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Which of the four plans? Start by counting this year's races
AeroPacer has four plans: Free, Race Pass, CdA Pro and the Coach plan.
Before you choose, ask yourself one thing: how many races are you doing this year? Answer that, and the plan usually picks itself.
1. Free: building a plan costs nothing
A free account gets you the core of race planning: elevation profiles and speed scores for 211 real courses, the global course rankings, a CdA looked up from your height, weight and position, and a six-level power plan worked out segment by segment along the course profile, complete with the segment power chart, segment table and climbing check. Your own uploaded GPX routes work too. Changing parameters and recalculating is free, and every plan is saved to My plans automatically. Signing up takes only an email address, no credit card.
What the free plan leaves out is three things: race-day weather and wind direction, tire pressure advice, and output files. The free plan always assumes 21°C and no wind.
Why draw the line there? Because all three are tied to one particular race day. A course's grades will not change in ten years, but the wind changes every day. On Penghu's flat course, the same power gives very different times on a day when the April monsoon is blowing and on a day with no wind. What the free plan gives you is what the course looks like and roughly how to spread your power. For deciding whether to enter, and which race, that is plenty.
2. Race Pass: pay once for one race
A Race Pass costs US$15 and covers one course for one year. It adds back the three things the free plan leaves out:
- An hourly race-day forecast (while race day is still too far out, actual records for the same time of year in past years are used), wind direction worked out segment by segment, and power bumped up one level automatically on headwind stretches;
- Tire pressure advice based on tire width, casing, road surface and your estimated average speed;
- Output files: a .FIT course file for your head unit, a Zwift workout, and a race card to tape to your bike.
It also adds two things you only get for that race: your CdA calculated from your own FIT file, which replaces the typical lookup value with your own number (with an error range) and goes straight into this plan; and a post-race comparison, where you upload the file from the day and compare plan against actual segment by segment.
Why one course for one year rather than a monthly fee? Because you prepare for a race over several months and the forecast only becomes reliable a few days out, so you will come back and recalculate at different points along the way. Recalculate the same race as often as you like, right up until you have raced it.
How far a table value can be from a measured one is something I covered in What is CdA, using my own 8.1% miss in Vietnam. A Race Pass lets you get that step done before race day.
Who is it for? Anyone doing one or two races a year who does not usually upload training files.
3. CdA Pro: turn your aero drag into long-term data
CdA Pro is US$19 a month, or US$190 a year (two months free). You get everything in the Race Pass, on every course, as often as you like, plus what a Race Pass cannot do:
- Any course, uploaded in batches. Drag in training rides, outdoor rides and race files in bulk, and every file gets its CdA estimated and stored automatically.
- More accurate the more you test. Records are combined with the more accurate ones weighted more heavily, which gives you a stable CdA and an error range that narrows with every record. Drafting, a puncture, the wrong bike type, a position falling apart: the system flags them automatically and tells you in plain language why that record cannot be trusted.
- Equipment comparison. Tag any record, and records with the same tag are merged and compared automatically, with the difference converted straight into seconds over 90 km. My routes also lets you put your CdA on a time trial stretch you ride regularly and simulate it.
- Single-record deep analysis. A plain-language summary card, a virtual elevation curve and a 30 s rolling CdA, so you can see what actually happened that day.
- Apply the result to any plan in one click. Original files are kept, and when the engine is upgraded, your whole history is recalculated automatically.
Why is one race file not enough? Because a single estimate always carries that day's wind and temperature error. Only with more records does the error range narrow and the number become steadier than any single estimate. Every 0.01 of CdA is worth about 1.8 min over 90 km, and a new helmet or moving a bottle can be worth that much. To know whether a change actually helped, you first need a ruler accurate enough to measure it.
On price alone, the Race Pass is cheaper: even three races a year is only three passes. What CdA Pro buys is the one thing a pass cannot do: turning all of your ride files into a CdA that keeps getting more accurate. You can also subscribe for the season and stop in the off-season; your data is kept.
Who is it for? Anyone racing three or more times a year, or anyone who wants to treat CdA as a training metric and test equipment seriously.
4. Coach plan: one coach, a whole squad
The Coach plan is US$39 a month, or US$390 a year. You get everything in CdA Pro, plus tools organized per athlete: athlete profiles (store their parameters once, load them into any plan in one click), CdA management for each athlete (drag batches of FIT files into their profile, write the result in with one click, and it loads into their plans automatically), a post-race comparison that re-estimates CdA and writes it back to the profile in one click, and plan history filed by athlete, ready to load and recalculate at any time. Every course can be paced with each athlete's own measured CdA, as often as you like.
There are two tiers. Coach links up to 4 athletes. Coach Team, US$69 a month (or US$690 a year), has no limit. Linking means you send an invite and the athlete accepts with their own account. From then on you both manage their parameters, CdA history and race plans, and every linked athlete automatically gets CdA Pro. Athletes without an account can still be set up as profiles, with no limit. Coach can be upgraded to Coach Team at any time, with the difference prorated.
I coach more than thirty athletes on TrainingPeaks, and in season a single weekend can have four or five of them racing on different courses. Every one of them has a different CdA and gets different weather on race day. What the Coach plan does is keep each athlete's own numbers in their own profile, load them automatically when you build a plan, and update them automatically after the race. What eats most of a coach's time is keeping everyone's details in the right place, and that is the job the system takes over.
Who is it for? Coaches and clubs working with several athletes.
5. A few things to know up front
- Payments go through Stripe, and card numbers never touch our servers. Prices are shown in the local currency for the language you are browsing in.
- Subscriptions can be upgraded, downgraded or canceled at any time (Manage subscription and payment, on the dashboard). A cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Plans you have built and your original CdA files are kept, so resubscribing picks up where you left off.
- A Race Pass is a one-off purchase: one course for one year, with no cancellation. It is refundable, though, until you download the plan files for that race: email support@aeropacer.com. Once downloaded it counts as delivered and is no longer refundable. Check the course and the race date before buying.
- Plans built on a free account do not disappear. Upgrade to any plan later, recalculate the same plan, and the weather, tire pressure and output files are filled in.
Everything in one table
| Free | Race Pass | CdA Pro | Coach plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 211 courses, rankings, six-level power plan, GPX | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Race-day weather and wind, tire pressure, output files | that race | every course | every course | |
| CdA from your FIT file, post-race comparison | that race | any course, in batches | any course, in batches | |
| Long-term CdA, equipment comparison, My routes, deep analysis | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Athlete profiles, CdA kept per athlete, plans filed by athlete | ✓ | |||
| Price | Free | US$15 per race | US$19 a month | US$39 a month |
So start by counting this year's races. Racing once? Buy a pass. Want to know whether that equipment change actually did anything? Subscribe to CdA Pro. Coaching athletes? Take the Coach plan. Strip it down and the four plans differ in one thing only: how much of what the engine is working with is really yours.
