In what appears to be a first for a sports tech company in recent months, Whoop has lowered their subscription price for their fitness-focused wearable service. Unlike most companies, Whoop doesn’t actually cost money to buy the device itself, but rather, the device is included in the subscription fee. And going forward, for 12-month and 24-month renewals, that price has been lowered by ~20% and 17% respectively. The existing monthly rate remains the same however at $30/month. These price drops carry over into other markets including GBP and EUR pricing.
Concurrently, the company also announced a new “lifetime warranty policy”, which aims to cover replacement of devices “no matter what happens”. But, as I dig into later in this post – it seems like their actual written legal policy is almost the inverse of that – you’re on the hook for everything that happens.
Finally, the company has lowered the price for a ‘lost device’ to just $50, which is incredibly reasonable (it was over $100 previously). While I’ve yet to lose my Whoop permanently, I’ve had a number of close calls (mainly when I briefly took it off for whatever reasons and then accidentally left it behind).
From a pricing standpoint, here’s the new USD pricing:
Further, here’s the GBP pricing:
– Monthly Membership (12-month commitment): £27, VAT included
– 12-Month Membership: £229 upfront, VAT included
– 24-Month Membership: £384 upfront, VAT included
And here’s the EUR pricing:
– Monthly Membership (12-month commitment): €30, VAT included
– 12-Month Membership: €264 upfront, VAT included
– 24-Month Membership: €444 upfront, VAT included
Notably however for all of these monthly subscriptions, Whoop has gotten rid of the 6-month commitment option. Previously, the device effectively required a 6-month membership, now it requires a 12-month commitment. I can’t figure out exactly when that changed occurred though. They still offer a 30-day return policy though.
The company noted in the video if you recently bought a Whoop remember, they’ll be extended your membership “1 to 3 months”, and that you’ll see that in in your app shortly.
Of course, the likely real reason we’re seeing price decreases isn’t out of the goodness of Whoop’s heart to help ya out. Instead, it’s likely that renewal rates have begun to decrease. Given the high subscription cost of Whoop (far beyond any other wearable subscription cost), it’s an easy line item target for most home budgets, especially given the device requires constantly checking the phone app – as the device itself has no actual screen/display. It’s just a band with a slate of sensors inside. Nothing wrong with that, Whoop has done a lot with those sensors, but due to that lack of screen (which many people like), it’s easier for a consumer to ‘forget’ about the benefits of the device.
Nonetheless, no matter the reason – I think all of us agree that a price decrease instead of a price increase is generally a good thing!
Upcoming New Features:
Only briefly hinted at in the video posted on their social media feeds, the company says they’re adding:
1) A stress monitor “with Dr. Andrew Huberman”
2) A weightlifting feature to track reps and “a bunch of stuff related to your workout”
3) The weightlifting feature will also show muscular strain
4) New Recovery details
5) New home screen redesign
Literally what I wrote about is almost word for word all they announced in terms of details. So there aren’t any further details beyond that. The recovery bit though is probably one of the most interesting components. Many technically astute reviewers have noted the many flaws with Whoop’s recovery algorithms (both their previous ones, as well as the most recent/current) – primarily around just how heavily detached it is from reality, focusing almost entirely on sleep HRV, rather than having a more heavily weighted component being tied to your recent strain (training load).
As other companies have come onto the scene in this arena, they’ve generally done a better job of managing the balance between training load and training recovery. So it’s no surprise Whoop is probably trying to address their shortcomings.
The Lifetime Warranty:
Now ironically, it was actually the new warranty policy that caught my eye first. Mainly because Whoop e-mailed that out, versus deciding to go with a social media-only approach for their price lowering policy. Frankly, I don’t entirely understand that logic – I mean, wouldn’t you want to sing from the ceilings a new lower price? Perhaps though, they didn’t want to deal with the floodgates of people asking for refunds/etc on recently renewed 12/24-month subscriptions. Either way, that aside, they did send out a short and sweet e-mail about the warranty policy, shown in full below:
And here’s the written text:
I’m excited to share some good news with the WHOOP community today.
We’re announcing a new lifetime warranty policy that will help you prioritize your health, no matter what happens. As long as you’re a WHOOP member, you’ll get free replacements on defective devices or batteries — whether that’s tomorrow or 10 years from now. Lost your WHOOP? Great news. Replacing your lost WHOOP device will now cost €54 – nearly 50% less than before.
Thanks for being a member of the WHOOP community. Here’s to many more days in the green.
Best, Will
Will Ahmed
Founder & CEO, WHOOP
Now, on the surface, this is a pretty solid deal – especially including the line items “no matter what happens” followed by “whether that’s tomorrow or 10 years from now”. There’s no caveats or further text on the e-mail (except for the Unsubscribe button and social media icons). How on earth they managed to get this e-mail past their lawyers is beyond me (in a good way). But hey, I’m here for it!
It does of course link to their lifetime warranty policy. Actually, it links to an in-between page first, which in turn has the full warranty policy linked further. This in between page though doubles down again on the ‘no worries’ aspect, saying:
“WHOOP is designed to be worn 24/7 — and designed to last. We back our WHOOP devices with a lifetime warranty — meaning any issues or problems, and our team will replace your WHOOP device as long as you purchased directly through WHOOP and have an active membership. Terms and conditions apply. For our full warranty policy, see our Terms of Use.”
Cool, still on team ‘this sounds interesting’. Except, then you click onto the Terms of Use, scroll past a million bits of lawyer dribble, and finally arrive at the actual warranty exemptions section:
Ahh yes, and we find the real caveats. As you can see, it doesn’t cover a bunch of things. Some of those things make sense (like trying to modify the unit). I’ve got no problem with excluding that. But it’s these two line chunks I’ve got issues with exclusions for (I’ve snipped it to the parts I’m focused on:
– Damage or failure through misuse or malfunction, normal wear and tear…
– Damage or failure due to accident, acts of God, …. unusual atmospheric conditions;
I mean, these two line items are kinda like the entire point of a warranty? What other possible scenarios could an item fall under besides “malfunction” or “misuse”? Seriously, every possible reason a unit could die falls under it either malfunctioning normally, or somehow being misused. Further, the core of Whoop CEO’s very short e-mail says “no matter what happens”. This doesn’t seem to be a “no matter what happens” type of thing. This is literally the exact opposite of that. It’s “everything that happens isn’t covered”.
But arguably the most important: What in gopher’s name are ‘unusual atmospheric conditions’? I asked Google, and it was like ‘shrug?’. So, then I actually asked ChatGPT (mainly to see if for once it could give me a truly accurate answer related to something sports tech, most of the time it just spews out really pretty bullshit that’s riddled with inaccuracies.).
So basically, ChatGPT is telling me that if I get snow or a bit of wind on my Whoop, it exempts it from the warranty policy? Obviously, it’s trying to be helpful here, and it actually is mostly. I’m a bit sad neither Whoop or ChatGPT included “balloons falling from the atmosphere” in the list of exemptions. Seems like a missed opportunity.
By the way, funny aside while researching this – another wearable company, albeit for horses, called HorsePal and their horse heart rate monitor strap has a near-identical legal warranty including the acts of atmospheric conditions. In fact, their warranty bullet points are in the exact same order and wording as Whoop’s. I don’t know which legal team came first: The Horse or the Human, but I found it funny to see this plagiarism occur within the heart rate sensor industry (someone is copying someone).
In any case, around this time I shot off a note to Whoop’s PR team, asking what the deal-e-o was with their warranty details. No, not asking about the horse part, nor the atmospheric conditions part, or even the odd $50 restocking fee listed in there. But rather, just the general ‘malfunction’ aspect. As of the moment, I haven’t heard back quite yet. However, once I do, I’ll insert their response here.
Look, I intended to write a post showing how cool this new lifetime-forever-and-ever policy was after receiving the e-mail like any other consumer. And further, I fully understand lawyers have to get in the way to keep companies (and individuals) safe from purposefully trying to break things or whatever. But in this case, the terms, be it horse-inspired or otherwise, simply go too far. They give Whoop FAR too many reason to say no, be it, in their CEO’s words – “tomorrow or 10 years from now”.
With that, thanks for reading!
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