SPOT raising their prices again!!! Yikes!!!

#1
Last February I purchased a SPOT Gen 3 unit. I paid 99 bucks for a years service. I read that they raised the price of service to $ 149.00 in April last year. Today I received this email from SPOT:

Dear Valued SPOT Customer,

Thank you for your continued loyalty to SPOT. We hope that SPOT's award winning technology and proven reliability has helped you enjoy your adventures and provided additional peace of mind to your family and friends while you were off the grid.

As we continue to upgrade our network to ensure you the best possible and most reliable service in the industry, this email is to inform you of upcoming changes to the cost of your SPOT Gen3 service plan(s):

  1. A Network Maintenance Fee of $14.99 will be charged to your account.
  2. The Basic Service plan that your SPOT Gen3 device(s) are currently on has been discontinued and will be migrated over to our new enhanced Basic Service plan. As such, your current price will increase to $199.99 at the time of your renewal.
I am having a hard time justifying $ 215 a year for their service. Am I just a cheapskate or does this like an amazingly high and fast price increase rate? Just wondering if anyone else had seen this.
 

AyrtonO

Premier Member
#3
Interesting, no such information on Spot official pages, that basic service will be discontinued :( It's April 1st so could it be...

But naja, compare it still to Garmin InReach subscriptions and it's still lot cheaper. One way to lower costs - downgrade device to Tracker.
 
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#4
I discontinued my SPOT service last week, and will be putting all my SPOT stuff up for sale.
I could not justify the expense for the actual usage it has provided. I've had problems with my unit not tracking my location at times
I have started using REVER on my phone and have found the tracking service to be comparable, or better than my SPOT has been in the past.
 

Brookester

Premier Member
#5
Here in Aus we pay $246/yr for the package without all the benefits...it is what it is...we use PLB's for emergency, more accurate, no subscription, direct to national rescue centre, must have 10yr battery life...SPOT works but has delays due to US based & only really use SPOT for tracking that PLB does not do.

$0.02 worth
 

BMWguy

IBA Member
#6
Well - that addition to my bag of goodies just went out the door...
Wonder if they'd take one of my old 2610 Street Pilots in on a trade?
 
#7
Last February I purchased a SPOT Gen 3 unit. I paid 99 bucks for a years service. I read that they raised the price of service to $ 149.00 in April last year. Today I received this email from SPOT:

Dear Valued SPOT Customer,

Thank you for your continued loyalty to SPOT. We hope that SPOT's award winning technology and proven reliability has helped you enjoy your adventures and provided additional peace of mind to your family and friends while you were off the grid.

As we continue to upgrade our network to ensure you the best possible and most reliable service in the industry, this email is to inform you of upcoming changes to the cost of your SPOT Gen3 service plan(s):

  1. A Network Maintenance Fee of $14.99 will be charged to your account.
  2. The Basic Service plan that your SPOT Gen3 device(s) are currently on has been discontinued and will be migrated over to our new enhanced Basic Service plan. As such, your current price will increase to $199.99 at the time of your renewal.
I am having a hard time justifying $ 215 a year for their service. Am I just a cheapskate or does this like an amazingly high and fast price increase rate? Just wondering if anyone else had seen this.
Last February I purchased a SPOT Gen 3 unit. I paid 99 bucks for a years service. I read that they raised the price of service to $ 149.00 in April last year. Today I received this email from SPOT:

Dear Valued SPOT Customer,

Thank you for your continued loyalty to SPOT. We hope that SPOT's award winning technology and proven reliability has helped you enjoy your adventures and provided additional peace of mind to your family and friends while you were off the grid.

As we continue to upgrade our network to ensure you the best possible and most reliable service in the industry, this email is to inform you of upcoming changes to the cost of your SPOT Gen3 service plan(s):

  1. A Network Maintenance Fee of $14.99 will be charged to your account.
  2. The Basic Service plan that your SPOT Gen3 device(s) are currently on has been discontinued and will be migrated over to our new enhanced Basic Service plan. As such, your current price will increase to $199.99 at the time of your renewal.
I am having a hard time justifying $ 215 a year for their service. Am I just a cheapskate or does this like an amazingly high and fast price increase rate? Just wondering if anyone else had seen this.


I just got the same email, cancelled my account, they tried to offer 60.00 discount I said no thank you, then they tried a 100 discount, I said no thank you.
My subscription ends in 1 month, I just ordered the acr + eprb sat rescue unit.
Plus I already have ham radio hf and vhf as well, so don't need this any more. Any one want to buy my gen 1, and Gen 3 spot Messengers.
I think they just thought everyone would fall in line and pay almost double.
By now, their marketing team is probably panicing, with everyone bailing out.

I loved the 14.95 network upgrade thing, do they really think we're so dumb.

Bye bye spot.
 

Owsley

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#8
A word of caution that has been written about elsewhere. Be careful if you are a SPOT customer on the auto-pay renewal method with a credit card. Make sure you call them and tell them you are ending your service with them when it expires and not to renew automatically. I have read stories of folks that maybe got a new credit card number and later, when they wanted to reactivate a device, were told that they had not notified SPOT of this and "owed" them, or only get six months service instead of year like they thought because of this. I called and had to speak to a manager to get all three of my accounts to end at the expiration date.
 
#9
Not a big fan of spot. I let my subscription lapse for 4 months and got a coupon so I'll renew. Would never pay full price. Another annoying thing is that when your subscription expires you lose access to your old tracks and stories on spot adventure...who would ever use that?
 

BMWguy

IBA Member
#10
I've been using Bubbler GPS on my phone for a few months now - like it a lot, but be aware it only works on android devices.

Sent my donation to Jason at Spotwalla... Thank Jason!!!
 

Jack D

Premier Member
#11
I never received any notice of the various price increases that have happened over the last 9 years. I called to cancel and they made 2 offers, one was down to $75. Having some bad stories about how long it took SPOT to react after the 911 button was pushed I have decided to investigate other options and use Bubbler in the meantime.
 

AyrtonO

Premier Member
#13
I will just get a Garmin inreach. Has a few more options and allows month to montb service.
Does not help much in the end. Garmin device costs 2x Spot, they have activation and monthly service enroll fees plus monthly fee almost the same. In the end you fall to pay almost the same for just some months service.
 

Alan Doak

Premier Member
#14
Not a big fan of spot. I let my subscription lapse for 4 months and got a coupon so I'll renew. Would never pay full price. Another annoying thing is that when your subscription expires you lose access to your old tracks and stories on spot adventure...who would ever use that?
I use Bubbler as well and it works really well. The only issue is that if you are out of cell phone coverage then Bubbler will still track your activity but it won't update your location until you are back in service. Downside with this is when I camped (for a couple of hours) in an area that had no cell phone coverage I essentially became lost to my wife, until I had ridden into an area with coverage. She said it was unnerving, not knowing if I was in trouble, or doing something else.
 

cacomly

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#15
I use Bubbler as well and it works really well. The only issue is that if you are out of cell phone coverage then Bubbler will still track your activity but it won't update your location until you are back in service. Downside with this is when I camped (for a couple of hours) in an area that had no cell phone coverage I essentially became lost to my wife, until I had ridden into an area with coverage. She said it was unnerving, not knowing if I was in trouble, or doing something else.
I spend a fair amount of time in areas outside of cell coverage when on trips so for my wife's peace of mind I am keeping mine. Plus for the IBR I need it.