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When run-tracking app Strava bought run-coaching app Runna earlier this year, everyone’s immediate reaction was: We can get a deal to subscribe to both, right? The answer at first was no, but now a combo subscription has appeared. It’s a good price, but there are some caveats.
If you need a refresher on what Strava is, it’s a mega-popular social app for tracking and sharing your runs and cycling activities. It’s honestly the best run-tracking app out there, despite its sometimes poorly handled privacy issues. You can use it for free, but a subscription ($11.99/month or $79.99/year) opens up a ton of extra features for mapping routes and analyzing training data.
Runna is an app that delivers customized, structured training plans to get you better at running. It’s another favorite of mine—it’s easy to use and the programs are better than what you’d get from any watch or free app. Runna is a paid app ($19.99/month or $119.99/year) with no free tier, aside from a one-week free trial.
How to get the bundled Strava/Runna subscription (and what it costs)
The Strava/Runna bundle costs $149.99 per year, and it is only available as an annual subscription. There is no monthly option.
You can buy the combined subscription from Strava here, or buy it through the Android or Apple app stores. If you already get a discounted Strava membership, for example through a military discount or family plan, those discounts do not apply to the combo plan.
Why I’m excited about this
First of all, it’s a good deal—add together the cost of the Runna and Strava annual subscriptions, and you’d be paying about $200/year. This combo deal knocks $50 off that price. (The companies are advertising this deal as “up to 60%” savings, but that’s when you compare the annual combo to separate monthly subscriptions, so it’s not quite apples-to-apples.)
I have some reservations about the price and the way they’re rolling this out, which I’ll explain below. But overall I’ve been pretty happy as a Runna customer since the merger. Runna keeps adding new features and seems to have a ton more planned. Just yesterday I started on one of their brand-new “general training” plans (still in beta), customizing how much I wanted to run and what kind of training I wanted in the mix, without having to pick a race distance or set a race date.
The app recently added “B-races,” where you can plan for a low priority race in the middle of your training for a bigger one. They’re also revamping their mobility training sessions, and have a big ol’ roadmap with lots of new features on the way.
(I can’t really say the same about Strava—not many Runna-inspired features have made it to Strava yet, unless it’s stuff that’s happening under the hood. But it’s still early days, and more may be coming.)
Why I’m a little disappointed
For one thing, I’m disappointed that there isn’t a monthly option. More and more companies are encouraging annual instead of monthly subscriptions, or making that the only option, and it sucks—sure, it’s a lower “monthly” cost if you do the math, but it’s still a big lump sum that you have to cough up at once. That’s a lot to ask for an app that you may not know if you’ll like, or that you may not end up using year-round.
The other big disappointment is that there’s nothing in this deal for people who were loyal customers of one app—longtime Runna subscribers, or vice versa. One of the biggest reasons for excitement at the companies’ merger was that customers of each app were hoping to be able to add the other at a discount. But that’s not an option. At least they have given some thought to annual subscribers (but not monthly folks—they’re on their own.)
If you already have an annual subscription to Runna, you can buy the combined subscription and then contact customer support to ask them to extend your membership rather than having the timeframes of both overlap. Runna has a FAQ here for customers upgrading to the combo subscription.
If you already have an annual subscription to Strava, it’s simpler—Strava will calculate how much time you have left on your old subscription, convert that to a dollar amount, and give you a partial refund. (So, if you’re six months into a subscription, you’ll get back half the money you already paid.) This will apparently occur automatically.
Importantly, the discount works differently on the Strava website versus in the app. If you buy the combo subscription on the website, your refund will be applied as a discount to the combo subscription, so you only pay the difference. If you buy through the app, you’ll get your prorated refund before being charged the new subscription price. It’s the same bottom line either way. Strava’s FAQ on switching your subscription is at the bottom of this page.
