Zwift Hints at Potential Subscription Price Increase

Like I said - i hope i’m wrong but “not sustainable” doesn’t sound like they are just going to stick an extra pound or two on the price to me.

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Sudden dramatic price increases are never a solid model.

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You are correct.

If they open up to level 70 I will pay anything. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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I don’t disagree, last time they increase it it went from $10 to $15 so i’d guess we’re looking at at least that again this time and probably more - i’d also imagine run being free won’t be for too much longer.

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There’s more than one way to reduce costs. For example I would say that elite level e-racing adds nothing to the product for nearly all users. I don’t see it as legitimate competition, which means it’s not even good as entertainment. Why not jettison all the costs associated with that? Even if you view it purely as marketing (not unreasonable) there might be better marketing value found elsewhere.

There’s more than one way to increase revenue as well - they could offer in-app purchases (racing licenses, jerseys, bikes, etc) or an ad-supported tier of service.

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True - I mentioned “likely” reduce quality, because it’s more likely to reduce quality than increase quality, but of course it depends on what they do to reduce costs. They already restructured to reduce some costs, that didn’t increase quality from what I can tell.

Back in May, I believe they cut engineering jobs (among others). That will never improve software quality. Usually the opposite occurs as workload increases and morale drops.

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Some things:

  • new workouts and training programs
  • improvements to Flexible Training Plans
  • new routes and badges
  • new Pace Partners across more maps
  • new Drop Shop bikes and wheels - and handcycle
  • new home screen
  • new levels
  • Clubs updates
  • Category Enforcement
  • Urukazi
  • new font :wink:
  • HoloReplay / personal best bots
  • Scotland
  • new TTT launch system

They might not all benefit you directly, but we do have more stuff than we did a year ago.

Whether they’re enough to justify a price hike of, say, $10 per month is another matter.

I’m keen to have an annual plan but that’s because paying for a year in advance usually comes with a discount. Would I pay more than I do at present? Probably, but I’d need to see how much more they were asking for first.

On the other hand, if the cost per month goes up too much I might start cancelling over the summer months. As it is now, I just let my sub run every month even when I’m only Zwifting a handful of times.

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Yes, Zwift made a lot of upgrades which is good. But for me none of that made it Better or worth more money.Maybe CE but then again it is not applied to my favorite race. Wow I do sound ungrateful.

I really like Zwift and want them to get bigger and better. :ride_on:

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I totally agree. Now if they transfered some of the World Champs model to normal-people racing, that would be way different. Like:

  1. Ability to have elimination races
  2. Ability to have one sign up for multiple stage race in a block of 2 hours (like Tiny Races or the NeXT Cup) to eliminate folks who drop in for just one race and impact the dynamics.

These cannot be so hard to implement and would provide more variety…

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All the eliminations are done manually by someone at Zwift HQ, it isn’t as easy as you are making it sound.

I currently keep my account active over our summer (I’m in Australia). A price increase would be the push for me to cancel for the summer period and use this time to explore all the free trials of other apps including MyWhoosh that’s currently free.

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Sounds like they are possibly going to make that more difficult from the article: “At $15 a month for the past five years, Zwift’s subscription charge is “not sustainable” for much longer, Min said, and one option being looked at is locking users into annual memberships.”

From this link:
Peloton Rival Zwift Has Backing From KKR, Private Equity for Exercise Startup - Bloomberg (archive.is)

I’d guess a lot of customers cancel their accounts over summer. If Zwift remove the option I hope they just leave the monthly cost as it is, in some way rewarding those of us that currently support them all year round.

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I don’t see how they can prevent people from cancelling and rejoining later unless monthly subscriptions are no longer available. Removing monthly subscriptions would eliminate people who can’t afford annual subscriptions, which seems like a bad move. Promoting annual subscriptions at a discounted rate while still allowing monthly subscriptions seems like the more reasonable choice. Back to the original topic, I really hope some kind of multi-user account is part of the price restructuring.

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A lot of that list is more of what I would consider ‘keeping pace’ with what they’re charging.

Take adding maps. I don’t know what costs were in previous years to the penny, but I’m betting that they weren’t $10 cheaper when there were 10 fewer maps. For something like Zwift, new maps every so often are part of what I expect for the subscription that I’m paying for. Same with adding workouts. It would be worth a lot less to me if Zwift said “pay us $15/month and you’ll have exactly these maps and nothing else forever, unless you pay us more.”

That said, expansion is not completely severed from costs. Jump 10 years in the future–if Zwift has 50 more maps at that point, I would be surprised to see it still at the same cost as now. But adding maps in general, at the pace they are going, is not something I think of as a reason to increase costs.

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Whilst no-one like’s price increases (we all love something for nothing) Zwift is without a doubt a total steal guys. You can workout every day, race (beginner to full on sandbag) or group or club etc.
It’s £20 in the UK for a domino’s pizza lol one pizza! I am guessing its £50 a month for a gym membership on average? I can not see anyone leaving if it goes up £5?, unless there is a better option to go with and well you know the answer to that.
They will keep a monthly sub but just charge you more for it as per the norm these days, sadly.

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I don’t think Min was talking about literally locking people into annual contracts. It was business speak for coming up with pricing structures whereby some people are incentivised to pay for a year up front rather than month by month. Typically something like annual costing the same as 10 individual months.

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As others have pointed out - this was asked for years ago, and with zero comment or movement on it (and its telling we have Zwift staff commenting on this topic, but not commenting directly on the actual point) - we just aren’t getting this feature I feel.

Agreed at the current price - its very very good value for money considering the other subscription things I pay for and what I get for the money. Its a steal.

There must be so many spouses and partners out there, who would like to ride once or twice a week on zwift for a bit of variety, but $15 for that just isn’t going to get any traction. I do wonder how many extra $5’s pm month they would gain for offering a extra ‘lite’ user (but say is limited to non racing, non plan type thing)

My only worry is, if the pricing does go up and they do give us a family plan, its going to the same / more expensive than 2 single accounts as of today ($20pm single or $30pm family) type thing.

Not intentionally ignoring the request, I just don’t know whether or not we plan to offer this and at what price point if we did, so I didn’t want to comment without having some actual details otherwise I’d never hear the end of it.

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