GoPro makes it very easy to try out their subscription plan — including it for “free” with any purchase of a new GoPro through their website — but what exactly does it include and is it worth $49 a year?
Let’s take a look at what the GoPro subscription includes in 2023 and the history behind their subscription offerings.
GoPro first introduced its subscription service in 2016.
Called “GoPro Plus” at the time, it was priced at $4.99 a month.
For the price, subscribers received: 250GB cloud storage (upped to unlimited cloud storage in January 2019), 50% off any GoPro accessories, and GoPro’s “you break it, we replace it” Apple Care-esque warranty which promised 2 free camera replacements each year should you manage to break your GoPro.
In September 2020, GoPro rebranded GoPro Plus as GoPro Subscription.
Besides the new name, GoPro tweaked its offerings slightly, changing the “50% off any accessories” to “30%-50% off 10 accessories a year” and changing the “you make it, we replace it” free replacement plan to “you break it, we replace it for $99”.
At the same time, they also began pushing it heavily, including a one-year subscription with the purchase of any GoPro through their website by offering customers $49 off a camera if they also purchase a one-year subscription.
Currently, GoPro offers its subscription for $49 a year or $24 (50% off) for first-time subscribers.
For the price, subscribers receive:
Let’s go over what each perk offers and what limitations (because there’s a lot of fine print) to decide whether the GoPro subscription is worth it.
This is probably one of the biggest benefits of GoPro’s subscription, especially for non-professional users who likely aren’t already paying for a cloud backup service.
GoPro is also the only action camera company to offer camera-to-cloud direct backup.
And the good thing is it is very easy to use and works smoothly (as long as you have a stable/fast WiFi connection).
Come back from a day of shooting, plug your GoPro in, and *POOF* just like magic it will power on, connect to your home’s WiFi, and start uploading the video and photos you shot to the cloud on your GoPro.com account.
Once the footage is uploaded it can then easily be viewed or downloaded using the GoPro app on your phone or GoPro’s website on your computer.
GoPro also brags about the service offering “Automatic highlight videos” which are generated of your day but these videos are pretty bad and not as good as other auto-editing software out there.
The only real drawback of this backup service is should you ever decide to cancel your GoPro subscription in the future, transferring all your footage and photos off of GoPro’s servers isn’t the most simple process — but this is a somewhat common experience among all cloud storage services.
Quik is GoPro’s mobile app for editing videos on the go.
It’s nothing special (personally I like CapCut of Adobe Rush better) but it gets the job done and integrates well with GoPro’s cloud ecosystem.
Quik is free to use, but GoPro subscribers receive access to:
Many other mobile video editing apps offer similar features, but the fact that these are included in the GoPro subscription is nice.
This is exactly what it says: get $100 off the purchase of any GoPro camera.
However, the fine print limitations are that this promotion can only be used once a year, can’t be combined with any other promotions, and can only be used on cameras over $399 (i.e. not older models or the new GoPro Mini).
In practice, I see this as a way for GoPro to keep its subscriber numbers up now that they aren’t offering the subscription for free (by way of “purchase the subscription and you get that much off your GoPro”).
Purchasing a $24 (50% off) or even $49 subscription to get $100 off a camera is an easy decision for most people.
Originally this was one of the most OP things about the GoPro Plus/GoPro Subscription as was able to purchase literally any accessory on GoPro’s website for 50% off.
But when they changed this in 2020 to be “up to 50% off” and then later added the “Some accessories excluded”, this subscription perk became a transparent attempt for GoPro to get you to purchase accessories through them rather than through a third party retailer like BestBuy, Amazon, etc where GoPro would receive less money.
If used wisely, you can still get a good deal, but make sure to take a look at GoPro’s extensive list of discounts to see just how much the accessory you want may be discounted before signing up for a year of the GoPro Subscription.
This originally was a feature included for all GoPro users which GoPro has since put behind the paywall of its GoPro Subscription.
I’ve used it a few times and it is pretty cool, but the number of people who will actually need/use this is probably a very small percentage.
Still, if you are looking to the GoPro for live streaming then this perk alone makes the $49 a year price worth it.
This is one of the most misunderstood parts of the GoPro Subscription.
Much of the blame for this falls on GoPro for the “You break it, we replace it” advertising which glosses over the fact that a payment of $99 (plus shipping) must be made in order for them to replace it.
I have seen many people only who expected a free replacement, only to be hit with a $100 charge to fix what they thought was a supposedly rugged camera.
False advertising aside, even at $99 for a new camera replacement (or $150 if you want to add the cost of the subscription as well) this still isn’t a great deal.
Let’s see how it compares to Apple Care+ for example.
Apple Care+ for an $800 iPhone costs $75 a year ($149 for two years technically) but still only $99 to replace any damaged iPhone.
This means with an iPhone you end up paying 15%-28% of the cost of the device to replace it whereas with GoPro you end up paying 25%-37.5% depending on how you calculate it.
Still, this is cheaper than having to buy a whole new GoPro so ultimately if you’re someone that thinks there’s a chance you could end up with a busted GoPro, then this perk offers some good peace of mind.
I personally have used this program once through the online chat window and had great success.
I received a shipping label from GoPro, mailed in my camera, and received a new one within about 2 weeks.
So finally after all that, the question I still need to answer is: Is a GoPro subscription worth it?
Well yes and no.
Alone, parts of the subscription are either not very useful to the average person or don’t offer as much savings as they may seem to imply.
It also sometimes feels like a scam — especially when you hear stories of GoPro not refunding people who forgot to cancel their subscription and having it auto-renew for another year.
That said, all of the perks taken as one works out to $4 a month and maybe $.75 per perk/feature which seems not as bad.
And for anyone who is an avid GoPro user or looking to buy a GoPro camera, the perks or even just getting $100 off on your next camera may be enough to make it easily worth the price of $49 a year.
That’s it for this article on the GoPro Subscription.
Hopefully, you found it helpful but if you have any questions or corrections about the specs/features, feel free to tweet at me on Twitter or DM me on Instagram.
I also have a video looking at the GoPro Media Mod and whether it is worth it on my YouTube channel if you want to check it out.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
This post was last modified on 07/20/2023 6:33 am
With the launch of the HERO 13 (September 4th) and Action 5 Pro (September 19th),… Read More
What started largely as a way for me to keep track of the release dates… Read More
DJI's newest drone, the Air 3, features better flight time, a new OcuSync 4 transmission… Read More
The GoPro HERO 11 Mini is a great camera for FPV drone pilots and those… Read More
The Air 3 and Mini 3 Pro share a lot in common — the same… Read More
As of May 10, 2023, it has officially been a full year since DJI announced… Read More