I too am shocked by this increase, I can’t actually remember any service that has increased prices by 100% in one hit, they must have been mad to think people would accept this without question. I’ve been using Trakt for many years but have already cancelled my sub, exported all my data to a different service and paid a yearly sub for $35. I would of been happy to pay $5 extra to Trakt but they have blown the chance now
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Instead of making your own why not join with one of the ones that already exist and help make it better?
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If you want to compare with other similar subscription plans, please take a look at the price of premium podcast for example Downstream+ - Relay
Funny. This whole circus reminded me off an other podcast service (Pocketcasts) that also made a likewise mistake a couple of years ago. True, the change was slightly different, but after promising every early adopter that yes, we will honor the “pay once, just once,” they suddenly tossed aside all subscriptions to a monthly model and not honoring earlier promises. The backlash then, was pretty much the same as is happening now here. Their response: “yeah, we miscalculated, sorry guys” and backtracked, and locked everybody in. Be sensible, honor your promises, or as is the reason for all the cancellations, you become worthless.
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This is the exact thing that I first thought of when I saw that Trakt are ignoring the grandfathered users.
The lifetime purchase for PocketCasts was around $5 when I bought the app originally. PocketCasts realised their mistake and managed to survive and grow despite honouring users who paid so little.
Trakt grandfathered users are paying $15 or $30 for year. It’s not even like we are all grandfathered into a lifetime membership like with Pocketcasts, we are all willing to continue paying
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Based on a Linkedin search for Trakt it might be “Andrei L. Magnea” who seems to be with Trakt since May 2025 (based on Linkedin):
Doesn’t sound like above Justin or calling the shots. Just too new to know the community, history etc?
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This circus reminds me a bit of Black Mirror S07E01 that I saw recently.
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Possible, but Marius’ profile here is tagged Singapore.
Justin also said that when a member ceases to be VIP, they keep all their lists over and above the free limit, albeit frozen at 100 items each.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the extra lists get taken away within a month of dropping down to free loader too.
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Are there any good tutorials for how to run one of the self-hosted options mentioned? I have no idea where to start. Explain it like I am 5 years old.
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Marius used to be on the team in October when you look at the website with waybackmachine and his role is/was Advisor. Sounds like a joke but isn’t 
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Well, this ominous “person” @marius whose profile avatar is the robot 
emoji doesn’t quite understand the term grandfathered subs nor does he seem to have the mental capacity to figure out the advantages of a steady income (even if it’s less than newer subs) as well as an OG user base.
However I think that this is a bot tbh. As of April 17th 2025 Tracxn still lists Justin, Sean and Jimmy as the founders and only board members. Although it’s often quite challenging to look behind the curtains and get valid and accurate up to date information about such a small business I think that nothing really has changed.
I actually think the partnership with Younify is probably breaking their neck. A partnership like that is not built over night and I just think they miscalculated the resonance and probably are paying way too much for the integration not only to Younify but also in terms of handling and bug fixing a still very broken addon to the service (which is also a safety hazard).
With an estimated revenue of 218,000$ in 2023 everyone of you can do the math. That’s 7,250 users paying 30$. Imagine loosing 10% of that. That can already be enough to break your neck if you’re on the verge of break even.
In the end it comes down to mismanagement of a probably (in terms of business knowledge) green team. It happens. It doesn’t change the anger and frustration. Also I’m just wildly guessing so don’t take my words for granted. I’m as frustrated with the situation as others but I’ve already taken some actions months ago since the “design overhaul” backfired but was just brushed down by devs and CEO’s. That was already the last straw for me since communication with the community was already in a bad state for months at that point.
I’m still here because I was hoping they’d recollect their thoughts and find a way back to their roots but I guess it’s already too late for that.
I’ve canceled like so many of you. I won’t come back either. I’m already involved in the Letterboxd community and service and I’m looking forward to them releasing a TV section to their service at some point which has been officially announced a while back.
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There’s no way I’d pay $60 for Plex scrobbling. I was paying $30 for that and occasional rewatch option and that’s the max I’d pay. Even SIMKL offers plex scrobbling in their free tier, and here goes Trakt putting it behind paywall alongside spoiler free browsing.
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Wow 218,000$ in 2023? I’ll bet infrastructure alone eats up a lot of that. Let alone 9 salaries.
Could easily see these changes being instigated in exchange for funding or desperation.
Much needed by the sounds of it sadly
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If it’s true, it’s worrying that the only response attempt in three days came from someone who’s been here for less time than the majority of users…
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tbf that is what Tracxn is listing. There are sites that estimate a higher revenue. Also the site has grown exponentially over recent years so this might be incredibly outdated.
Justin is also listed as a co-founder of two other startups. Cashie Commerce and Plant Powered Clothing but he’s not involved with either anymore.
Again it is super hard to get reliable information about such small businesses since they actually do not have to state revenue on a yearly basis and such publicly. So most is estimation at best anyways. I can see it being higher than 218,000$ but I also think it doesn’t really matter because it honestly all comes down to profit. And if your costs eat up all your profit no matter how high your revenue it’s point less anyways…
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He’s the one who made the Trakt Apple TV app, I remember seeing the posts last year advertising it, back then he definitely wasn’t tagged with a developer/staff icon tho, and I thought he was just an excited fan. 
But I don’t remember if Tyson (iOS/Android dev) was tagged when the apps were just released haha.
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Fantastic, Plex Scrobbling was the only thing I was concerned about that I couldn’t achieve in the same way elsewhere. The other bits of checking in at films in say the cinema everyone else does that.
Do you use Plex / Simkl webhooks or is it an auth connection?
I’ve not signed up yet still gauging the options.
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Whereas I can understand why this has come as a surprise to many VIPs, it was crazy for Trakt to honour low cost price plans that were signed up to many years ago. This is an unsustainably business model, and one I’m sure they had no option but to address.
One of the issues with what justifies a fair price is that everyone will see different value in a service like this. For me there is no viable alternative that does everything I want within one service, and offers the Quality of Life experience I and my family want. So for me, $60 is a bargain.
Others won’t be able to justify the cost, or see enough value for the features they take advantage of.
For those seeing a rise from $15 to $60, the other way to look at this is that you have been getting trakt for a steal for may years. You’ve been saving money for all those years, compared to others on the standard pricing. You’re just being pulled into current pricing, having received a bargain in previous years. Only you can decide if it’s worth $60/yr. For some of us it absolutely is, but for others it won’t be.
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You finally respond after multiple requests of people asking who you are and you decide to ignore the main point and backtrack on what was said previously.
Like what on Earth? You said in your update post
So first you say not liking the price increase is ok and you’ll totally have great features soon but now it’s actually completely justified.
And to repeat what others are saying, what you’re saying is not even true. You don’t have to subscribe to 5-10 streaming services. Your service helps make that manageable by showing what’s playing where! And it’s a relatively small increase according to what? All of these comments are telling you people are not reacting with “eh that’s fine I’m already paying for a bunch of services this all but irrelevant” like you think they are.
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