Saying Goodbye to Freedom: Garmin inReach Shifts Subscription Services
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Today Garmin inReach Freedom plan subscribers received notification from Garmin that it is discontinuing the Freedom plans. With Freedom plans users would pay an annual $34.95 at sign up and then once a year. They could turn off their service and start it up whenever they liked without having to pay an activation fee. They could choose from three different plans when they reactivated the service. Now, Freedom plans are discontinued. Current Freedom subscribers will be migrated over to the new plans starting December 2024.
The New Enabled Feature – $7.99 a month
Instead of being able to completely suspend your service, Garmin now offers a $7.99 per month enabled feature. This allows you to use Emergency SOS Messaging for the price of $7.99 a month, but all the other features cost extra.
This isn’t an official plan that you can subscribe to, but in Garmin’s wording “if you start to change or cancel your subscription an Enabled state of operation will be presented.” In other words, this is a cancellation offer that they present to you to keep you subscribed.
Suspending vs. Cancelling vs. Activation Fees
With the Freedom plans if you cancelled monthly plan, you would have service until the end of the month. With the new plans if you cancel, the cancellation takes effect immediately and deactivates the inReach. If you don’t have any activity on your account for two years, Garmin deletes it.
Not having service until the end of month after a cancellation places a bigger burden on you to cancel right at the last day of your service needs. It’s is pretty annoying.
It costs $39.99 to reactivate.
How much more will it cost?
The new pricing could cost more or less depending on your current usage. The annual program fee of $34.95 is now gone, but there’s not a way to completely suspend your service and avoid a monthly Enabled service fee without cancelling your service. Then you have to pay $39.99 to reactivate it.
If you are like me and only use the inReach a couple of consecutive months a year, this new plan might cost you more depending on what plan you choose in the past.
The basic plan, which was called “Freedom Safety,” is now called Essential. It goes up in price a few cents to $14.99. In this case for two months of service plus a activation fee, you’ll end up paying $5.08 more a year. The plan now includes 40 extra text messages, 10 photo and voice messages (if you have the new inReach Messenger Plus satellite communicator), and premium weather or marine weather only costs one text message now. Tracking remains at $0.10 each.
The price for other subscription levels drops. The Freedom Recreation plan, which is now called the Standard plan, drops from $34.95 to $29.99 a month. The Freedom Expedition drops from $64.95 to $49.99 a month under a new plan called the Premium plan. Both of these plans include upgrades.
If you were using these plans for a couple of consecutive months a year, you’ll come out ahead. For example, last year I used the Freedom Recreation plan for two months, and it cost me $104.85 total for the year. Under the new plans, it would cost me $99.97 assuming I cancel and pay the activation fee. I’d also have 150 messages versus 40, and 25 photo and video messages if I bought the new Messenger Plus.
Who Gets the Biggest Cost Increase?
The person who is going to get the biggest cost increase is someone with the Freedom plan who uses their inReach a couple of nonconsecutive months a year. There’s no way around paying two $39.99 activation fees or paying for months of the Enabled plan.
For example, one year I paddled the Rio Grande in spring and did the Boundary Waters in the fall. I only need two months of service that year, but the services were months apart. Depending on the number of months between the trips, it might be worth cancelling or subscribing to Enabled for a few months. Regardless, it’s going to cost you more than in the past.
Here’s a chart that I put together.
| Plan | Months | Monthly Plan Cost | Annual Fee | Activations | Enabled | Total Cost |
| Freedom Safety (Old) | 2 | $14.95 | $34.99 | NA | NA | $64.89 |
| Essential (New) Just using Enabled for months not needed. | 2 | $14.99 | NA | $0 if plan isn’t cancelled | $79.90 (10 Months | $109.88 |
| Essential (New). Cancelling between needs. | 2 | $14.99 | NA | $79.98 (x2) | $0 | $109.92 |
| Essential (New). Using some Enabled between trips. | 2 months with 4 months between trips. Cancel after 2nd trip. | $14.99 | $39.99 | $31.96 (4 months) | $101.93 |
Does Anyone Come Out Ahead?
Some users do come out ahead with these new plans. Freedom plan users who were using the service for the entire year will come out ahead, but they would have probably been on the annual plan instead. It was cheaper for users that needed the service for every month of the year.
Annual plan users that make the switch get extra texts and photo and voice, but it will cost them $36.48, $65, or $0.48 a year depending on the plan, which is safety, recreation, expedition, respectively.
For now annual plan users can stay on their same plans, which may be worth it.
Subscriptions Shifts
Whenever a company changes their subscription plans, it is seldom in the consumer’s favor. For me depending on the level of service I need for the year, I may come out a little ahead. In other years, it’s may cost me up to $44.99 more a year. That doesn’t make me happy. I feel a lot like a captured customer. If I switch services, it’s going to cost me more to buy a new device. When I have to replace my old inReach, I’ll be shopping around and maybe I’ll buy into a different system. Maybe it’ll just be my phone.
How about you? What are you going to do with these new plans?
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15 Comments
Chris Norbury
Thanks for the comparison chart, Bryan. I just bought an InReach last month to use on my annual BW trip. I planned to cancel my monthly Freedom Recreation plan at the end of Sept. I’m not sure what I’ll do going forward.
FYI, to add to what Bryan shared, here’s Garmin’s comparison page for all old and new plans:
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=nVmBNWZg1v3zNcPXlBnlI8
It might help others make the best decision for their situations. I agree that change for the consumer usually means costlier.
Logan
Thank you for this write-up. I was reading through the website and it was looking good until I got to the very last line about “Enabled” prices and “Activation fees”. The devil is in the details and as someone who uses this only a few non-consecutive months a year, this new structure increases my cost substantially. Not a fan.
Tom
I almost glazed over my Garmin email assuming it would be junk but boy am I glad I checked it. My inReach sits in a cupboard most of the year and only gets used for a few hikes. Now it’ll cost me to active every time? Guess I’m shopping for alternatives.
Dennis
I am dropping this service, not about cost but corporate greed and manipulation and the disservice that flows thru its lackeys and shell men
Alastair Inglis
I bought an GPSmap 66i for use during a remote Central Australia trip in 2022 where mobile phone coverage is very limited.
One of my product selection criteria was that I could switch on and switch off the monthly fee.
I was happy with the annual fee of AUD 54 and the monthly basic plan fee was AUD25.
Now to retain the device and to use it the monthly fee is US$14.99 which is approx AUD 22 per month or $264 per year. So from AUD 54 plus say 2 months plan fee equaling approx $104 for a two month trip I am now paying more than double the cost.
Garmin should ‘grandfather’ all the existing users on to their existing fee structure and only introduce the new monthly fee service for new users.
Badging this change as ” simpler and easier” is highly misleading. Its a money grabbing con by Garmin.
Alastair Inglis
Alan Cole
This is terrible for me – occasional user for non- consecutive months. I only bought the InReach Mini2 10 days ago, I’ve used it on one trip and had intended to pay just for the months it was needed. Now I can’t do that without paying the activation fee each time, or paying the monthly ‘enabled fee’ year round. Feel a bit cheated having researched all the prices and decided what I was comfortable with just a week ago but have now had the goalposts changed already.
Isabel
Same to me! Just bought it for a trip in October and wanted to activate it now. But I missed the plans I was looking at three weeks ago :-( I am very disappointed about this change. This is really unattractive for an occasionally user!
James
This is a bit misleading. There was always an annual fee of around $34 and an activation fee of around $30 that was charged. The new plan has a re-activation fee of $39 if I want to cancel in between.
It might come out to a bit more cost-wise, but you also get a bit more if you leave it activated because with the old plans you would have a useless brick until you decided to activate it fully. I’d much rather pay only $8-per-month to have an SOS-capable device to throw in my car than either have to pony up for a full $14-per-month plan or choose a brick that can’t send anything. I also don’t have to pay a yearly fee if I’m a regular subscriber (which I am) which I used to have to do *even if I kept service going all year long.*
Bryan Hansel
For some people, it will work out. If someone wants to have an active subscription all year, then the $7.99 per month may work well for that person. For those of us that just used it for a few months a year and didn’t care to have it outside of those months, then it ends up costing more. For most years, it’s going to cost me personally more than I paid in the past, and it’s just going to sit on the shelf even though it is active.
Andy
I feel cheated.
Bought an Inreach just recently with the older plan structure for 2 hiking holidays per year, now I’m forced to pay a whopping 60% more for an equivalent plan.
Garmin is exploiting its position of (near) monopoly to squeeze more money out of users and misleadingly calling it a simplification of its plan structure. I wish there were more companies offering a good alternative.
SEL
It gives me a queasy feeling to have a company sell me a product highlighting the fact that I only have to pay for the “subscription” when I’m actually using it. THEN, change the mandatory subscription so that isn’t true! Meaning, the product is useless unless I submit to their demands and their promises are meaningles. This, all by itself, would preclude me from ever buying another Garmin product.
I don’t really lose much money, but don’t trust the company anymore.
Logan
I was researching plans today (depressing) and in looking over Garmin’s current options, they don’t mention the ability to go to a cheaper “enabled” anywhere! It’s still there in the original support article but I’m wondering if the ability was removed. In other words: pay the auto-renewing monthly cost or you will have re-activation fees of $40.
Bryan Hansel
My understanding is that you have to cancel your currently plan before it is offered. When you go through the cancellation process, then “enabled” will show up. I haven’t tried this, but that was my understanding when they announced the changes.
Logan
That was my understanding as well, but look on their plan listings now and they don’t mention anything about the ability to suspend.
Bryan Hansel
“Essential, Standard, and Premium plans no longer have the option to suspend service. However, if you start to change or cancel your subscription an Enabled state of operation will be presented. This Enabled state is not available for new activations and will only be available when making changes to an existing plan. The Enabled state provides a way of keeping the inReach device active and ready for use in an emergency situation at a low monthly cost.”
Here’s the article in their support center that addresses Enabled: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=gZRPJT2F4l3kG6vrZEpM8A