Survey reveals a surprising amount of you are paying for Strava

I’m too lazy to be a Strava user, but I’m fully aware that it’s an immensely popular app that falls somewhere between a training log and a social media platform. I’m also familiar with the business model it employs to encourage members to pay for the premium version, which is probably easier to justify mentally if it’s seen as benefiting your health — I do the same rationalizing with my Duolingo subscription. We were keen to find out whether you pay for Strava, so we ran a poll among our readers. I was quite surprised by the percentage of you who actually do.

That poll was prompted by an opinion piece from my colleague Ryan Haines, who explained why Strava went from his favorite running app to something he now barely tolerates. After years as a paying subscriber, he argued that Strava has become far too aggressive about locking away personal data and other features unless you cough up for Premium. For him, the fun and freedom that originally made Strava appealing have eroded to the point that he’s now treating it less like a training tool and more like a glorified kudos machine.

He’s become disillusioned, but let’s find out how many of you feel similarly.

As the chart shows, 31% of you pay for Strava. While that’s less than one-third, it seemed surprisingly high to me. Okay, there might be a bit of selection bias here — people who pay for Strava might be more likely to read an article about it compared to, say, a couch potato like me. But on the flip side, we didn’t even specify that we only wanted answers from Stava users, so some of the “No” camp might not even have the app installed.

Ryan might bemoan Strava’s model, as another colleague of mine laments Duolingo’s tactics, but if it drives three in ten people to subscribe, I doubt the platforms will care. And actually, I shouldn’t be surprised. Most apps won’t see that kind of subscription uptake, but the ubiquitous ones can. For example, according to its own figures, approaximately 39% of Spotify users pay for the ad-free version.

Strava might be raking it in, but the comments section on Ryan’s article largely reinforced his view that something about Strava has shifted. A few readers said they’d either stopped paying for Strava or never subscribed in the first place, often because they already rely on other devices and apps for tracking and analysis. One commenter summed that up neatly, saying, “I paid for Garmin devices and didn’t need to pay for a service,” while another noted that Strava’s attempted legal action against Garmin only added to their disillusionment.

Others focused less on the data itself and more on how Strava feels to use now. Some described growing tired of constant subscription nudges or a social layer that no longer adds much value. One reader said they’d found the kudos culture “overwhelming,” while another wrote that Strava had come to dominate their social media time without really giving much back. The strongest reaction came from a former paid subscriber who said the app brought them “nothing but misery,” explaining that they’d started to feel anxious about their runs and how they would appear on Strava. That’s a personal opinion, but a fair one — if you enjoy exercise but an app that purports to help makes the experience worse, it’s time to look elsewhere or ditch the tech altogether.