Even before the big debacle in the pilot episode of Sex and the City’s spin-off And Just Like That, Peloton was all the hype, and I ran quickly away from it. I’ve never been great at following the crowd, and its cult-like following? Intimidating.
Fast forward a few years: the craze had cooled, I had a slightly bigger space, and I got an irresistible offer. A friend was willing to give me his bike — barely used — for a third of the original price… if I could pick it up and haul it across London on a freezing February morning. Challenge accepted.
Here’s my story: from falling in love with Peloton, to struggling with the monotony, surviving a price hike, and eventually canceling my subscription. Think of this as interval training: after the high-intensity bits of my painful memories, you’ll get a lighter, easy-breathe moment with the takeaways you can actually apply to your subscription app.
Interval 1: jumping into my personalized plan
My first hiccup came during account setup. Reading the fine print has never been my strong suit, and sure enough, I couldn’t use the bike to its full potential without the All-Access subscription at £39 a month.
Whoops. But I was determined to give it a go. Plus, the subscription meant my partner could also use the bike, which seemed to excite him. Escaping the rain outside, I doubled down on bike rides.
The real highlight? Peloton’s personalized plan feature:
Peloton email around personalising your plan
I’ve long struggled to fit into the box of a set plan that most apps offer. They usually focus on one type of exercise, while I thrive on variety. I’m the kind of person who never makes a recipe more than twice — yes, seriously.
With Peloton, I quickly customized a routine that mixed biking, running, and strength training, and I was off.
Here’s what their onboarding flow looks like:
Peloton quiz
The onboarding is easy to navigate and never makes you feel stupid:
- If you’re unfamiliar with a workout type, like HIIT Cardio, they explain it clearly
- Visuals show exactly how to use the equipment
- Goals are asked about in simple, straightforward language
Clear explanations of exercises
I loved the variety of instructors and music, which perfectly complemented the high-energy workouts. My weekly streak grew quickly — just one workout a week was enough to keep it going — so no matter where I was in the world, I always did at least one session.
Takeaway 1: help users get the most out of your app, fast
Finding content with Peloton was effortless. A few simple questions helped the app understand me and offer workouts I actually enjoyed. ‘Fast’ doesn’t necessarily mean a short onboarding, but even if your onboarding is longer, it should give users a clear sense of value right away.
Peloton excels at this. They don’t just create a personalized routine; they also help you find your favorite instructor with a separate, quick quiz. It’s like Tinder meets Strava, and it made me realize that matchmaking is exactly what had been missing from my workouts.
Instructor quiz on the Peloton website
Interval 2: the downward hill of using Peloton
You can’t stay in the honeymoon period forever, and ours ended over the summer. That’s when I noticed I was doing fewer and fewer workouts on Peloton. At first, I had a million excuses for the distance between me and Peloton; after all, I’d invested in the bike:
- I’d been injured, so I couldn’t run
- It was summer, and I was biking and swimming outside
- My sister was staying with me, and wanted guided strength workouts
- I’d been traveling
But I persisted, trying to get back into it. I even reset my personalized plan to mix things up, but it felt like I was getting the same workouts on repeat.
The plan offered a fixed week of classes, but there was no sense of progression or adjustment over time — just new versions of the same routines. It started to feel less like personalization and more like a static template that simply shuffled itself; making it harder to stay motivated when I was craving change.
Personalization without visible evolution can feel stagnant. When users can’t see their progress, even the best content library starts to feel repetitive.
I was already picking the most advanced workouts and experimenting with different instructors. I wasn’t a top performer (my power output on the bike could improve) but I didn’t know how to progress:
- More workouts?
- Different workouts?
- If it was personalized, where was the guidance?
What was I even working toward? Slowly, the cracks started to show.
Takeaway 2: help users understand how recommendations are personalized to them
Peloton’s personalized plan quiz was great for generating recommendations, but it missed a critical step: explaining why those recommendations were made.
Users need to understand not just what to do, but why it’s tailored to them and what goal it serves. Explaining the reasoning behind recommendations maintains trust and motivation. Sometimes products make the assumption users come to them because they don’t want to think, but that isn’t always true — we want the hard part done, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the ‘why’.
If you’ve asked 10–20 questions during onboarding, don’t just hide behind a fake ‘thinking’ loader. Show users that their answers were heard. At a basic level, feed back their responses; at a more advanced level, demonstrate that you understand and confirm it with them. AI apps make this easier than ever.
For example, Noom’s weightloss app has a lengthy onboarding process, but it breaks it up with little screens that reflect what it’s learned from your answers, making the personalization feel real:
Noom’s personalization in the onboarding flow
It takes your answers to give you feedback on your profile and where you should focus, making you feel that Noom is truly personalized just from going through the onboarding process.
Takeaway 3: understand what drives short vs. long-term retention
When you look at your monthly versus annual subscribers, you’ll often find that those canceling after a few months churn for very different reasons than those who leave after a year or two. Short-term and long-term retention are not the same game.
There’s the initial activation phase, getting users to start using your app, which is easier for Peloton since many users have already made a big investment in the bike. That’s followed by the habit-building phase. But long-term retention requires something else entirely. Your user evolves, and your app has to evolve with them.
This isn’t the first time I’ve outgrown an app. With ADHD, I quickly tire of repetition. I’ve had the same experience with mindfulness and recipe apps. Once you’ve mastered the basics and explored what an app has to offer, you start craving the next level.
To sustain engagement, an app needs to grow and adapt alongside its users as their jobs-to-be-done evolve. Peloton did allow you to retake your quiz to refresh recommendations, but it missed an opportunity to introduce clear levels, milestones, or a sense of progress, something to make users feel like they’re moving forward.
Interval 3: getting the email all users dread… a price increase
At this point, my two core personality traits were at war:
- The stubborn part of me that refused to give up on something I’d bought only nine months ago
- The restless part of me that craves newness
That’s when it landed in my inbox: the email every subscriber dreads. Subject line: “Changes coming to your Peloton Membership”. I knew exactly what the changes would be.
Long before I’d finally joined the Peloton hype train, I’d actually used one of their previous price increase emails as an example of great communication. It was clean, clear, and transparent, mapping out exactly what was changing and why. They had this great table showing just how much had changed between 2014 and 2022, from the number of workouts to the addition of programs.
Peloton comparing the 2014 offering vs. the 2022 offering
Of course, it’s always easier to admire a price hike email when you’re not the one paying for it.
I still stand by it as a great email. I’m not a hater, and I can appreciate a good pricing update. So I opened this new one with an open mind, hoping for the same clarity. But instead of understanding, I was left confused. Here’s Peloton’s new price update email:
Email announcing price increase
I appreciated the clarity around when and how the change would happen. You’d be shocked at how often this is missed! As well as that, they gave me at least a month’s warning so that it wouldn’t come as a surprise.
However, this time there was no clear table overview, just a list of changes — many of which I wasn’t personally interested in:
- Number of classes: “12,000 classes” does sound impressive, though at a certain point it borders on unnecessary — that’s 32 years’ worth of daily classes
- Club Peloton: feels like something they use for engagement versus something I should pay more for
- Injury prevention: whilst that in itself is interesting, the way it was phrased around Special Surgery meant I wasn’t sure if it was relevant for me
- Personalized Training with Peloton IQ: felt a bit vague — I wasn’t sure what this was, I think it was a few stats I’d received whilst using the app which were helpful, but didn’t really change my training
But there was one line in the email really threw me off:
“Breathwrk, now a part of Peloton — science-backed breathing exercises to help you reduce stress, recover faster, and stay focused.”
What is Breathwrk?! I hadn’t seen any breathing content in the app, nor was it something I’d been looking for; I already used Calm for that. It feltThis would be like a hotel upgrading your room to include a karaoke machine — very cool, probably fun for someone, but completely irrelevant to why I booked the room — something you never asked for, and then charging you for it!
Takeaway 4: Communicate major new offerings in-app before the price increase
Ironically, I only understood what Breathwrk was after I canceled. It turned out to be a separate app Peloton had partnered with, but I never saw it mentioned anywhere inside the product.
Source: Breathwrk
I might have actually used it, or at least recognized it as added value, if it had been communicated before the price increase. A quick check of my inbox confirmed: they’d never emailed me about it either.
While it’s fine to highlight new features in a price increase email, this felt like over-explaining. Like attempted justification. A better approach is to show the value first, let users experience it, then communicate the price change. If you can’t ensure users have seen the updates, add more communication to build excitement before raising costs.
This sounds like an excellent partnership for them, but a pricing email might not be the time to name-drop it without any context.
Interval 4: searching for another membership option
Now, I’d be remiss not to acknowledge Peloton’s hybrid monetization model. They combine an in-app subscription with a physical product, which is a powerful move. But, while it’s bold, it also leaves very little room for choice.
I’d already realized I needed the top-tier subscription to unlock the bike’s full potential. Then, after a 15% price increase, I started hunting for alternatives that would let me keep using my bike: could I downgrade to a lower-tier subscription?
The answer was a solid no.
Peloton subscription options
To give credit where it’s due, Peloton’s app subscriptions do offer a sense of choice:
- Monthly vs. annual subscriptions
- A ‘basics’ tier, or access to all workout types
These options give users flexibility, at least on paper, but when it comes to actually using the bike I already own, that flexibility disappears. Once you’ve committed to the top tier, there’s little room to adjust without losing access to features you’ve grown attached to.
App One vs. App+ plan
I liked that Peloton offers options here, but I quickly realized that with my All Access subscription, the only choice was at £45/month. It almost felt like I was being punished for having the bike: some classes I could use on other equipment, but for the Peloton bike itself, access came at a premium.
Takeaway 5: reward customers who invest in your brand
Rather than penalize someone for buying pricey equipment, reward them with better pricing to keep them loyal. Imagine if it were more expensive to use Peloton on other bikes?
Suddenly, buying the bike, treadmill, or other equipment becomes an investment that pays off for sticking around. I’ve always hated how endless discounts are offered to new customers while existing users aren’t acknowledged for their loyalty.
A simple way Peloton could have done this is by ensuring that it is cheaper to use the app with their equipment vs. other brands, or delaying the price increase for existing subscribers.
Takeaway 6: give customers a sense of choice
Have you ever told a kid to eat broccoli? Chances are, it didn’t go well, for you or for the broccoli. But I learned a valuable lesson from my cousins when dealing with little ones under five: make it seem like an option. “Do you want to eat the broccoli or the carrots?” Suddenly, vegetables are being consumed either way, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
The takeaway? We all like to feel like we have a choice (even if it’s between two pre-selected options).
Peloton does this well with their standard app subscriptions, but I missed it when it came to owning Peloton equipment: one subscription, one duration. There was no way to scale back usage (e.g. subscribe for 4x a month) or pay upfront for a year to save.
From a psychological perspective, this matters. Research on self-determination theory shows that autonomy is a key driver of user satisfaction. When customers feel trapped by pricing or product limitations, perceived value drops fast, even if the product hasn’t changed. Monthly subscriptions may allow companies to charge more, but they also make it easier for users to say stop.
Interval 5: so I canceled my subscription
I apologized to my bike and went to cancel, thinking a monthly plan would make it easy to restart if I missed it.
That’s when things got a bit messy. I logged in on my phone… no subscription showing. Checked the website… still nothing. Confused, I contacted customer service.
First impressions: they were super helpful. No fuss, no issues. My subscription was stopped just days before the renewal. I really want to celebrate Peloton for this, as I’ve known some brands that make canceling near-impossible. I won’t name names…this time.
Chat conversation to cancel subscription
But then I waited for the questions… Why did I want to cancel my subscription? Did they want my feedback?
They didn’t come. Maybe they’d include a survey in the confirmation email later.
The confirmation email arrived… and still, no survey.
It felt like dumping someone with a heartfelt speech, only to get a shrug. Like, don’t you want to know why I’m ending it? Don’t you feel desperate to find out if there’s someone else? (For the record: I never cheated on Peloton.)
Confirmation of subscription cancelled
Overall, Peloton did a lot of things well:
- Super clear confirmation that your account is cancelled — no fluff or noise
- No guilt-tripping; it showed understanding
- Clear timeline so you know when changes take effect
- Easy instructions for how to restart or change your subscription
The missed opportunity? After a conversation and an email, I was never once asked to explain why. This is valuable feedback for a brand.
Takeaway 7: make cancelling an enjoyable experience
Hiding cancellations or creating a complicated process never pays off. I don’t know why my membership didn’t show up on my account at first — probably a glitch across devices — but once I contacted support, everything was handled politely, and I was able to cancel in two minutes.
Even if some people cancel directly through the app store, for web or in-app subscriptions, a clear, simple cancellation flow is key.
Takeaway 8: ensure you have a ‘clean’ cancellation email
A good cancellation email covers:
- Confirmation that the subscription has been cancelled
- When the account stops
- A thank-you for being a subscriber
- A chance to provide feedback if they haven’t already
Keep it short, concise, and skip the “DON’T ABANDON US” panic. Guilt tripping isn’t professional, and doesn’t work.
So about that feedback…
Interval 6: I got a feedback request!
I did eventually get a survey, but I’m not 100% convinced it was because I cancelled. It was a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey.
NPS survey email
Interesting timing, right after cancelling? I rolled with it anyway.
Answering the questions, it became clear the timing probably wasn’t intentional, as the survey didn’t seem to even know my subscription had been canceled:
Questions in the feedback survey
I couldn’t select “I don’t have a membership” for the statement, “I’m happy with my Peloton membership”.
For Peloton, I wasn’t a raging ex blocked on all social media; I was the ex you’re still friends with, where potential still exists. But even then, you don’t ask your ex:
- Am I evolving to meet your needs?
- Do I value you as a friend/partner?
It felt… weird. If I had been the raging ex:
- Let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t have given feedback
- This would have annoyed me even more
Still, I played the game, social niceties and all, trying to answer as best I could, even though I couldn’t indicate “I’ve cancelled!”
What Peloton did get right, though, was checking whether I’d seen their announcements.
Asking about which features I’d seen
A bit of a random mention, but too often apps assume their users just know what they’re doing. The other day, I discovered a core feature in an app I’d been using daily for three weeks, oops.
Takeaway 9: have a specific feedback form post cancellation
Keep it short, and ideally link it to the moment of cancellation to gather insights on why users are leaving. Here’s more on the best practices of a strong cancellation survey.
To give Peloton some grace (told you I’m a nice ex), they did send a survey one day after I cancelled and noted that the system takes 72 hours to update. Maybe I just got unlucky with an NPS survey during that window. That said… I still haven’t received my actual cancellation survey.
The cooldown: life after Peloton
What surprised me most was how emotional the experience felt. I’d built rituals around Peloton: the instructors, the playlists, the feeling of showing up for myself. That emotional connection kept me subscribed longer than any discount ever could. But once that connection faded, the price increase simply accelerated my exit.
For other apps, this is a powerful reminder: retention isn’t just about utility, it’s about identity and belonging. Once users stop feeling seen or progressing, they stop showing up.
It had nothing to do with working out; I’m still a fitness addict, training six days a week. Since cancelling, I’ve been testing a new app that I love: it challenges me, tracks my weights and reps, and shows me tangible progress.
But it doesn’t include biking workouts. And my Peloton bike, still sitting in my workout space, quietly calls me as the nights get darker and the days rainier.
I gave it a go without a subscription. Two short free classes brought back a wave of nostalgia. It was like running into my ex at the coffee shop we used to visit together.
The free tester class
Peloton’s story isn’t unique to fitness apps. Every subscription app faces the same challenge: evolving alongside its users. Whether you’re building a meditation, language-learning, or gaming app, these lessons are universal:
- Help users get value fast
- Explain how personalization works
- Evolve with users as their goals change
- Communicate new value before raising prices
- Reward loyal customers, don’t penalize them
- Offer flexible, fair pricing options
- Make cancellation simple and respectful
- Send clear, thoughtful confirmation emails
- Collect timely, relevant feedback
When users feel both understood and in control, retention follows naturally.
For now, it wasn’t enough to bring me back, but I’m not ready to sell the bike either. Maybe, in time, we’ll find a way to make this expensive relationship work again…