What Strava Buying Runna Will Mean for Both Running Apps

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The founders of Runna announced today that Strava has bought their company. Runna is a paid running app that provides structured training plans (which I personally loved when I tried it), while Strava is a hugely popular tracking and social app for runners and cyclists, with both a free and a paid tier. 

Runna customers don’t seem to be thrilled, but Runna’s founders say that the app and its team will stay independent, and they’re optimistic for the future. 

What is changing right now? 

Runna’s founders say “no immediate changes [are] planned other than sensible integrations (e.g., the ability to sign in with Strava).” No existing features are going away. New features are reportedly on the way, but so far no details have been released. 

Strava has previously offered training plans (which I honestly didn’t know about until now, despite being a free subscriber for years and having been a paid subscriber in the past). They seem pretty limited in scope and functionality. 

It seems that Strava likes the idea of being able to offer better training plans, or at least owning a company that does even if it’s a separate product. Strava’s news release emphasizes the coaching, with lines like “The world’s biggest team has a new coach.” The Runna founders, meanwhile, say they’re excited to have access to Strava’s much larger customer base. They have also hinted in a Reddit thread that they may try to incorporate some of Strava’s algorithms, like graded pace adjustments, into the Runna app.

Will the apps (or subscription fees) be combined? 

It doesn’t seem so. Strava has both a free and a premium tier, so the Runna founders told their customers that they’re welcome to download Strava for free, and pay for premium should they choose. They won’t be getting a deal on Strava membership. 

Runna costs $19.99/month, or $119.99/year. Strava's free tier lets you post your runs, interact with other users, and track some basic statistics about your performance. The premium tier, at $11.99/month or $79.99/year, gives you extra performance tracking and mapping tools.

“Our plan is to keep the apps separate for the foreseeable future,” Strava’s CEO said in the news release. There is, likewise, no plan at this point for Strava users to get a discount on Runna membership. 

Will this be good or bad for Runna?

Products don’t always fare well after their companies are bought by bigger companies. Strava has a specific stain on its reputation here: Not long ago, they bought a terrain mapping product called Fatmap, beloved by skiiers and other adventurers. In 2023, they excitedly told Strava members “you now have access to Fatmap!” and talked up the features that it has that Strava didn’t. But in 2024, Strava shut down Fatmap, having integrated some but not all of its features into the main Strava app. Skiiers are still mad. 

I hope that Runna’s founders are right, and that they’ll get to keep building their product and making it better and better (for example, Runna just introduced an option to train for a “B” priority race alongside your main race goal). If the plan proceeds according to what both companies are now saying, it does sound like good stuff is on the way. I’m rooting for them.

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