Increased monthly fees for Inreach? Cant suspend for free

[wildwanderer]

Was just browsing the inreach website as I was thinking of switching from a monthly freedom plan to a annual plan.

Currently the 'safety' monthly freedom plan costs $25 per month and you can suspend it at any time.
For this you get 10 free messages per month. There is also a $37 per year annual fee.

Annual Plan costs $20 per month with no annual fee but you cant suspend the service.

The inreach webpage has now been updated. The new table shows
https://explore.garmin.com/en-AU/inreach/

The 'Safety' plan has been renamed to the 'basic' plan and cost increased to $30 per month with no option to suspend without a fee. They are now charging $8 per month to suspend.
There is now no annual plan for a reduced fee.

The only upside is you get 20 free messsages per month instead of 10. But I rarely went above 10 msg per month anway.

USA plans are unchanged so this seems yet another example of slugging AU/NZ because they can.. (NZ plans have changed as well)
This is highly unsatisfactory to say the least.

Note this seems to be a very recent change as much of the webpage still references freedom and annual plans.

[wayno]

only reason i dont use an annual plan is i change plans from month to month... when i'm doing multi day walks i switch up a level to the plan that allows automated tracking... since the basic plan doesnt allow that.

[wildwanderer]

only reason i dont use an annual plan is i change plans from month to month... when i'm doing multi day walks i switch up a level to the plan that allows automated tracking... since the basic plan doesnt allow that.

Appears new users wont get much choice. There is now no annual plan. Pretty steep cost increase. Old safety plan $240 per year. New Basic plan $360 per year. and the only benefit is receiving 10 more msgs per month.

[wayno]

i wonder if its because there isnt really a similar alternative for anywhere near the price down under
SPOT have a device with two way texting but theres no coverage down under...
you'd have to go to an iridium device as an alternative and thats more expensive...

[wildwanderer]

i wonder if its because there isnt really a similar alternative for anywhere near the price down under
SPOT have a device with two way texting but theres no coverage down under...
you'd have to go to an iridium device as an alternative and thats more expensive...

Likely no competition has a large amount to do with it.

Also Id bet there were many people who only do 1-2 long trips per year and only used their safety plan for 2 months. (2 x $25 +$37 fee) =$87
So Garmin Australia was keen to get some more $ out of them.

Now it will cost them 2x $30 + 10 x8$ = $140 per year. or a 60% increase in cost.

[wayno]

if people dont need the two way comms and can put up with a slightly less reliable service then they can go to SPOT..
or just go back to full proof basic PLB's the price of those has plummeted.
if they keep hiking hte prices they'll push other people to iridium devices.

[crollsurf]

In some cases it is just ripping us off like Thermarest does, which everyone avoids or buys OS. But there may be fixed price overheads per market that has forced Garmin to up the price because we are a small market. Be good if they explained why we have to pay more than everyone else.

These days with phones and PLBs, these are luxury toys that you just don't need. Upping the price probably won't change anyones decision to buy or not because the people that buy them, aren't short of a buck or have some mission critical reason to buy them.



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[wayno]

a garmin inreach can be a replacement for a PLB, it has the same functionality on it... a lot of people will be using them instead of a PLB.

[Gadgetgeek]

Wonder if I'll see any change, or if they will grandfather the plan for a while. I'm basically treating mine as extended cell coverage since a PLB might end up being useless to me.

[Heremeahappy1]

The terms; user-pays, terms and conditions and yes, small, captive Australian market all come to mind.
I guess many decisions are based on one's value system and need vs comfort.
We have Polar explorers that can connect daily with their insta audience to continue, shamless self promotion, yet bury their human waste in these regions, who knows when and if they'll thaw. To each their own I suppose.
Comapanies are there to make money.
Throw for a sat phone as part of a group. Maybe a sat phone rental sode hustle? Isnt there a bw forum member that rents plbs?

[wayno]

it reads on my last garmin account like they bumped me up to the next plan, but i checked i'm still on the safety plan, it says the new charges will be $65 a month,
it doesnt have basic plan it just has safety plan still on my account details online

[nezumi]

Is it possible to buy the US plan from Australia? Surely as an international service, you should still be able to use it here even if it is registered in another country?

I have had a quick look, and it seems like the retail offering from Garmin in Aus now aligns to the "Professional" offering in most other countries?

[wayno]

looks like on the basic plan you can now use automated tracking which you couldnt before , you have to pay per tracking point 18c in NZ

[butter-nuts]

Well this is a bit disappointing. I literately got one a month ago and haven't used it yet. Not sure I would have got it knowing the change was coming as it makes it a fair bit more expensive for my use case.

[butter-nuts]

Thought people may be interested to know, I put a post on the Garmin forums about this and got the following reply:

"Thank you for bring this up. This information was posted by mistake and we are working with IT to get the information corrected. Sorry for any misunderstanding."

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/inreach/f/inreach-general/192155/why-the-large-increase-in-monthly-fees-for-subscriptions-and-removal-of-freedom-plans-for-australian-customers

[wildwanderer]

excellent news. Thanks for making the effort butter-nuts.

Looking into this it appears someone from garmin IT messed with the website and it changed the Au/NZ plans personal plans to the Profesional flex plans designed for organisations. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/outdo ... ion-plans/

[nezumi]

Thought people may be interested to know, I put a post on the Garmin forums about this and got the following reply:

"Thank you for bring this up. This information was posted by mistake and we are working with IT to get the information corrected. Sorry for any misunderstanding."

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/inreach/f/inreach-general/192155/why-the-large-increase-in-monthly-fees-for-subscriptions-and-removal-of-freedom-plans-for-australian-customers

I sent a rather discourteous email and got a reply saying that the Freedom plans were still available (3 days later). The pricing discrepancy is still stark, but at least not as much as it otherwise could have been.

[wayno]

i didnt see any emails in advance explaining any of this , just an increased drain on my bank account given its a direct debit they just take what they want without having to explain...

[wildwanderer]

The pricing discrepancy is still stark, but at least not as much as it otherwise could have been.

i didnt see any emails in advance explaining any of this , just an increased drain on my bank account given its a direct debit they just take what they want without having to explain...

So you guys have been charged extra and your plans have changed?

I just checked and there has been no change for me.
Im on the $20 month annual safety plan, no changes or increased cost shown on my garmin account page.

The only change I saw was on the public pricing page, which garmin said was incorrect and a cosmetic error due to a IT mistake.

[Lamont]

My last bill was $20 as usual. Still refers to the same plan etc.

[wayno]

looks like the annual fee confused me when i got it, i didnt know there was an annual fee on top of the usual monthly fee... remember you're converting from $US and if you're looking at the US charge it may look like you are being charged more

[madpom]

Interesting. I've received no info on a price hike and was charged the standard nz$25 this month (4/10/19) with 10 free messages.

Who is your contract through? My account is with pivotel. Are yours direct to Garmin?

[wildwanderer]

@madpom.

Turns out it was an IT error by Garmin. The prices displayed on the garmin website were changed by accident and have been corrected. Full info in the thread.

[Nuts]

Wait there, so some people on the safety plan are paying $20 (AU) per active month? ($37 annual fee?) this:

Screen Shot 2019-10-30 at 9.57.51 am.png (69.69 KiB) Viewed 22360 times

[Mark F]

I've just been looking at changing over to an Inreach Mini on the Safety plan. As I read it, it costs $20 a month ($240 annual). If you want the freedom to suspend your account from time to time, the Freedom Plan, then it costs an additional $5 a month when active plus an annual fee of $37. If you activated the plan for 6 months over a year the cost would be 6 x $25 + $37 = $187. At 8 months usage it would cost $237. I expect I would just go with the $20 a month as my usage is scattered across the year.

[Nuts]

Ok, understood, and see what WW mentioned was the 'freedom' safety plan (but must use the basic 'safety plan'):

"Also Id bet there were many people who only do 1-2 long trips per year and only used their safety plan for 2 months. (2 x $25 +$37 fee) =$87"

And by reckoning, for 8mths use or more, the safety represents some saving. (we've had one for a while, and it's needed some further study).

(edit: 'safety plan', the 'basic plan' being the first level professional plan).

[wildwanderer]

I've just been looking at changing over to an Inreach Mini on the Safety plan. As I read it, it costs $20 a month ($240 annual). If you want the freedom to suspend your account from time to time, the Freedom Plan, then it costs an additional $5 a month when active plus an annual fee of $37. If you activated the plan for 6 months over a year the cost would be 6 x $25 + $37 = $187. At 8 months usage it would cost $237. I expect I would just go with the $20 a month as my usage is scattered across the year.

Yep, thats my take on it as well. If you're doing trips most months then go with the annual safety plan. If you're only doing a handful of trips a year then the freedom plan will offer better value(as long as you remember to suspend it.)

If you want tracking then choose the most appropriate higher level plan to your needs

[wayno]

just got an email from garmin saying the inreach plans have been changed
scroll to the bottom to see the plan charges

https://explore.garmin.com/en-AU/inreach/#subscriptions

[wildwanderer]

Wayno, I don't notice any changes on the website. Do you know what they are?

I didn't receive a note from Garmin.

[wayno]

not sure, nz they add gst on so it costs more, which is about what i'm getting charged now.
i think its playing catch up with whats already been said, how they had already changed the subscriptions.