflated valuations. Back then, with a risk-free rate of 0.5% and a 5% spread, the WACC would have been around 7%, helping to drive up valuations. Today, with more realistic assumptions and a 5% risk-free rate, the WACC could be closer to 11% or 12%, resulting in a much lower valuation for the company.
Probably, the valuation of around $1B comes from the assumption that the company generates $200M in revenue and a WACC of about 7% and profit margin of 35%; now, it’s something around $300M/$400M.
Disclaimer: All of this is really just for fun or, at best, educational purposes. Any resemblance to real-world valuations is purely coincidental —just luck, haha!
I’m not sure that statistically or casually a one-year drop, after a one-year rise, counts as a trend.
Is there a trend from 2021 through till now? Possibly casually, not sure about statistically. But this year lower than last year, by itself isn’t a trend.
Well now you have 
Who is everyone?
I think better could be done in using more realistic colours and lighting without any difference in performance. I jump to Fulgaz when I want more realism or to ride alone or prepare for riding some big IRL climb that will never be found in Zwift.
But there are other things that could be done before that. Like proper verification of power from riders which would make Zwift fairer for everyone.
What’s funny is that live broadcasts of IRL sports are starting to ‘videogameize’ the broadcasts, so people watching a US football game or tennis match can watch it with videogame graphics instead of real people/lighting/etc. And I mean ‘funny’ like honestly absurd funny. 
