Citymapper is lowering the paywall around its premium features and introducing a new subscription plan purely for removing ads.
The move comes less than two months after the popular transit and travel planning app was scooped up by mobility tech company Via.
London-based Citymapper, which gives city-dwellers real-time transport and routing information across hundreds of cities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, has dabbled with various ways of monetizing through the years, including through a paid bus service, multi-transport transport subscriptions, and an enterprise offering. Then back 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-only routes and turn-by-turn voice navigation.
Costing £2.99 a month or £19.99 a year, Citymapper Club, as the service is called, was evidently not enough to salvage the business as Via swooped in to buy the company six months later, in what was widely regarded as a firesale (though no acquisition price was ever confirmed).
Moving forward, all previous premium features will be free for all, with a new half-price £1.49 monthly fee for those wanting to remove advertising.
Citymapper: Premium features are now free Image Credits: TechCrunch / Screenshot
The premium features are now available to all users via the latest Citymapper app update on Android and iOS, and will apply to all regions where Citymapper operates.
Some features are limited to a specific platform for now though, for example lock-screen navigation is only available on iOS, whereas a feature that shows you the best time to leave for your destination is limited to Android.
