Strava, the lauded kingdom and #2 in our guide to the best running apps, has announced that it will be rolling out a family subscription option later this year.
If you regularly use the app to track your activity and connect with other athletes in the free version, you may be wondering whether it's worth upgrading to the premium version.
Currently, you have the option to upgrade to the paid version of Strava, known as Summit, for $59.99 per year or $5 per month. Coming soon this year, all Strava members, whether free users or existing Summit members, will have the option to share the cost of their premium subscription.
But before you ask your running club mates or family members to upgrade with you, consider whether a premium subscription is right for you.
What we know so far about Strava's Family Plan
Strava has not yet announced the exact cost of the Family Plan subscription. However, our new annual subscription option offers the best value for groups of up to four people, with each member receiving a discount off the regular subscription cost.
As for when this new feature will roll out, Family Subscription will launch in Australia and Canada this summer, and then gradually roll out globally by the end of 2024. If you don't want to wait, there are 30 plans available. In the meantime, a -day free trial is available.
What does a Strava membership include?
Even as a free Strava user, you'll be able to separate yourself from both the activity tracking and social aspects of Strava, with features like giving and receiving compliments, commenting on friends and nemesis activities you're doing, taking part in challenges, and viewing useful statistics. You can feel it. For training.
However, if you want to streamline your exercise tracking into one app, it's worth checking out what Strava's paid version includes.
- Training plan: Customize your training plans to suit different activities and fitness levels.
- route planning: Discover routes recorded by other runners, ask Strava to build a route for you, or create your own.
- Segment leaderboard: Compete against friends and local runners on popular roads and routes to win segments.
- beacon: Share your location in real time with your emergency contacts during activities.
- Live segment: Real-time feedback on segment performance.
- Power analysis: Advanced power metrics and cyclist.
- Matched execution: Compare the performance of previously completed routes.
- Advanced performance metrics: View metrics like Suffer Score and relative effort.
- goal setting: Tools for setting and tracking performance goals.
- Workout analysis: Detailed post-workout analysis and splits.
- Personal heatmap: A visual representation of locations that have become active over time.
Is it worth getting a Strava Family subscription?
The advanced metrics of a Summit subscription, such as route planning, additional safety features, training plans, goal setting, and segment leaderboards are all features that a wide variety of Strava users can benefit from.
There's something for everyone, from competitive athletes to novice runners to those looking to increase their safety when exercising outdoors. Additionally, if you and your friends and family are already Summit subscribers, this should reduce costs for everyone.
However, if you already own the best running watch, you may find that your data amount has doubled. Or, if you're on a budget, the free version has plenty of features to keep you entertained. Additionally, if you're a casual runner, you may find that you don't need all of the various premium subscription features.
The good thing is that you can use Strava's 30-day Summit free trial to see if the additional features would be useful to you before committing to a regular membership. If not, you can cancel and save money, or put it toward a new set of running shoes instead.