Updated: 15 hours ago
NOTE: This blog post originally was just explaining why I was raising prices a few dollars a year after 3 years of no changes while adding more races and a new dedicated reporter to the team. Our 2025 user survey suggested we should be charging over $20, but that seemed absurd to me, so I was going to raise the price for TEAM from $10 USD to $14 and PRO from $6 to $8.
BUT THEN THINGS WENT CRAZY.
On Android, it turns out that Google had NOT updated the pricing for existing users three years ago or six years ago. So for my most dedicated users the new price was more than DOUBLE what they had been paying. That was NOT my intention. As a result I have put the Android price back to $10 for all TEAM users, new and old. PRO is now $6. BASIC is $4. I can't entirely undo the jump for old users, but I'm hoping that the smaller jump to $10 is okay. ALSO, Google Play has a bug: they sent a notification about the INCREASE but they will not send one about the DECREASE. So, while I'm 99% sure that you will NOT be charged $14 next year if you say "Okay" to the increase, if you are unsure say "No" and worst case you subscribe again next year.
On iOS things went as planned, but I decided that it was unfair to have Apple users pay so much more than Android, so I reduced that TEAM price to $12 and PRO to $7. At some point in the future I'll bring Android in line with iOS once all the scars have healed from the MANY emails this week from everyone!
SO, back to the original purpose of this blog post...
As mentioned last year, Tour Tracker subscription prices will be rising in 2026 after 3 years of keeping them unchanged. This blog entry is my attempt to explain why they are going up. It is important to me that users feel like they are getting great value from what I've spent 15 years of my life creating.
I first wrote Tour Tracker 15 years ago for the Tour of California, and for the first 10 years my primary business was providing custom apps to U.S. races and broadcasters like NBC and SBS. These partnerships enabled me to create the direct-to-cycling-fans Tour Tracker Pro Cycling app you know. This setup was great as it let me provide an app to the public that focused on covering cycling, while the NBC and race-specific apps really focused on advertising and sponsorship placement. And it let me price the app at less than a cup of coffee a year for live coverage of the Grand Tours.
Things, however, have changed a LOT over the past few years. SBS and NBC's switch to streaming meant they no longer wanted a Tour de France app. And as you might know all of the U.S. races folded. So my "golden geese" disappeared. At the same time, however, users kept asking for more. More races. More features. Women's races. The World Championships. The Olympics. Fantasy cycling. The list goes on...
The result is that the app has gone from basic coverage of 3 races to complex coverage of over 30 races a year. And that of course requires resources. More reporters to cover the races. More licensing fees for the data including the routes, rosters, tracking and results. More servers to manage races. More databases to hold the data. And significantly more payments to Amazon for distributing the data to your phones in real time.
So, while I wish the price increase meant I will be able to retire in Italy soon, the reality is that it is just making sure the app can continue to deliver what you have come to expect without compromising quality. That you will get the best reporters in the industry. That you will get flawless data delivery via expensive-but-reliable Amazon services. That you will never see advertising. That the app will continue to add new content and features every few months.
I'm hoping that what we have built is worth a few cups of coffee every year. If the new prices are too much for you, send me an email directly and we can figure something out. Thanks for reading this. Allan