Is Strava free?

Yes, and permanently. On price Strava is unusually forthcoming: five plans, priced to the cent, on four pages, with no account. On what the free account contains, it publishes four comparison tables that do not agree, the reverse of Duolingo.

Every price Strava publishes, and where

Read signed out, in the US, on 10 September 2026. Two of the pages note that prices are in US dollars and may vary by location.

Every per-month figure divides correctly — $79.99 over twelve is $6.67, $139.99 over four people and twelve months is $2.92. A dedicated pricing page, last updated 1 July 2025, says all subscribers in a country pay the same price. Each gets an email with the new figure 30 days before renewal. Compare Calm’s “Calm App Pricing Update”, which names no old price, no new price and no date. The student plan is not on Strava’s pricing page.

Four tables, three answers, one free account

Recording activities, the social feed and the safety features are free on every version. The Family Plan page adds Lifetime PRs, which the Student and Gift tables do not list and the Subscription page does not carry under that name. The Subscription page lists six features the others never mention, among them saving routes for offline use, measuring effort across activities and seeing your Fitness Score over time. Likely four pages written at different times and never reconciled, like Duolingo stating its free trial at seven days and fourteen. The free tier most people use is described less precisely than the thing being sold.

The sentence that matters most is in section 3 of the Terms of Service: “Strava has the right to add, modify, or discontinue any free or subscription-only feature at any time.” The free account is real today and revocable by its own terms. That is the cost-side version of a balance being a database record.

What the stores print

Strava, Inc. publishes three apps, and we read every listing of all three. Apple’s Information rows were read on 19 September 2026.

Apple’s list broadly tracks the plans on strava.com. Both store descriptions carry the full auto-renewal disclosure — charged at confirmation, renews unless canceled at least 24 hours before the period ends — without the amount. Apple’s adds that any unused portion of a free trial “if offered” is forfeited when you buy.

The bundle, and what the 60% is measured against

The Strava + Runna page advertises “up to 60% off” and prints the three prices the claim rests on. A footnote says the saving is “calculated based on separate monthly Strava and Runna subscriptions”. Derived: $11.99 plus $19.99 is $31.98 a month, or $383.76 a year, against the bundle’s $149.99: $233.77 saved, about 61%, so the claim holds. But it is measured against the most expensive way to buy both. Against Strava’s own annual plan at $79.99, the bundle costs $70.00 more a year, which is what Runna costs inside it. Runna’s own $19.99 a month appears in neither store description, and the page selling it hardest is Strava’s.

The 30-day trial is not a promise

The Subscription page shows a three-step timeline. Today, you unlock subscription features. 2 days before, a reminder that the trial ends. In 30 days, you are charged, so cancel at least 24 hours before. A reminder before the charge is pro-customer design, and Duolingo’s timeline does the same at day five.

The Student Plan FAQ adds what the card leaves out: the trial is once per person across everything Strava sells. If you have never taken a Strava trial under any plan you might be eligible, and the checkout page will show it if so. The FAQ goes on: “if not, you’ll be immediately charged the full annual subscription amount upon subscribing”. The terms let Strava offer trials “whenever we want and however we choose”, and say registering may place a temporary authorization on your payment method. Look for the words 30-day trial at checkout; a returning subscriber should expect $79.99.

The student plan, and the question its FAQ does not answer

$39.99 a year, verified through SheerID, for students at an accredited college or university aged 16 or older in most countries, and high schoolers in some. Pricing is locked for a year and can be re-verified for a maximum of three additional years, four in total, after which it renews at the standard rate. Derived: four student years cost $159.96, and the fifth $79.99 unless you act. The FAQ asks “What if I’m already a subscriber?” and answers with the same paragraph as “How much will I be charged?” What happens to months already paid for is asked and never answered.

The one way to buy Strava that cannot renew on you

The Gift page sells an annual subscription at $79.99 with one line of small type under the price: “Subscription does not auto-renew.” It’s the same price as the ordinary annual plan, and nothing published says who the recipient has to be. If you want a year of Strava without a recurring charge, that footnote is the line to find. It is nowhere near the page selling the subscription.

Canceling, and what a refund is worth

• Cancel any time, effective at the end of the current billing period. You can resubscribe later “at the most current pricing”, so any legacy rate is gone.
• No refunds. “No refunds or credits will be provided by Strava, unless set out in these Terms.”
• One cooling-off right, not for US readers. If you reside outside the United States you may be entitled under local law to a full refund within 14 days of subscribing.

Cancel where you bought it: a web subscription on your Strava account page, a store subscription on Apple’s or Google’s subscription screen. Google’s help page warns “When you uninstall an app, your subscription won’t cancel.” Apple’s says to search your email for “receipt from Apple” if you cannot find the subscription. Strava may raise fees or add new ones after reasonable notice, effective on the next billing date. Its pricing page promises an email naming the new figure 30 days before renewal.

The price that is itemized

Apple’s App Privacy panel names two categories used to track you, purchases and identifiers. It names eleven linked to your identity, including health and fitness data, location, contact info, contacts, user content and search history. Google Play’s data safety page declares device IDs and crash diagnostics shared with other companies. It collects app activity, fitness info, approximate and precise location, photos and videos, contacts, purchase history, name and email address. Both declare encryption in transit and a deletion route.

Duolingo declares eight tracked categories; Strava, which knows the route you ran this morning, declares two. The two stores agree here. The App Store Information row also discloses that the app may use your location even when it is not open, which can decrease battery life.

What Strava does better

• It publishes prices, plural, without an account, in a category where the app whose product is telling you what your subscriptions cost publishes none.
• It keeps a dated price-change page, with one price per country and an email 30 days before renewal.
• No advertising. No Contains ads badge on Play and no ad disclosure on either listing. All four of our reward apps run ads.
• The safety features are free on every table. Beacon live location sharing, and hiding the start and end of an activity on the map.
• It sells a version that cannot renew on you, and publishes the verification route for student, teacher, military and medical discounts.
• It is enormous and well liked. 4.8 across 372,000 App Store ratings and number one on Apple’s Health & Fitness chart. 4.6 across 1.18 million Google Play reviews and over 100 million downloads. Editors’ Choice on both.

What we could not check

Strava’s support site was not reachable when this page was written, so we couldn’t read its cancellation and refund articles. Those sections come from the terms and from Apple’s and Google’s pages. The professional discount pages need an account, so the 25% stays a percentage; twenty-five percent off $79.99 is $59.99, our arithmetic. We did not buy through both routes to compare the in-app price with the web price, a question the $10 gap on Calm makes worth asking.

How to check any of this yourself

When a company describes the same thing on several pages, open all of them and compare word by word. Strava’s Subscription, Family, Student and Gift pages each answer “what do I get for nothing” differently. Read the small type under price cards, where the saving is defined and the gift plan says it will not renew. Expand Apple’s In-App Purchases row and read every listing a publisher owns; that is where Runna’s prices were. When the terms and the marketing disagree, the terms are what the company has to stand behind.