Ads vs. Subscriptions

[Shant]

Hi Strava Team,

Why not offer users a choice between a free version (with ads) vs. a paid subscription (no ads) like Spotify/YouTube?

I want to share this in order to start a conversation and see what the community and Strava think. This is coming from a place of trying to find common interests among the users and Strava. I read the clarification this weekend and understand that the price increase is necessary due to the cost of running the service with more activities, data uploads, and the increase in users.

This is important because:

• Users want to save money during an economic downturn, but do not want to lose Strava and previously free services (like Year-in-Review & Leadership Board) that used to be available to them.
  
  
• Strava needs to generate money as a business to process all of the data being uploaded in order to stay free. Strava cannot be "free" forever without more money. 
  
  
• Free service (with ads) is basically like the free version of Spotify/YouTube. I personally don't think ads are bad if I am given a choice to opt-out of ads through the paid service. Additionally, I think receiving ads for brands that are relevant to my sport can be a net positive (I'm a runner, so Nike, Asics, Adidas, Boston Marathon, local races, etc.). Strava collects based on CPC/CPM. [Need input from users who primarily use free version]
  
  
• Paid Service (no ads) is basically what my subscription is now. There can be more perks like race discounts, first-to-test new feature updates, and a fitness brands page where I can go see if there are relevant products/sales being advertised based on my activities.
  
  
• Collect a fee based on the products free and paid users purchase through Strava. 

I think it would be interesting to set up a poll to allow the community to vote along with comments so we can discuss pros and cons. 

thank you!

[EricvdB]

I don't have any suggesting regarding the pricing. However I would be very happy if al the advertisements would be non existent on my paid account. all the commercial 'challenges' aswell

[danw]

Why doesn't Strava allow customers to make suggestions about it's pricing structure? As with any other suggestion on these forums, the fact that it's been raised wouldn't bind you to implementing it and, you never know, maybe one of your customers will one day come up with a pricing suggestion that makes good business sense to you! Why would you want to close yourself off to that opportunity?

[Jane · Accepted solution]

Hello @Shant 

Thanks for posting about this.  We don't accept suggestions regarding our pricing structure.  We encourage you to take a look at our Community Guidelines for Idea Submission.

Thanks for all your contributions to the Community, we're really glad you're here.  

[Anonymous10]

This is a shameful response from this company to a very respectfully written post and follow up question expressing a growing concern from your customers and loyal users 

[NvrPay4Strva]

Yes why take advice from the people who literally made your platform what it is. Without years of people using the platform for free you wouldn’t have a product to charge for. It’s a shame that this company took all the best features that people loved about the free platform and put them behind a subscription once it was popular enough using the excuse that it’s now too expensive to run. When switching to a subscription model you should have left the free features in place that made Strava so popular in the first place and introduced NEW features to entice subscribers. I expect I’ll receive the same standard response as the others discussing this. As a result of these less than ideal business practices (clearly the result of inexperienced leaders at the top of the company) I’ll never pay Strava for a subscription.