Since 2014, we’ve been committed to providing you with high-quality connected cooking through the Anova Culinary app. It’s been thrilling to bring sous vide cooking into your kitchens and see the #anovafoodnerd community grow. We love being part of the journey, from your first sous vide cook to your latest culinary experiment.
As our community has grown, so have the demands on our resources. Our community has literally cooked 100s of millions of times with our app. Unfortunately, each connected cook costs us money. So, to continue delivering the exceptional service and innovative recipes you’ve come to expect, we’re introducing a small subscription fee for our app. The new Anova Sous Vide Subscription will allow us to maintain and enhance the app, ensuring it remains a valuable resource for all of our users. Here are the details:
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Who will this impact? Only new customers will have to pay for a subscription. Existing customers who have an account with us before August 21st, 2024, will not be charged a subscription fee. To be an existing user, you must have downloaded our app AND made an account in the app before August 21st, 2024. In the event you are an existing user, you will be grandfathered in to free usage of the app. You helped us build Anova and our intent is that you will be grandfathered in forever.
If you don't currently have an account but are using the app with your Bluetooth-connected cookers, after August 20th, you'll be asked to create an account in the Anova app so that we can automatically give you legacy / grandfather status and continued access to the full features of the app.
- What does it cost and what do customers get? The subscription will cost $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year USD. What you get with a subscription will vary from product to product, but in general, here’s what it includes:
- Anova Sous Vide Guides: Learn the basics with guides created by our experts. Choose your preferred level of doneness and press start to get cooking.
- Cook Notifications: Remote updates on your cook status.
- Recipe Discovery: Find recipes from award-winning chefs, #anovafoodnerds, and more.
- Recipe Saving: Bookmark your favorites and share your recipes with friends directly on the app.
- When will this go into effect? This subscription will go into effect on August 21st, 2024. Again, if you already have an account with us and purchased a product prior to August, 21 2024, there will be no change in our service for you.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support. Our mission is to change the way the world cooks and this subscription will help us to continue on with this mission. We are excited to keep cooking with you and can’t wait to see what you create next!
Stephen Svajian
Co-Founder and CEO
374 comments
Dear Mr. Svajian (and anyone else that this may concern),
While I understand rising operating costs for maintaining apps and an online community, I’m personally repulsed by the idea of purchasing a “smart” device that requires you to pay a subscription for basic “smart” functionality. I feel that this practice, while seemingly all the rage these days, is slimy and dishonest.
I’ve had my Anova for a couple years now, and I love it! In fact, I frequently tell many people how incredible sous vide cooking is with Anova and use your app and all its functionality to further elaborate my love for this cooking method. It is disheartening to me that you would change your business model to essentially continue charging customers for the pleasure of using your device. A similar move happened with the smart irrigation device company Skydrop not too long ago. Even as they added new (arguably unnecessary) features, they nevertheless forced their customers onto a subscription model. While this move was probably a last ditch effort to save the business, they ultimately were still forced to cease operations and burned all their customers on the way out.
In reading your email, I appreciate your willingness to not charge existing customers (for now), however due to this drastic shift, I’m writing to tell you that I will no longer be purchasing your products nor will I be recommending them to anyone. I realize that I’m basically a nobody in your eyes, but I suspect you will be receiving many more emails just like this, and I wholeheartedly urge you to reconsider your decision.
I won’t be buying another Anova product. Too many other options that are free.
Embarrassing for the company. Never recommending them again. Funny enough my current Anova actually needs a replacing and was planning to upgrade to a top tier model, for sure avoiding them now.
You have too many competitors to be making scummy decisions like this. Moving forward, I will never be purchasing, considering, or recommending any of your products.
Welp that’s it, I’m out. I have the APO and an immersion circulator from Anova but when it’s time to replace I’m going with another brand.
This is practically criminal.