Trakt is a popular service that tracks everything you watch and syncs with popular media centers, automatically scrobbling what you're watching. As such, it is possible to subscribe to the service as a VIP to automate scrobbling to services such as Plex via a webhook, which is not available on the free tier.
VIP subscribers received an email about upcoming changes to their subscription in the past 24 hours. The gist is that pricing is changing across the board to a "standardized price" of $60 a year, wiping out any legacy, promotional, or grandfathered pricing.
The full email can be seen below:
Upcoming changes to your VIP membership pricing
Hi Redacted,
You've been with us since the early days, and we're incredibly grateful. Your support as a VIP member has helped shape Trakt into what it is today.
Starting May 20, 2025, all VIP renewals will move to a standardized price. This means that any legacy, promotional, or grandfathered pricing will no longer apply to renewals processed on or after that date. Instead, all VIP memberships will renew at the new standard rate going forward.
Here's how your VIP membership will change:
August 14, 2025 — Increases from $30/year to $60/year
Standardizing Trakt VIP renewal pricing is an important and necessary step forward. Here's why:Sustainability: Helps ensure Trakt remains financially healthy and independent long-term.
Development: Supports ongoing improvements and new features for the community.
Simplicity: Streamlines our billing system and reduces confusion.
Fairness: Aligns all VIP members under the same pricing structure.
We understand that pricing updates can be significant. Your VIP membership powers Trakt, and we're incredibly grateful for your continued support. This change allows us to keep building the features you love with the stability and resources required to improve Trakt for everyone.If you have any questions, just reply to this email or post in the forums. Thanks again for being a part of the Trakt community.
— The Trakt Team
However, this goes against promises made by Justin Nemeth, Co-Founder of Trakt, when the company started experimenting with the new pricing late last year:
"If you’re existing VIP member, nothing changes and you keep your existing pricing. This means a Trakt OG on the $15/yr plan keeps their pricing. And it means Trakt VIPs paying $30/yr keep that pricing. As long as you remain an active VIP, you’re grandfathered in at your price point. If you have issue or a failed renewal, just contact support and we will honor the price."
At the time of Justin's post, the new pricing was not 'official' in that it had not been communicated to existing subscribers. Any legacy subscriber could contact support to have their renewal corrected to the legacy pricing.
According to WayBackMachine, Trakt last changed its pricing sometime between March and May 2015 from $15 to $30 a year, and even back then, still honored legacy, grandfathered pricing to those on the $15 a year tier.
Although it's still too early to tell (the email was sent mere hours ago), some users have already begun to show their displeasure with the upcoming changes to pricing.
"Yeah, ouch, a 400% increase going forward after next year.
$15 to $60. Rough."
One user suggested that people renew before May 20 to get a final year at $30, but for many, this will mean resubscribing months earlier than the current subscription runs out.
Trakt has yet to comment on the community posts, and we have reached out to the company for comment about why they are no longer honoring legacy pricing.
Update May 18: Trakt has not got back to me, and as one reader pointed out. The email appears to violate their own terms of service (TOS) by announcing the price hike coming into effect in less than 30 days.
Maybe you could add to your article that they are not only going back on their statement from September, but are also breaking their own T&C's of at least 30 days notice. Not to be trusted at all now!
— Nicola Krawczyk (@nicola_krawczyk) May 17, 2025
Emphasis, ours
The email was sent to subscribers on May 13th stating that the price change goes into effect a week later on May 20, however in Trakt's own TOS it clearly states that any price changes would be communicated to members "at least 30 days' notice prior to a change in price or your subscription".
An alternative
One of the main features of Trakt, is the ability to sync watched content between media servers such as Plex and Emby, Plex uses a webhook which requires VIP access, and Emby uses a plugin that requires a PIN. If all you care about is to sync watched state between media servers, then you could explore using WatchState, although this requires installing via Docker.
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