Strava announced Summit today, a revamped take on their Premium membership with new à la carte subscription options. Premium will now be called Summit, and users will be able to pick parceled out features of Summit with the Training Pack, Safety Pack, and Analysis Pack.
For those of you that have never heard of Strava, you can think of the company as the social media platform for athletes. Strava has 32 million users in 195 countries. Strava started as a platform for hardcore runners and cyclist, but has since been adding functionality and features for everyday walkers, hikers, swimmers, and commuters. Summit looks to be the next step forward in Strava’s pursuit of the everyday athlete and weekend warrior.
With Strava’s older Premium membership, users only had two choices: $59.99 per year or $7.99 per month. That membership provided personalized coaching, real time activity feedback, in-depth training analysis, access to gear deals, and a very popular safety feature called Beacon.
With the new Summit membership options, Strava users can now choose between the Training Pack, Safety Pack, Analysis Pack, or all three with the full Summit membership. Pricing will still be $7.99mo/$59.99yr for all three, and the individual packs will come in at $2.99mo/$23.99yr.
My Thoughts on Summit: I think the parceled out pricing options are a great change. I have a Garmin inReach for safety and tracking, and don’t really have a huge need for training analysis. I am interested in the Training plan though, as I have a difficult time setting and tracking my training goals. I think the freedom to choose premium feature sets will be a welcome change for many Strava users that were reluctant to spend big money for all of the features in the old Premium membership. Speaking of the old Premium membership, I actually think that was a better name. Summit sounds cool (especially for trail runners and hikers), but is a little confusing, and not really applicable for road runners or swimmers. The naming of Training, Safety, and Analysis makes a lot of sense…but for all three to be called Summit…I’m not a fan.
I’ve been a Strava user for quite a while now and post most of my outdoor activities on my profile. I also provide Strava activity page links on all of my hiking guides. If you’re on Strava or plan on signing up, make sure to follow my account!
