Citymapper lowers the paywall around its premium features and introduces a new plan purely for ad removal.
The move comes less than two months after the popular transportation and travel planning app was snapped up by mobility technology company Via.
London-based Citymapper, which provides city residents with real-time transport and route information about hundreds of cities in Europe, Asia and the Americas, has tried various ways to make money over the years, including through a paid bus service, subscriptions to multiple transports and a company offer. Then, in September, the company launched a new subscription-based service that removed ads from the app and introduced a slew of premium features, including lock screen navigation, bus routes, and turn-by-turn voice navigation.
Citymapper Club, as the service is called, cost $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year and apparently wasn’t enough to save the company, as six months later Via stepped in to buy the company, in what was generally was considered a fire sale (although no acquisition price was ever confirmed).
Going forward, all previous premium features will be free for everyone, with a new half price of $1.49 per month ($9.99 per year) for those who want to remove ads.
Citymapper’s premium features are now free. Image Credits: AapkaDost / Screenshot
Getting the transit data of millions of city travelers was clearly a big selling point for Via when it bought Citymapper, so it makes sense that it would try to encourage more usage by using all its features for free. And by maintaining an ad-free plan, the company can cover its costs and make money right away from a product it now has to maintain alongside its existing properties.
The premium features are available to all users through the latest Citymapper app update that quietly rolled out last week on Android and iOS.
However, some features are limited to a specific platform for now, for example, locked screen navigation is only available on iOS, while a feature that shows you the best time to leave for your destination is limited to Android.