What Will Purchasing Strava Runna Mean for Both Running Apps?
The founders of Runna announced today that Strava has acquired their company. Runna is a paid running app that provides structured training plans (which I personally really enjoyed when I tried it out ), while Strava is an extremely popular tracking and social engagement app for runners and cyclists, with both a free and paid tier.
Runna’s customers don’t seem to be thrilled, but Runna’s founders say the app and its team will remain independent and they’re optimistic about the future.
What’s changing right now?
Runna’s founders say there are “no immediate changes planned other than smart integration (like being able to log into Strava).” No existing functionality will disappear. It is reported that new features are already in development, but there are no details yet.
Strava has previously offered training plans (which I honestly wasn’t aware of until now, despite being a free subscriber for many years and having been a paid subscriber in the past). They seem quite limited in scope and functionality.
Strava seems to like the idea of offering better training plans, or at least owning a company that does, even if it’s a separate product. Strava’s press release places a strong emphasis on coaching, with lines such as “The world’s biggest team has a new coach.” Meanwhile, Runna’s founders say they’re excited to gain access to Strava’s much larger customer base. In the Reddit thread, they also hinted that they might try to incorporate some of Strava’s algorithms into the Runna app, such as step-based pacing.
Will apps (or subscription fees) be combined?
This does not seem to be the case. Strava has both a free and premium tier, so the founders of Runna told their customers that they could download Strava for free and pay for the premium version if they wanted. They won’t do a Strava membership deal.
Runna costs $19.99 per month or $119.99 per year. Strava’s free tier allows you to post your runs, interact with other users, and track some basic statistics about your performance. The premium tier, priced at $11.99 per month or $79.99 per year, gives you additional performance tracking and benchmarking tools.
“Our plan is to keep the apps separate for the foreseeable future,” Strava’s CEO said in a press release. There are also no plans for Strava users to receive a discount on their Runna membership at this time.
Will this be good or bad for Runna?
Products don’t always do well after larger companies buy them. There’s a particular blemish on Strava’s reputation here: they recently bought a terrain mapping product called Fatmap, beloved by skiers and other adventurers. In 2023, they excitedly told Strava members, “You now have access to Fatmap!” and talked about features that Strava does not have. But in 2024, Strava shut down Fatmap , integrating some, but not all of its features into the main Strava app. The skiers are still angry.
I hope that Runna’s founders are right and that they can continue to build their product and make it better and better (for example, Runna just introduced the ability to train for a “B” priority race alongside your main race goal). If the plan is carried out in accordance with what both companies are now saying, then it looks like good things are in store for us. I’m rooting for them.