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Has anyone here had an application approved to move beyond the initial 10-athlete limit since the June 2026 changes?

  • August 24, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 81 views

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Hi all,

I’m building Velora, a companion app that helps Strava users organise their activities after they’ve been recorded.

I’ve reached the 10-athlete limit on the Standard tier and have now applied for Extended Access twice. Both applications were declined with the same standard response, without saying which part of the application was the reason.

After the first rejection I went through the API Agreement and API Policy and made quite a few changes. I added proper disconnect and data deletion controls, made Auto-apply off by default, added dedicated Privacy and Strava Data Use pages, reviewed the OAuth scopes and API calls, and made sure ongoing processing uses webhooks rather than polling.

The second application was still declined with the same response.

I’ve since been looking through this forum and found several developers in a very similar position, across quite different types of apps. What I haven’t been able to find is a recent example of a new Standard Tier app being approved for Extended Access after the Developer Program changed on June 1.

So I have a simple question:

Has anyone here actually moved from the 10-athlete Standard Tier to Extended Access since June 1, 2026?

If yes, I’d really appreciate hearing what kind of app it was and roughly when it was approved. It would also be useful to know whether Strava asked for anything specific before granting Extended Access.

I’m not looking to challenge the decision on my application. I’m trying to understand what the current path from Standard to Extended Access looks like.

Without specific feedback on rejected applications, it’s difficult to know whether there is something I should change in Velora or whether the app simply doesn’t currently meet the criteria for Extended Access.

Any recent experience would be really useful. Thanks.

5 replies

Jan_Mantau
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  • Hub Powerhouse
  • August 24, 2026

Maybe extended tier access was a bit too much to ask for, that would be 10000 users and more and is only granted on very special circumstances.


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  • Author
  • Hub Rookie
  • August 24, 2026

Thanks Jan. That may be the part I’ve misunderstood.


If Extended Access is intended for apps at 10,000+ users or special cases, what is the route for a Standard Tier app that has reached 10 athletes and wants to grow beyond that?


I’m not looking for 10,000 users or particularly high rate limits at this stage. I just need to allow more than 10 athletes to connect so I can continue testing and gradually grow the app.


From the current documentation I understood that applying for increased athlete capacity was the route for doing that. Is there another intermediate capacity increase available while remaining on the Standard Tier?


Jan_Mantau
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  • Hub Powerhouse
  • August 24, 2026

In the review form you can specify the “Number of Intended Users”.


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  • Author
  • Hub Rookie
  • August 24, 2026

Thanks Jan. I checked my previous entries and it looks like I estimated 100 users in one application and 1,000 in the other.

But unless I'm misunderstanding the form, “Number of Intended Users” is asking for a rough estimate of expected total users, rather than the capacity I'm requesting.

That's actually part of what I'm trying to understand. If a small app reaches the 10-athlete Standard limit, is there a normal next step for gradually growing beyond 10, or does any increase require qualifying for Extended Access regardless of whether the app expects 50, 100 or 1,000 users?

The documentation isn't very clear on that distinction.


Jan_Mantau
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  • Hub Powerhouse
  • August 24, 2026

If you had requested 100 or 1000 users only then the rejection wasn’t due to misunderstanding the tiers. You will find a table with information about the access tiers on