Strava follows Garmin’s lead and charges for annual stats

Strava has made its Year in Sport recap a subscriber-only feature this year. Needless to say, the move has annoyed users who expected to see their 2025 summary without needing to pay.

Another recap goes premium

Each December, fitness apps roll out their yearly summaries. For many users, these recaps are a fun way to reflect and share progress. Strava’s version is called Year in Sport. It offers a personal review of your runs, rides, stats, milestones and random highlights from the past twelve months.

But unlike in the previous years, you won’t be able to access it unless you subscribe. The Year in Sport now sits behind the Strava Premium paywall. That decision hasn’t gone down well. In fact, it’s triggered a wave of frustration from users, particularly in the Reddit community.

The complaints echo the recent backlash Garmin received for doing something similar. Garmin’s new Rundown feature also requires a paid Connect Plus subscription. In both cases, people feel they are being asked to pay for data they already generated, just to see it summarised in a slightly cleaner format.

Why the reaction feels familiar

Long-time Strava users point out that Year in Sport has always been free in the past. It may not have been deeply analytical, but it was visually engaging and fun to share. Now, unless you’re already paying for Premium, you’re locked out.

And the value proposition isn’t convincing many people. Several commenters say the summary feels light, even if you do pay. It mostly recycles data that’s already available in your profile totals. Some users went as far as calling it a slideshow of already known stats. Others called it a missed opportunity.

This is where the Garmin comparison comes in again. Just like with Rundown, Strava is packaging something basic into a new wrapper and charging for it. The feature itself hasn’t changed much. What’s changed is how it’s being presented.

Is the backlash justified?

It depends on how you view value. If you’re already subscribed to Strava Premium, Year in Sport is a small extra bonus. But if you’re not, and were only curious to see your 2025 stats laid out in a slick card-style format, the idea of paying the annual $80 subscription for that alone feels out of touch. Of course, you could opt for the 1 month free trial and cancel before it’s up.

The bigger issue is not about this single feature. It’s more about what it represents. There’s a growing sense that both Strava and Garmin are shifting toward slicing their platforms into premium-only zones, slowly carving out parts that used to be available to everyone.

And it’s not just about cost. It’s about trust. Many users feel the value exchange is starting to break down. If recaps become paid extras, what’s next? Monthly summaries? Leaderboard access? Segment analysis?

There are workarounds

As always, there are workarounds. Strava still shows annual totals in your profile and activity feed. You can dig into your history manually and pull out totals for time, distance and elevation. Not as pretty, but it gets the job done.

There are also third-party tools floating around the community. A few developers have created free visualisation dashboards that pull from your Strava API data or exported .FIT files. These can create your own custom year-in-review. Some even add features that Strava doesn’t, like sport-by-sport breakdowns or monthly graphs.

These alternatives are rougher around the edges, but they prove the point: the data is yours, and you don’t need to pay just to see it in a slide show.

A shared trend across platforms

Garmin and Strava are clearly testing how much users are willing to pay for polish. Neither Year in Sport nor Rundown introduces new data or tracking capabilities. They are about packaging, not function. That may work for users already paying. But for everyone else, it feels like a shift in tone.

The expectation used to be clear. You buy a device, or use a platform, and your basic stats are yours. Now, more of that experience is being wrapped into features that companies hope will drive subscriptions.

Whether that approach sticks depends on the pushback. In the meantime, there’s always the DIY route. Your year still happened, whether it’s displayed with animations or just a spreadsheet.

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