My thoughts on Peloton’s price increase
Lauren Thomas, writing for CNBC
Effective June 1, the price of Peloton’s all-access subscription plan in the United States will go up to $44 per month, from $39. In Canada, the fee will rise to $55 per month, from $49. Pricing for international members will remain unchanged, Peloton said. The cost of a digital-only membership, for people who don’t own any of Peloton’s equipment, will still be $12.99 a month.
Hey, prices go up. Inflation is running high. OK. But raising the prices only for people who already paid for Peloton’s premium-priced hardware and not for people on the digital-only plan doesn’t pass the sniff test that this is about the cost of content creation. If it were really about content creation costs, they’d raise subscription prices for everyone, or, only for the people who haven’t also purchased Peloton devices that cost $2000 or more.
It’s not like $39/month was cheap. It seems transparently obvious that they’re just soaking their best and most loyal customers — the ones whose hardware purchases have tied them to Peloton. (Unsubscribe and your bike or treadmill still works, but the display becomes useless.)
Peloton is making big changes to satisfy shareholders. In the process, they’re pissing-off their loyal customers, me included. As a Peloton owner, I’m in full agreement with John’s observations regarding the price increase.
Here’s what I would like to see happen:
- Grandfather all existing bike customers into the current all-access price of $39.
- Raise the all-access price to $44 on all new bike customer who are buying the bike at the reduced price.
- Raise the price on all digital-only plans.