Saying Goodbye to Freedom: Garmin inReach Shifts Subscription Services

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.

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?