PSA: Zwift price increase

If you’ve been thinking about an Annual Subscription, now might be a good time…

Edit: Too late! Prices are already live.

Happy to cancel…I used it for about 3 weeks and then didn’t get into it…happy to not spend that on something that didn’t transform my attempts at indoor riding.

Just checked my payment goes out in June and still being given the option of £179.99 annual. Trying to work out if it’s worth paying for myself.

Ah, timely reminder to cancel my sub over summer if this is happening…not had any email yet?

edit: and bang on cue! 39% increase so pause it is

I’m sure my subscription that in cancelled earlier in the year was 12.99.
Feels like they have moved into the taking the pish territory.

Cancelled mine on Saturday. Recently tried it out for a second time since Jan….NGL I think that it’s a bit shit! Certainly don’t think that it’s good vfm at £18 per month.

@Tom-B are you me?

Exactly my experience.

Cancelled.

My next payment is still £12.99, looks like it’s payments after 6th June that be at the new price.

Can see how it’s possibly still good vfm for a few (there’s folk on my Strava page who use it daily) but I’m like once a week this time of year.

It’s like they want you to try MyWhoosh. Definitely going to check it out now.

There’s also IndieVelo. Currently free. Looks very Zwift-like (the developers are ex-Zwift affiliated).

Yeah, I’ll be looking for something else next winter I think. It’s switched off for the summer anyway.

@scotroutes – Looks like that pricing has now gone live on their website.
edit- ha ha I took ages to post this and message way out of date now.

I am sure I’m only paying £12.99 currently and haven’t had an e-mail regarding a price hike.
EDIT – e-mail came through while typing that

I also pay another £8 for Xert.
That price increase of £5/month is enough to make me consider if I really will keep my subscription to one, or both.
Or maybe cancel through the summer which will force me to get outside on the bike?

I love it and I’ve got pretty fit using it and since I probably spent about £5k on the whole set up then I have a lot invested. But rather than pay for a full year I think I’ll just cancel until the clocks go back – fresh air then.

I enjoy Zwift, and can afford it if I wanted to, but £18/month is more than puregym!  I’m trying to rationalize why I’m objecting to ~£5/month, but I think it’s because it raises Zwift above the parapet of other streaming service subscriptions (Netflix, Prime, Spotify) at £10-£12.  And it makes SQT at the velodrome for £6.30 for 2 hours (really about 45min riding time) seem like much better value.,

How does it cost them more to run an online platform with rob pacers than an airconditioned building with spin bikes and an actual PT to shout at me a few hours a week?

OK so Puregym don’t actually pay their PT’s anything directly, but it’s still cheaper.

And their “online platform” is objectively a bit rubbish, why does it still rely on users PC to run the game,  surely they could run a whole world on a single server CPU at their end, and then just rely on the users PC to do the graphics (or for £18 a month, stream it to you in 4K).

Does Zwift not have other ways they could monetize the platform?  I’d happily accept changing the Zwift branded hoardings to targeted adds for example.

Not sure what I’ll switch to. I don’t really want another sub as I’ve only really got time for 1 session a week anyway, but could really do with that one good structured session.  Is there an easy to use free workout creator? Something that looks like Trainerroad / Sufferfest but I don’t need the coaching/library/videos? Just something that’ll let me plan a workout, talk to the trainer and show a HUD / Graph.

I heard that my Whoosh is free.

I just got the email and cancelled.

I was on an annual plan (cheap offer last autumn with a new turbo trainer I bought), 33% increase is a total piss take, I hope lots more people cancel, maybe that would send a message.

I’m sure my subscription that in cancelled earlier in the year was 12.99.

yeah, that was my last month’s bill! Hefty price increase right when the weather finally turns and we’ve got masses of sun & high temps forecast… doesn’t seem the soundest business move 😂

It’s like they want you to try MyWhoosh. Definitely going to check it out now.

personally I wouldn’t use MyWoosh even if they paid me £17.99/month, due to who’s backing it. Each to their own though.

I had my subscription on pause but that’s prompted me to cancel. I’ll look at alternatives in the autumn.

I wouldn’t use MyWoosh even if they paid me £17.99/month, due to who’s backing it

Who is backing it?

Does seem like a very large increase when myWhoosh seems to have been gaining ground. If they’d gone to £14.99 I’d probably have swallowed it, but £17.99 is enough to make me look for alternatives.

Who is backing it?

UAE government. It’s a big part of their current “sports washing” strategy.

Oil money

ooof I paid £120 for a year sub to wahoo system

Ha – just had this email & came here for the alternatives…

I use it regularly in the winter (5 or 6 days a week) but other times of year it’s much more occasional and very weather dependent – it maybe weeks between going on. At £18 a month i’ll pause/cancel as it’s just not worth it

I really think this is going to bite zwift on the backside. Bad time of year anyway for the Northern hemisphere & the speed with which they have imposed the increase so that you can’t opt for the annual  option is pretty sneaky. I’m definitely on the lookout for alternatives.

Now thinking buying a hub one wasn’t such a bright idea.  I’m free until October…. Time to think what to do.   Although maybe that’s time enough for them to experience this reaction and turn it around somehow.

I was on pause just now, but ive cancelled just to make sure i dont miss the auto-restart, as only use it Oct-Mar when the weather is really bad.

But a 33% hike! Ooft.

Will check out MyWhoosh

Cheers for the prompt, I’ll cancel my sub for summer now.

 Is there an easy to use free workout creator? Something that looks like Trainerroad / Sufferfest but I don’t need the coaching/library/videos?

I use TACX Training but I have a TACX trainer and I’m not sure whether it works with non-TACX trainers so you’ll need to check. There are paid subscriptions available but I just use the free version to control my trainer and “TACX Cloud” can be used to create and sync workouts.

I’ve also tried this which has some built in Zwift workouts. You can add your own workouts (Google  “ZWO workout creator”)

https://flux-web.vercel.app/

I really think this is going to bite zwift on the backside. Bad time of year anyway for the Northern hemisphere & the speed with which they have imposed the increase so that you can’t opt for the annual  option

yeah. If given the option to lock-in for a year at the cheaper price, I’d have done that for sure. There’s a weekly race I’ve got into the habit of doing that I’d like to continue even through the summer, but at the new price that is basically almost £5 a week for a single ~40 min race on Zwift 🤣

Remember that you get at least 25km of free riding on Zwift every month.

ooh.. that’s got me thinking..

I really like zwift,and obvs use it less this time of year.. but that’s pushing into high roller territory…

DrP

It’s a bit of a greedy piss take. The scale of Zwift should allow it to serve customers cheaper over time, their costs per subscribe must be miniscule. I don’t even see much reinvestment into the platform like how netflix etc are creating new content. Still, I’m sure someone has analysed customer behaviour and decided that this is the best way to maximise profit.

Hopefully it encourages competitors to enter the market, I never liked the Zwift interface. I’d be happy to pay £5 per month for something without the 3D world. 

What I really want is an add-on for netflix where it stops playing if you aren’t riding hard enough.

“When it hits the fan” is an excellent BBC sounds podcast. I agree this is going to hit the fan in a terminal way for Zwift.

Stupid shortsighted decision.
There must be many like me who rumble on with little use monthly. But no more.

After cancelling I got an email to fill in a survey as to why I cancelled. I gave them some quite scathing comments.

I don’t know if they will really take any notice, IMO such surveys are often just a ploy to fake customer engagement.

It seems a very strange time to bump the price just when the weather is improving.

It’s a shame they didn’t at least give people a bit of warning so they could switch to an annual membership at the current old price, as per the OPs thinking. I probably would have signed up for a yearly membership today – instead I’m going to cancel my monthly one.

Just had the email today, personal circumstances have meant that any training is on hold, but was looking forward to using Zwift again in the coming weeks, but as a few of the above, I have now canceled. ROUVY seems a possible good alternative?

Although on the other hand, as ZI points out, it is the first price hike for 6 ½ years (how many subscription services can say that?) & Zwift has come on a lot (and had a lot of investment – remember when you couldn’t log on if there were more than a couple thousand users on at once?!) since then