The STRYD Membership Shake Up – new features, a new subscription
Back in November last year, STRYD announced sweeping changes, on the one hand, it gave access to an end-to-end service where you could sync structured running power workouts from many of your favourite training platforms to be executed on the STRYD Apps (CIQ, Watch OS, iOS, Android). On the other hand, it announced it was going to charge for a membership service in 2021. Well, in case you’ve not been paying attention for the last 3 months, 2021 has well and truly come 🙂
First up, if you are already a STRYD user like me just pottering away with your pod, a Garmin data field, a Polar Vantage, or syncing in plans from TP/FS, then you won’t be charged a cent.
Secondly, in general, features you’ve always had for free will remain free.
Unless I’ve missed a nuance, there’s no need for existing STRYD owners to worry.
Recommended Reading: STRYD Review – A Detailed look after 2000 miles
Click for full MEMBERSHIP details on STRYD.com or to buy a STRYD pod directly from STRYD
Table of Contents | Jump To
Today’s Announcement – What’s New?
There are 3 strands to today’s announcement:
- New Members-Only Feature – Workout Builder & Library: Power-based running workouts can now be created within the STRYD environment and stored in a workout library along with workouts from other sources.
- Lower Price: Membership features cost £9/$10 per month ($99/£89pa), lower than suggested in 2020.
- Expanded free features: The original membership features as envisaged in 2020, caused issues for 3rd party power plan providers and, as a result, the import and execution of structured workouts are now free.
However, some of the details are quite complex to explain. For example, if you buy a new STRYD tomorrow you can buy it more cheaply but there is also now a mandatory minimum subscription period that you have to sign up to which brings back the price to the same as it was yesterday. There are also complexities in which features are free – as longstanding STRYD users are rewarded with more free features. Plus there are pricing discounts whereby longstanding STRYD users can buy 6 months of membership for $/£20 rather than $/£60.
This all appears to have been constructed to make the overall offering fair or generous to everyone and to eventually open up a new source of monthly revenues for STRYD by offering something new.
So, it makes sense. It’s just hard to explain in a sentence.
STRYD Membership Features
If you want access to STRYD Membership’s new features then that’s going to cost you £9/$10/month, however, the features are wide-ranging and include these components of automated training and intelligent training:
- Running power structured workout builder (for execution on STRYD apps on iOS, Android, Watch OS and Garmin CIQ)
- A pre-canned library of popular, famous and useful running power workouts & tests. (for execution on STRYD apps on iOS, Android, Watch OS and Garmin CIQ)
- Personalised, post-run insights
- Personal running trend analysis
- Workout breakdowns
- Personalised power-based training plans (free preview for this month)
- Base-building training plans (free preview for this month)
- Automated post-run insights (free preview for this month)
- Personal running trend analysis (free preview for this month)
- Workout breakdowns (free preview for this month)
- Race power calculator (remains free if you were a STRYD user before 6 Apr 2020)
- Running Stress Balance (remains free if you were a STRYD user before 6 Apr 2020)
- Personalised Workout Recommendations (remains free if you were a STRYD user before 6 Apr 2020)
- Training distribution & comparison (remains free if you were a STRYD user before 6 Apr 2020)
To re-iterate, if you get your plans from somewhere else and analyse your data somewhere else then you probably won’t even notice any of this stuff happening. You’ll be unaffected.
If you use the STRYD app platform then the new, clever features and the new structured workout & planning features can only be accessed by members.
The market for the members’ subscription service is probably for committed power runners rather than triathletes. To some extent, STRYD’s membership features will take business away from 3rd party plan providers but only for those who want to immerse themselves in the STRYD platform.
Overall there is some impressive work here and it’s great to think how a straightforward, accurate footpod from Colarado has morphed into a unique global running platform.
The New Workout Builder
The new workout builder from STRYD is impressive.
The Builder contains many usual features when it comes to building workout steps and repeated intervals/phases. The clever parts come in when you are able to quickly save a new workout to your calendar or to one of your own collections. Similarly, you can browse through STRYD’s workout collections and save individual workouts to your own collection for you to easily access later.
Membership Details IN FULL or Buy a Pod
Here are the membership details in full on STRYD.com.
If you want to get a STRYD and take advantage of the bundled membership deals being offered now then here are some links.
- 🇺🇸 STRYD USA: $219
- 🇪🇺 New Running Gear: £199/Eu219 – Eu Fulfimment – no import taxes
- 🇪🇺 Amazon UK: £205 – UK Fulfilment – no import taxes
- 🇪🇺 STRYD Europe: $199 – Eu Fulfimment – no import taxes
- 🇪🇺 Amazon Europe – Eu 219-Eu249,
- 🇺🇸 Amazon USA – Normally not sold
I partner directly with STRYD in the USA and with New Running Gear (the EU/UK distributor – my preferred EU partner).
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I really appreciate the update – but clearly there’s some heat over the subscription fees.
DCR said it quite well that $5 would have been an easier sell.
Maybe it’s a slight Snafu with the marketing material, because an annual sub is £89, which is much closer to £7/month. That should have been the headline news, not the £10 for a rolling monthly sub people are talking about, which few will take up I think
As I remember fomr the comments (I was sleepig at the time of the launch) they initially had it to 10
GBP at launch, but after many questions why it was higher for UK useras then US, they adjusted the price in GBP down.
Yes that was an unfortunate own goal.
I still feel the marketing material missed a trick. The discounted annual sub should have been the headline figure. Oh well, yesterday’s news is today’s fish ‘n chips wrapping paper.
i think stryd were pitching it higher 6 months ago, suggesting $20. which is too much. there’s also the issue of dollar:sterling parity pricing which some in the UK find annoying (apparently corrected)
$10, imo, is not unreasonable if you want a plan and the stryd stuff around it.
i sell plans on this site. there is a whole spectrum of price ranges of what people will pay depending on the value they perceive. stryd is simply slotting in at some point on that value spectrum (I’d imagine they’ve analysed the running power plan market more than anyone commenting on it including dcr and including me.).
Agree a $5/mon would be a much easier sell. The Stryd subreddit is full of users (the “early adopters”) that are going “thanks but no thanks”.
Also, the $20/6months is a one-time thing to get people hooked. I haven’t used their plans because they didn’t seem suitable for me (their intro plans kinda assumed you started from zero, which I ain’t), but the $20/6mons might make me have a go at it.
Garmin has an interval plan where you do a flexible warm-up and then a selectable number of interval run/rests, and a cool-down. This works perfectly for me, as I run over to a park, do the intervals there, and then jog back home. Stryd’s intervals seemed to be fixed to a “warm up for X minutes”. Will be interesting to have a look at it, but it’ll cost me $20 just to understand if the interface allows me to do that.
Stryd have flexible warmup and cool down phases to. You edit the phase and select “Manually Advance Split”. it’s equivalent to Garmin’s “Lap Button Press”
Stryd are talking big about new features within the next 6 months. That’ll be very telling for them, if when they do deliver, will the £8.99/month align to members expectations.
yes, i’ve not seen them yet. They are runnign out of big feature sets to include
Yes, my mind boggles what can really be added next. There’s only so much tech, and all that’s left is the running itself to be done.
Someone mentioned Xert plans being AI based I think. Never tried that so don’t know. Sounds interesting at least.
not sure i heard about ai and exert. not sure that ai is the right word but i get where you are coming from.
xert is pretty cool. if they sort out the full triathlon piece then i will switch to it. if i was just a cyclist i would use it now. I’ve not used it in detail to see how good it models running.
ai can base recommendation on your successful tactics or the population’s successful strategies…or both. not sure xert plan to do that yet. maybe
I’m most likely getting confused. Maybe it as more about greater levels of training plan adaption vs Stryd CP adaptions.
I think there is still more that Stryd can do with their plans. Maybe look at PDC, goal race and propose a daily workout to address weakness, build stress etc.
But in truth, I’ve had good success with your plans, which have none of that. But clearly did have the right volume and intensity for my goals. Are you not tempted to offer power plans – or is it too much hassle?
thank you kindly: https://the5krunner.com/5k-training-plan-running/
I have power versions of these plans but they are not right. It will take me quite a long time to get them exactly right and i just haven’t done it. the original source for the non-power plans took many days of work but it only ever had one bug so i was quite pleased with that. the power version has several bugs already.
yes stryd can always add many many small features, I’m just not sure how big those markets will be. things like identifying precise weaknesses and then plans that address the weakness and then compliance mechanisms that ensure the work was done…are REALLY hard. For most of us there probably is little point in such complexity.
i think AI is one sensible way forwards tho….both micro/macro level. maybe it’s ML rather than AI. I’m never sure exactly what these acronyms mean
Ah thanks. That would make so much more sense to me. The pre-built plans just didn’t seem to have that (I only recently moved from a CIQ2 to a CIQ3 device, so I haven’t been able to look into the structured plans before).
The early adopters are not charged any extra for what they already had and are also offered a discount for the new stuff. The early adopters can use Final Surge to create free structured power workouts and sync them to the Stryd app (any platform) for free and execute them for free. so i agree they probably won’t pay to do a similar thing in the stryd ecosystem (I won’t).
Plans are an added value item and DO deserved to be paid for. BUT. Plans in general are a hard sell as you can often get some form of plan for free somwhere if you look hard enough. Digital plans (as opposed to paper ones) seem to be free at the moment but digital assets tend to get pirated at some point or other so i think many of these companies business models might be flawed (not aimed at stryd…generally)
Indeed only a small percentage of athletes follow structured plans…by far the minority.
Kudos to stryd for opening up the ecosytem so that 3rd part plan sites can monetise it. That might maintain or increase the popularity of the site.
I guess stryd’s ultiamte problem is Garmin. Garmin can quite easily give free plans on their site. they don’t really care about them too much…they want device sales revenues. so they can give free plans and that might attract many devices sales of different types. Stryd only has one device to leverage.
all that said, running with power is a niche use-case. A niche that will always have a good chunk of people willing to pay for a value-adding plan. Let’s see how big that chunk is…
Yes, I’m aware that it’s the “Library” and the trending that will be subscribtion based going forward, not the RSB etc.
I don’t to TP, FB, 2P or any other sites, so for me Stryd plans would be a real option.
“digital assets tend to get pirated at some point or other”
All data tends to “go free” at some point. Which is why biometric authentication (instead of passwords you can change on a whim) is a very very bad idea, as you can’t change your biometric data.
I totally get why Stryd is doing this, because recurring payments are so much better for the company revenues than one-time payments (think phone or Garmin). Subscribtion-based revenue is so in vogue right now – just look at Adobe, who changed their model from one-time payment to subscribtion-based. They have made tons of money since they switched to the subscribtion model.
ok so your criticism would be: I only want to use the one platform and that I’ve already paid the fixed fee. now there is a monthly fee for new stuff
which is fair enough, but what you originally paid for is still free.
yes a revenue stream adds certainty to the company and increases the share price.
i just looked at adobe photoshop pricing yesterday as it happens…ouch. even students pay £16/$20/mo, which is still expensive but cheaper than the full monthly price.
subscription pricing for plans seems fairer in that you only pay for them when you need them
even a subscription or lease for a watch isn’t too bad if you plan to get a new one within 2 years.
personally i dislike having regular sums leaving my account as i forget about them. i prefer to pay in full and own in full
Actually, I’m not critizing them for making a subscription plan. My only beef is the cost/value proposition for me, and only I can figure that out for myself.
I’m seeing too many companies thinking that they sit on Gold, and price accordingly. Their product might “be Gold” if I needed/used 100% of the product, but if I only need to use 5% of it, I’m only willing to pay Tin pricing, because that’s my value.
On subscription pricing in general:
As I recall, with Adobe PS, less than two years of subscription will cost more than paying up-front for a full product (when they had lifetime licences) for ‘normal’ licences.
One of the things you have to carefully consider with PS and other subscriptions is: what do you do with the data when you stop paying?.
With Photoshop, the data in the .psd files are at their ransom now. No subscription, no access to data. Do you want that? What is it going to cost you to reinstate the subscription? Would they force you to pay for the entire period where you hadn’t had the subscription?
TomTom demanded (still demands?) that in order to get new GPS map updates after a period of not buying, you had to pay something like 30-50% of subscription you had not taken. It was literally less expensive to buy a new device than reinstating the map service on the old one(!)
I had another company demand we paid 100% of their “yearly maintenance fee” (which was on the order of ~30% of the product cost) in order to get support, if we had
yes it must be true that very many companies think their product is considerably better than what it is. I’ve made similar comments previously in relation to sports tech.
cost/value is a personal thing (as is this comments section! thank you for commenting). perhaps stryd are not targeting you and i on this one.
It’s good that Stryd data is written to the fit file so Garmin Connect reads it. So if one day Stryd doesn’t exist or the cost becomes prohibitive, then at least users have their data still.
I almost bought a BSX Insight a few years ago – I dodged that bullet by luck. I gather that’s now an expensive paperweight.
I am willing to pay for a device, but a subscription model is an absolute no-go for me!
Yes, I tend to agree with you. From a personal perspective I don’t like subscriptions.
Of course, you can still buy the stryd pod for the same price as before and many usage scenarios (ALL the legacy ones) remain free.