So after a couple weeks of rumors, Zwift has confirmed it is adding a new plan called Zwift Plus. As I write this on 29 October 2026, I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I’m not a big enough Zwift influencer to get invited to test it for a few days / weeks as some of the others have.

EDIT: 31 October 2026, due to some sort of technical glitch on Zwift’s billing end, they have given all Zwift Basic members access to Zwift Plus without having to sign up for the trial, but only until November 9th instead of the usual 14 day trial, so I’ll try some of those and add thoughts later.

Zwift Plus is a new more premium level of Zwift that is optional, but comes with a big price increase over regular Zwift. Regular Zwift, what I have at the moment, is $19.99 a month, or $199.99 a year. Zwift Plus is $29.99 a month, or $299.99 a year. For that extra $10 a month, one gets new video routes, somewhat like Rouvy has, and a new AI Coach. I’ll discuss each of those in their own bits below. Now, up front, I’m thinking, the video routes, while nice, not really worth the cost, but the AI Coach might be worth it. TrainerRoad, the best coaching app out there (IMHO) is $21.99 a month, or $209.99 a year. So if Zwift’s coach can be semi decent for only $10 extra dollars a month, it might be worth it. I doubt it’ll be as good as TrainerRoad, but as we’ll see, there are advantages that might help balance things out somewhat. In the ideal world, one would have Zwift (regular), and TrainerRoad, but that’s expensive.

Before we get too much into the weeds, let’s talk prices. Zwift was $9.99 a month until November 2017, then it jumped to $14.99, and stayed there until June 2024 where it went to the current $19.99 a month price. Yearly prices I believe were always 10 months worth like now. Now soon after I started on Zwift, June 2025, I had some thoughts and ideas about the price increase, and where I thought things should fall, but didn’t post about it, but now let’s talk.

I think the $19.99 price is okay, but at the time, I was thinking having a tiered system, where $14.99 gets you a base level access. You can’t race, or other select events, though outside of races, I wasn’t sure how to tell the user what events qualify or not, but could ride. But let’s account for how things are now, and what I’d add or change.

My Zwift Plans Idea

Zwift Demo. This is an offline mode for store demo purposes. It only has 3 to 5 routes, only on Watopia. There is an 8km (about 5 miles) and or 30 minute, though the store can set a smaller limit on those in their settings. User picks a female or male avatar (avatar weight and height should be based on Zwift’s overall averages for each), picks a ride, tries it, then ends ride, gets a commercial showing that one can access hundreds of other routes, etc. The technically is available to any paid member, and could require the store to have a Zwift Store Demo membership for like $10 a month (or even $5 if that cover’s Zwift’s processing costs).

Zwift Free. This is what happens when one has had a paid membership, of at least 3 months, and lets it expire. There is a 20km a month limit, with a 10km a day limit, and 48 hour break forced after ridding more than 5km. No XP. Streaks turn off. Can’t join any events at all, but can join a pacer bot of up to 2 watts/kg. Can not access Zwift Demo.

Zwift Pause Extra. This would be a new membership level. It would require 6 continuous months paid prior to that, or 4 months paid of the Plus membership. This is an upgrade from the regular paused, and if one qualifies, but one has to enter Paused not let their membership lapse. A user is limited to 25km a month, and no more than 10km in a day, but timer is shortened to 24 hours from the Zwift Free version. They can join any pacer bot. XP isn’t earned, but streaks can be paused so long as they ride outside or on Zwift once a week. So when they come back from their break, their streak can still be sitting at where they left it at. Can not access Zwift Demo.

Zwift Basic. This is the current level of Zwift. It works the same as it does now. Stays at $19.99 a month. Has access to Zwift Demo so they can show it to a friend, as do all plans below.

Zwift Plus. Same as the current Zwift Plus. But a Zwift Plus member can create a Family Plan. Stays at $29.99 a month.

Zwift Family. Each member gets only Zwift Basic (as noted, the “main” member has to have plus), and costs up to the first 2 costs $14.99 a month, then $9.99 a month up for the next 3 up to 5 total, to upgrade them to Zwift Plus is jumps to $19.99 a month for the first 3, then $14.99 a month for the last 2. They must use Zwift at least once for 5km, at the same location as the main member’s primary location. This is akin to how Netflix tries to prevent password sharing. Use it at the same location, same WiFi, prove you are family. Voila. The alternative to this is to do like Rouvy, and have a Duo ($29.99 a month on Rouvy, ) and Group price (allows up to 5 members for $59.99 a month on Rouvy). Removes the headache of proving you are in the same household, which is probably a pain on Zwift’s end too. Doing it the Duo and Group way, the “Primary” member has Zwift Plus, while the others have Zwift Basic, unless they up-charge. Let’s say Zwift Duo -Plus with Basic is $39.99 a month, while Zwift Duo – Plus Plus is $50.99 a month. Zwift Group – Plus Basic is the only option at the Group rate, but is like $79.99 a month, but allows 4 others at the Zwift Basic (maybe have a Zwift Group Plus Plus for like $140 a month). I’m less sure one could convince Zwift of Zwift Group, but the two Zwift Duo plans I think make sense. And maybe Zwift Group and Zwift Duo both require the same household proof that platforms like Netflix do, just to help keep things locked down.

Zwift Plus Rouvy. Combined memberships. This is Zwift Plus, and Rouvy Solo. No other combos. $39.99 a month (or $379 a year as an extra savings). Now separately Zwift Plus is $29.99 or $299 a year, while Rouvy is $19.99 a month, or $180 a year, so saves $10 a month, or if one goes with the annual plan that would normally be $479, so like a $100 savings for doing both as a combined annual plan. Huge incentive to go with the annual combined plan.

My Initial Thoughts on Zwift Plus

So as I said, as of 29 October 2026, I haven’t had a chance to try Zwift Plus yet. There is a free 14 day demo, which I might try out here soon.

As I noted a bit earlier, I’m not sold on the Zwift Videos being with the extra $10. Not with only 21 videos available at the moment. Give us at least 30, ideally 50 plus, then it starts adding more value to that end. That said, they say they were developing this before the acquired Rouvy, and I think that’s reasonable. It would take more time to develop this and implement it then the time they’ve had since they got Rouvy, and the video quality, from the previews I’ve seen seem to be better. I think Zwift will let Rouvy do lots of their own thing, though I’m sure that sooner or later they’ll combine some of the mid and upper management to reduce costs there.

The big thing for me is Zwift Coach. An adaptive AI coach. And the plans it gives are human made plans, not AI generated ones, the AI is more in how it finds which routes and workouts to recommend, and the synopsis it gives. So not a full AI replacement, which is good. They didn’t just slap a Chatbot onto it, and call it a day. They did lots of work behind the scenes, and keep a lot of manual intervention.

So a basic Zwift membership is $19.99 and TrainerRoad is $21.99 a month. So per month, those two alone would be $41.99, far more expensive than Zwift Plus at $29.99 a month. Even going annual, you are looking at $409.98 a year, compared to Zwift Plus at $299.99 a year. So huge savings. Now the Zwift Coach undoubtedly is nowhere near as good as TrainerRoad’s. But is TrainerRoad worth $12 a month extra ($144 a year if doing per month), or $109.99 a year extra if you go with the cheaper annual plans?

EDIT: 31 October 2026, I did make a Zwift Coach plan, and it was fairly straight forward. The one thing I’d change during the onboarding, is that I’d when you set goals, maybe I have more than one goal, let me pick up to 3, and arrange them by priority. Maybe endurance is one, speed is two, and climbing is three.

What I’d Add

Now there are some other features I’d like to add in no particular order.

Extra Improved Graphics. The graphics on Zwift look a bit outdated, and they need improved on iOS devices (they should be running ultra presets on Apple TV4k and most any recent M series iPad, and most newer iPhones). But back on topic. They aren’t bad, but they could be improved. I’d say improve them a bit across the board. But if both their home engine, and another engine can share the same servers, then maybe Zwift Plus members can get even extra improved graphics. This would likely be done via Unreal Engine 5 (licensing fees might break that one), Open 3D Engine (O3DE which is free and open source), Unity (again licensing fees might be an issue), Godot (not really for this sort of environment), Decima (licensing fee might be the least of the issues compared to getting permission, but it is among the best for landscape rendering), and finally StarEngine (which has all the same issues as Decima, and might be less suited). The trick is getting one of those to work with the same servers as their own engine, so that everyone is on the same shared worlds. Again, everyone gets improved graphics, just the Zwift Plus might get access to more “realistic” ones from the new engine.

Mass starts in races. One group pen. This is mostly just an option for others who are setting up races, not for Zwift’s own races.

Improved psychics. Get closer to Biketerra in psychics.

EDIT 31 October 2026 to add

Dual recording. This is a must have in today’s market. How Zwift doesn’t handle Dual recording is a mystery.

Scalable UI, this might be a Zwift Plus feature initially, then maybe roll it out to others.

Customizable data fields on Companion, this is one or two screens where we can customize what data fields we want to see, just like one can do with a Garmin, Wahoo or Hammerhead head unit.

Higher resolution player model and bikes, especially for Video Rides. While above I said improved graphics, even for Zwift Basic, this is an improvement even above what would be done for that (outside of maybe the higher engine version). It could be exclusive for Video Rides. Though there are a lot of kits and other art they might have to upscale to make it work.

Better and tighter integration with Apple Health, and some of the other services. While the Fitbit integration is going away, I believe they working with Google Health so that scale syncing continues, though that’s part of what I’d like to see come over from Apple Health.

Other notes for other products

So I’ll just put a thing or two here.

Trainers should have an adjustable vertical bit so that you can rotate the bike, then sit the seat post onto so that you can store the bike or frame, including ones like the Zwift Frame, vertically, like this vertical bike stand. Now because the freewheel and all that is likely a bit in the way, this might mean is has to come up from both sides, but it’d be nice to just leave the bike on the trainer, and rotate it up and out of the way for those of us living in small contained areas. Then it has a velcro strap to hold it to the stand, and another to hold the front wheel, if applicable, in place. It’s a pain having to setup and tear down every few days because of space limits. Let me flip the bike up, and have something to keep it up. This does mean some that can’t rotate, might need some redesign to allow the derailleur to rotate and stay out of the way.