Strava leaderboards to move to subscribers-only

Strava is the social media platform of choice for a lot of runners–it’s like Instagram, Twitter and your favourite exercise app combined. And it’s one of the main avenues of communication and logging miles for them, as well. On Monday, Strava announced some key changes to the increasingly popular app. Due to high demand and in the interest of making improvements, Strava is putting paid subscriptions at the centre of their platform. This means that some of their previously free features (that are also more demanding to maintain) will be moving to subscriber-only access.

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The major changes

The biggest change is the removal of free access to leaderboards and segment analysis. Now runners will need to pay to see the full board, analyze efforts and compare results. Runners will, however, be able to see the top 10 for both men and women, just not the entire board. Routes, already a subscription-based feature, now includes the option to filter for walking (a new sport to the app) and maximal or minimal elevation.

Flagging activities, segment explore and search, segment creation and personal achievements will all remain free. They’ve also removed the Summit designation and associated package options, making it simple for users by offering just two ways to use the app: subscription and free. That’s it.

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How much does this cost?

This will cost users CDN $9.99 a month, but Strava promises there will always be a free version of the app. The company acknowledges that this is a financially tight time for lost of users, but feels this $9.99 is money well spent, and will allow them to improve users’ overall experience.

When is it taking effect?

Access to these changes begins today, Monday, May 18 with a complete web update, and a two-day roll out of the new app. By Wednesday, May 20, all iOS and Android users will have access to the new version. Runners are entitled to a free 60-day trial, to make the updates suits their needs.

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