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
368 comments
Will there be a basic app that doesn’t require a subscription.. I only use the app for over settings because the user interface of the oven incredibly cumbersome when doing multi stage cooks without the app. Without the app this oven has about the same functionality as an analog toaster oven or basic air fryer. Can I suggest maybe making the Pay portion for access to your recipe database and leave the setting portion free. Making the whole thing subscription based has turned me off to the idea of recommending the oven. It’s ready a premium product charged at a premium price, not to mention that it’s not the only shiny new product on the market. There are quite a few other products nipping on your heels. Some with the features you guys left out. The reoccurring revenue trap should be only used for entry-level products in my opinion. Fortunately, I’ve been using your product since they first came out so I’m grandfathered in But if chasing subscriptions and not delivering frequent updates to the functionality of your apps, is your future plans. I might end up taking a look at products that don’t require an app for functionality.
Every company that requires subscription to use their hardware that is bought and paid for deserves to fail. You know BMW wanted subscription for heated seats? Guess how that worked out…
I’ve been a happy anova user since 2018. I used my circulator so much that I upgraded to the pro around 2020. The app has always been underwhelming and there were times in 2020-2021 where its functionality with the pro model was broken/barely not working. The app is incredibly slow (and I’m running it on an iPhone 15 Pro) and it’s usually faster for me to adjust the time and temp manually on the device than set it in the app.
The recipes are okay but they’re also nothing to write home about. I liked that in the past, other Anova users could publish and share recipes for any other user to save and use. You realize by charging access (even if it’s for new users only), you will destroy this incentive, right? Why would I ever publish a recipe I made to the app if they’re going to charge others to view it? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to provide residuals for any published recipie that’s used or saved by others. Why would I ever share a recipe to a company that will turn around and charge others money for the luxury of viewing it?
Also as someone who works in computer engineering and works for a Fortune 500 tech company, there is absolutely no technical or cost justification for putting very basic features like temp control and remote notifications behind a paywall.
First of all, you tell me that the product I purchased will lose its connectivity in the near future. I would expect to keep using all the features I originally paid for. It’s a heating element with temperature control, which should last for many years. But now, even though you’ll grandfather me in, your app will become a paid subscription. Your company seems to be on a mission to discourage people from buying your products in the future. It’s very sad, and I simply will not recommend or buy another product from your company, even though I’ve had a positive experience up until now. That is, until someone made these questionable decisions. Very sad indeed.
I am saddened to hear about the direction Anova is choosing to go both about the original precision cooker and this subscription business.
I chose to take advantage of the coupon offer for the new model but I will be initiating an RMA at this point, even though I am grandfathered because this is not a practice I support nor one that this product should be designed to require.