Hello Fitness Blender Family,

We have a couple of upcoming changes to our products that we want to make you aware of and we also want to let you know why these changes are happening; let’s start with the what and when.

What is Happening and When:
On March 1st, 2023 (6:00am PST) we will be increasing the prices of our Purchasable Workout Programs and Meal Plans (an increase of $0.80 to $2.50 per program week, depending on overall program length). This will in no way affect the pricing of our FB Plus Membership or Plus Passes as they will stay at their current rates. For those of you that primarily use our Purchasable Programs, now is a great time to stock up before the price increases. However, know that on March 1st, our entire Purchasable Workout Program library will now be automatically included and accessible with an active Plus Membership or Plus Pass; Plus is now essentially an All Access pass to all content and site features on FitnessBlender.com. We know that the last thing anyone wants to hear is that prices are increasing, but for those of you who have been with us for a while, you know we rarely increase prices and when we do it is for good reason.

Why This is Happening:
We work very hard to keep Fitness Blender affordable and accessible - this has always been our priority and that has never changed. However, a lot has changed in the 13 years we've been running Fitness Blender and it now costs us more to create and host our free content than we earn from it. Most people now use ad blockers (on youtube and our site) causing ad revenue to plummet, and people have so frequently stolen and shared our Purchasable Programs that it has threatened our entire business. 

With the ad revenue so low, the Purchasable Programs no longer support themselves; it now costs us more to offer these products than we make back. So, we came to the conclusion we either had to cut the product or increase prices. We have listened to your feedback and know that the ability to purchase a program that you can reuse over and over at no extra cost is still very important to many of you, so we decided to increase prices to be able to continue to provide them as an option. 

Our free workout videos were ad-supported, and the basis of our Purchasable Programs. Due to the significant loss in ad revenue and an overwhelming audience request for exclusive workouts in our Workout Programs, we created our Plus Programs, which are made of ads-free, exclusive workout videos. An outright purchase of our Plus Programs and Challenges that utilize our ads-free Plus content (as opposed to the free content found in our non-Plus programs) would need to cost hundreds of dollars a person, to cover what it costs for us to create and host them for years or decades of use. This high cost would not be in line with our continued mission of keeping fitness affordable so we created Plus memberships and Plus Passes to allow a structure that works for us as a company and allows us to grant full access to all of our content and programs at the lowest price for our users.

In addition to adjusting to a changing industry, we also need to think about our own sustainability and ethics as a company; it takes a very hardworking team of almost 2 dozen people to create Fitness Blender’s website and content. As you are likely aware, recently the cost of living has significantly increased for a large part of the world’s population; our company and employees have been impacted by this as well. We believe in livable wages, benefits, and a safe working environment. We believe in the quality of our workout videos, programs, site features, and content. We would rather fail via methods that are in line with our ethics, than thrive via practices that exploit our employees or our audience (selling user data, selling products we don’t believe in, not taking care of our employees, etc.). 

For these and many other reasons, we have needed to adapt, or else FB would no longer exist at all. We have always had to keep evolving to continue to do what we do; things change fast on the internet! All of our free workout videos, health and fitness content, and robust site features are supported by FB Plus revenue; if you would like to support Fitness Blender, know that FB Plus (via membership or a Pass) is what keeps all the rest of FB running. It is also the least expensive method to access all of our content and site features. We think we have found a great balance of affordability and continually expanding content and features but if you have any ideas to make this work better for our customers, and ensure a sustainable future for FB, we are always open to feedback (you can reach us at: biz.dev@fitnessblender.com).

The Good News:
This news and these changes come with a number of added benefits:

For Non-Members: (free account holders) Launching 3/1

• New feature: All Purchasable Programs will come with a free 1 Week Plus Pass, to use with the program or on its own at a later date.

For all Members: Launching 3/1

• New feature: Improved read-only scheduling preview on the My Programs detail view, which allows you to view all the included workout videos and content for any of your available programs so you can fully review the program before scheduling (a highly requested feature by our users)

For Plus and Plus Pass Members, launching in March

• All Access to FB content: As mentioned earlier, our entire Purchasable Program library will now be included with FB Plus and FB Plus Passes, starting March 1st. All of our current Purchasable Programs and Meal Plans will be available to view and schedule for Plus Members or active Pass holders. (Launching 3/1)
• New feature: “Find Similar Workout” within programs; you can now find shorter, longer, or similar workout video replacements for any scheduled workout in a program, allowing all of our programs to be modified and customized to fit your needs. (Launching mid to late March)
• New feature: Ability to customize our Workout Programs in any way you like (including changes made with the new “Find Similar Workout” feature), which allows you to save and re-add the now Custom Program to your calendar as many times as you like. (Launching mid to late March)
• No changes to Plus Membership or Passes pricing

We have always strived to operate with a great deal of transparency and we want people to understand that we are doing our absolute best in a rapidly changing industry that does not operate the same way it did when we first started 13 years ago. If you ever have any ideas or suggestions on how we can improve our business model, or better serve you, we are always listening. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you sincerely for being a part of Fitness Blender. 

Sincerely, Kelli, Daniel and the FB Team (Tim, Josh, Brandon, Krista, Tasha, Bryan, Nicole P., Kayla, Brian, Amanda, Nicole S., Erica, Marina, Aly, Candice, Haley, Natalia, Patterson, Allie)

PS Remember; we have not and do not advertise. This is part of how we are able to offer so many workouts and website features for free, and keep the costs of our paid products low; we would rather improve and invest in our content, website and employees than put that money in the hands of advertising platforms. You can help us support the free side of our company and keep our costs low, by sharing our work with family and friends.