- Whoop bands require an annual payment plan
- Older models still offer one year free subscription
- Some users are making big savings thanks to the loophole
There’s no doubt that Whoop makes some of the best fitness trackers out there, but they also come with a mandatory subscription cost, starting at £169 / $199 / AU$299 per year. Now it looks like some enterprising Whoop users have found a way to avoid that annual fee.
According to Reddit (via Lifehacker), the key to the trick is that when you buy a Whoop bracelet, you get a free year of subscription. With the former Whoop 4.0 band now available at a discount at some retailers, big savings are possible.
In the case of this Redditor (and several others), they were able to purchase four Whoop 4.0 bands for $39 each at TJ Maxx. When these trackers are paired with a user account already linked to a Whoop 5.0 band, a 12-month subscription is added to the account.
Not only that, but the extra year being added is for the Peak subscription plan, typically £229 / $239 / AU$419 per year (when Whoop 4.0 launched in 2021, there was only one subscription tier to choose from).
Buyer Beware
I took advantage! Whoop 4.0 $39.00 from r/whoop
In theory, this is a substantial saving for Whoop users: it’s a one-year subscription for a fraction of the price. The fun may already be over, however, as it seems unlikely that Whoop will continue allowing users to do this indefinitely.
This will also not work with a Whoop band purchased secondhand or gifted by someone else: you need a tracker in a new, unopened box and one that comes with a free, unclaimed one-year subscription.
It’s also worth considering the e-waste this solution can cause: music bands that are picked up for subscription and then, presumably, gather dust in a drawer and are eventually thrown away. Those bands could have gone to people who would have actually used them.
If you can find an older Whoop band at a discount and you’ve already registered one of the newer models, it’s a trick you can try to extend your subscription, though there’s no guarantee it will work, even if Reddit posters have had success with it.
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