Zwift has announced that they are increases prices effective June 6th, 2024, the first price increase in more than 7 years for the company. The last increase was in November 2017, from $9.99 to $14.99. In doing so, they’ve essentially because the final company in the indoor training space to increase prices over the last few years. Most other companies did it about 2 years ago.
Zwift’s new prices are listed below for each region (else, you’d fall under USD pricing). For US pricing, that means an increase from $14.99 to $19.99 for monthly subscriptions, and an increase from $149.99 to $199.99 for annual subscriptions. Both are a 33% increase in the price. In the case of annual subscriptions, you’re effectively getting two months free.
All these prices are effective on the next billing date *AFTER* June 6th. So in my case, my Zwift billing dates are the 30th of the month for myself, and the 13th of the month for my wife. Thus, I’ll see the new prices on June 30th and June 13th, for the two accounts.
Just for completeness, here’s why Zwift says they’re raising their prices:
“Despite rising inflationary pressure, we’ve worked hard to keep our prices locked since 2017. Your subscription fee has allowed us to develop the platform and enhance your experience on Zwift. We’re proud of all the additional platform benefits introduced since 2017 that Zwifters now enjoy daily. From Group Workouts and Flexible Training Plans to some of our newest features, like the always-on group rides with Robo Pacers, or the the Climb Portal that transports you to iconic climbs from the world over. Now available to enjoy on ten worlds and two event-only maps, Zwifting has never been better.
The best is yet to come! This change will allow us to continue our commitment to bringing you even more product benefits, new features, and content experiences in the months and years to come. For a preview of some of the highlights launching over the next few months, head here.
We value the support of every member of the Zwift community and hope to see you in Watopia soon. Ride On!
“
Note that in the event your subscription currently paused, it’ll simply remain paused as normal. Once you resume your membership, you’d do so at the new pricing once you clear past June 6th.
For fun, I did a quick check of pricing for various training platforms as of January 2018 (so two months after Zwift’s previous price increase), and how they compare now. Note that it was messy enough finding all the monthly prices, let alone the annual prices. In general, most of these companies gave two months free for annual.
In any case, here’s the historical price data (for monthly memberships):
Zwift: $14.99/month to $19.99/month
Peloton: Hardware units – $39.99/month to $44.99/month (the app-only side is messy for reasons outlined below)
TrainerRoad: $12/month to $19.95/month
Kinomap: $9.99/month to $11.99/month
Wahoo SYSTM: $9.99/month to $14.99/month
Rouvy: $12/month to $15.00/month
FulGaz: $10/month to $14.99/month
Xert: Still $9.99/month
I’ve got an entire chart of all the prices as of this past November (when most of them were settled for the Northern Hemisphere winter), in case you’re curious – with a number of other entities as well listed.
Of course, some of the above have notable nuances/caveats/whatevers:
1) Most of these prices are “+ taxes”, but not every one of them.
2) Peloton’s Digital App only pricing, that’s changed like 19 times in the last 7 years, in terms of what’s included. So it went from $19 to $9 to $12 to upwards of $24. Peloton keeps changing what is or isn’t included. Whereas the pricing for the hardware subscription classes has simply gone from $39.99 to $44.99
3) TrainerRoad’s pricing technically has the option for legacy users to keep the original prices, but that’s a very small number of people. Also, they increased their prices a few months after my January 2018 cutoff, to $15/month.
4) In the case of Wahoo SYSTM, in January 2018, it was still The Sufferfest. They raised prices late 2018, and then were acquired by Wahoo in 2019.
Ultimately, Zwift & TrainerRoad’s prices are the highest of the bunch, excluding Peloton’s hardware connected variant. I’d argue that within this realm Zwift & TrainerRoad are widely seen as the two most premium option – so in that realm, it makes sense. I don’t think anyone really likes to see price increases, but I’ll give Zwift credit for holding out longer than just about anyone else (7 years), especially given that virtually every other company in our lives has increased prices over the last 3-4 years. Unfortunately though, the bad news doesn’t end there.
Zwift CORE/KICKR CORE Hardware Increases:
In addition to this, Zwift & Wahoo are also increases the price of their KICKR CORE Zwift One and KICKR CORE smart trainers which included a year of Zwift as a bundle. They’re going from $599 to $649:
Zwift.com & WahooFitness.com
– US – $ 649.99
– EU – € 649.99
– UK – £ 579.99WahooFitness.com:
– Australia – AUD 1,129.95
– Canada – CAD 1,049.99
Likewise, the previous $100 add-on bundle (1 year Zwift) if you bought a new Wahoo trainer has also disappeared. In fact, it actually disappeared about a week ago from Zwift’s site, which was available for buying any new (other) Wahoo trainer on Zwift.com. Instead, you’ll continue to be able to buy the upgrade bundle through the app post-purchase (just like the last 7-8 months), except now it’ll be $150 instead of $100.
Here’s those 1-year bundled prices:
– USA – $150.00
– EU – €150.00
– UK – £130.00
– Australia – AUD $230.00
– Canada – CAD $190.00
But wait, the good news isn’t done yet…onto the next item!
New Kids Accounts Paused:
In addition to all this, it flew under the radar that last month Zwift stopped creating new kids accounts (under-16, or so-called U16 accounts). In fact, the entire program is “being reviewed”, but at this point, existing kids accounts can remain on the platform, though Zwift says that if that changes “any future changes impacting existing members will be communicated in advance.” – which seems like an awfully close to saying “we plan to kill off Zwift kids accounts entirely, but don’t want this much bad news in one week”.
When asked why the pause for Zwift accounts, Zwift noted that all of the account creation work had to be done manually by customer service. Parents were required by Zwift to submit an application for the U16 account, which included accepting various Zwift Terms & Conditions. This application was then manually reviewed and the kid account setup. Kids accounts were restricted in that they were private and were unable to message other Zwifters. Zwift Kids accounts were free up to 16yo.
Still, despite that, I struggle to see why this would have been a lift. Clicking ‘I approve’ on a form is one of the easiest automated approval things out there. And certainly Zwift’s platform just adds these accounts to a group that restricts access to message and is otherwise marked as private (if if’s somehow more complex than this, that rather concerning, technically). This is a well solved problem by countless entities. Even within the sports/fitness space, companies such as Garmin & Fitbit has kids account, as does Peloton (down to 13yo). None of which require any special manual approvals.
As a father of three kids that love to cycle (but don’t have Zwift Kids accounts), I think it’s totally appropriate to charge me some trivial sum to have a sparingly used Zwift Kids account atop my existing kids account. After all, if Zwift is looking to find new members long-term, getting kids on the platform would seem to be a good place to do that (even if it’s a very minimal number of people).
Hopefully, Zwift can figure out whatever process needs to be figured out to be automated, and get the creation of kids accounts back in the hopper.
With that – thanks for reading, even if all this news probably wasn’t super awesome to read.
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