Are you comparing Trainingpeaks vs TriDot?
Trainingpeaks and TriDot are two of the well-known training plan apps for endurance athletes. They will both allow you to train for triathlons and running races, while Trainingpeaks will also help swimrun athletes, cyclists, duathletes, and other athletes train for their races as well.
Each app offers triathlon training and endurance plans, but the type of athlete they're best for is different.
The main difference between Trainingpeaks and TriDot is that Trainingpeaks is best for athletes who want a lot of performance data while working with a coach or functioning as their own coach. TriDot is primarily for triathletes who want a training plan that's created for them without the use of a coach or doing the coaching work yourself.
In this article, we'll discuss all the pros and cons of Trainingpeaks and TriDot, and we'll answer the following questions you might have:
- What are the main features of Trainingpeaks and TriDot?
- What are the pros and cons of Trainingpeaks and TriDot?
- How much do Trainingpeaks and TriDot cost?
- Are Trainingpeaks and TriDot good for beginners?
- What athletes should consider Trainingpeaks vs TriDot?
BONUS: We'll also be discussing our app MOTTIV, which is a really good alternative to Trainingpeaks and TriDot if these two apps don't sound quite right for you.
Trainingpeaks vs. TriDot vs. MOTTIV Summary
Trainingpeaks Review
Trainingpeaks Overview
Trainingpeaks is an app that can be used on the web or in their mobile application that provides training tools for endurance athletes and their coaches. Athletes can create their own training plans from scratch, purchase template training plans, or work with a coach who will create their workouts in the Trainingpeaks app.
Athletes can connect their fitness devices to download workout data to their devices, and their workout data will be imported into Trainingpeaks, where users can review their workout stats and track their training progress.
Compared to TriDot, Trainingpeaks is much more straightforward to use, offers more performance statistics, and has more options if you want to work with a 1-on-1 coach.
Trainingpeaks Pros
- Connections: Trainingpeaks connects to more fitness devices and other apps than any training app on the market. If you want to synchronize your fitness data with a less popular fitness device (like Coros or Suunto, for example), Trainingpeaks will work for you.
- Fitness data: Premium Trainingpeaks users can get a huge amount of performance data when they synchronize their fitness devices. Coaches love the ability to get almost any fitness metric they can imagine.
- Training plan options: Athletes can purchase training plans from tens of thousands of coaches from all around the world who have uploaded template training plans for any event you can think of.
Trainingpeaks Cons
- Free version: Athletes don't get much for free on Trainingpeaks. Athletes can't get a training plan done for them without paying for it, and the stats free users can track are very limited.
- Cost: In order to get many of the progress-tracking features people want to monitor, athletes need to be on a paid plan. In addition to this, athletes must purchase almost all training plans, which cost an average of $75 for four months of training.
- Ease of Use: Trainingpeaks isn't very self-serve, you typically need to learn how to work the app to get training plans to work for you.
- Training plans: One of the biggest cons of Trainingpeaks is that if you purchase multiple training plans for a full season of racing, the training plans will conflict with each other. You may end up with workouts from four different training plans, all on the same day, and not have any guidance on how to train for multiple races at one time.
- Training personalization: Training plans are based on templates, and while many training plans allow for some level of personalization, they're still generic templates.
- Holistic training: Many training plans in Trainingpeaks won't have strength workouts, mobility workouts, or workout nutrition advice. These added aspects of training are critical for keeping you healthy and allowing you to get the most from your training.
- Motivation: Trainingpeaks doesn't have many features that work to keep athletes on track and motivated to reach their goals.
Trainingpeaks Ease of Use
Trainingpeaks is designed primarily for coaches to use to manage their athletes, so it's not designed to be a self-serve app that you can easily use on your own.
Athletes who like learning about training and designing their own training plans will like learning how to use Trainingpeaks, but athletes who just want a training plan that's done for them will have a lot to learn to get comfortable using the app.
Who is Trainingpeaks Best For?
Trainingpeaks is an excellent app for athletes who are working with a 1-1 endurance sports coach or self-coached athletes who want to dive into all the data that they possibly can want from their training.
Trainingpeaks Pricing
- Free: limited features
- Paid: $19.95/month, $49/quarter, or $124.99/year
- Training plans: $75/four months (on average)
TriDot Review
TriDot Overview
TriDot is a computer app and smartphone based app that creates training plans for running races and triathlons. The app creates detailed workouts to prepare for triathlons from Sprint to 70.3 and IRONMAN distance, and running races from 5k to marathon (but there's a catch with the running races.)
TriDot offers performance metrics to monitor your progress and a neat score where you rank out of 100 in your swim, bike, and run skills.
TriDot is primarily focused on helping triathletes, and while the company has recently launched Rundot, they still aren't supporting running races fully (more on this below.)
Compared to Trainingpeaks, TriDot is much better for athletes who want a training plan that's created for them without having to work with a coach or know how to create training on your own.
TriDot Pros
- Integrations: TriDot connects with a lot of devices and apps, such as Garmin, Polar, Strava, Wahoo, Rouvy, Trainerroad, and Suunto.
- Offers premium training options: Athletes who use higher priced plans on TriDot can choose to add features like strength training, find a 1-on-1 coach to work with, or even use RaceX to get a race strategy plan.
- Performance metrics: TriDot tracks your performance statistics, and the swim, bike, and run scores are a nice bit of motivation to give you incentives to keep training regularly.
- Minimal user interface: Once you learn how to use TriDot, the layout is visually attractive and feels modern.
- Plans and schedules can be customized: Training plans aren't strictly template training plans; users can customize their calendar and weekly training schedule.
TriDot Cons
- Expensive: TriDot doesn't have a free version and will cost at least $99/month if you want to add more than three races at a time and get strength training in your plan. The lowest-priced plan is $14.99, and athletes can only train for one Sprint or Olympic triathlon on this plan.
- No running plans (pretty much): Running plans are clearly not given as much importance as triathlon plans for athletes. Even when you sign up with what TriDot calls their run training app, Rundot, you just get kicked over to TriDot. Athletes can't add 5k or 10k races as their most important race of the year.
- Adding races: Adding races can be confusing for athletes and has noticeable limitations. Adding a race requires users to get redirected to RaceX, and adding races that aren't in their database is difficult.
- Questionable tactics: TriDot has used some "questionable" communications tactics in the past. They used to use a marketing tactic where athletes would have to apply to become a TriDot athlete, even though every single person who applied got accepted. During the winter of 2022-23, they teased free use of the app if athletes took part in a study, which came across as just a way to hook athletes into using the app with a long free trial. And recently, they've "launched" RunDot, which was touted as their running-specific training app, but when you sign up, you'll just get redirected to the normal Tridot app.
- Odd user experience: Some odd things happen when using the app. For example, when you try to load your future calendar, the app will look like you're loading the future weeks, but it just keeps loading your current week. There are a number of odd user interface experiences like this that are noticeable when you first start using the app.
- Confusing setup: Generally, there are a lot of different offerings that can make it confusing to use the app. Should you use RunDot, why is RaceX a separate app, and why do you need RaceX just to add a race to your TriDot account? Which of the five different pricing options should you use? When I sign up, it says I'm on the Mark Allen plan, which costs $149/month, but I didn't choose that plan, so why am I on the most expensive plan?
- Set up requires time to learn: There are a number of areas of the app where how to use the app isn't easy. For example, learning how to change your weekly training schedule or even add a race takes several minutes to figure out how to do.
TriDot Ease of Use
When you first sign up for TriDot, it will take some time to figure out all the nuances of using the app, it's not going to be intuitive and will take some time to learn.
After a day or two with the app, most users should be able to use TriDot with ease. They just have to understand how to work around some of the limitations.
Who is TriDot Best For?
TriDot is best for triathletes who don't want strength training in their plans and want a training plan created for them.
TriDot Pricing
- No free plan
- Paid: at least $14.99/month, but the full version people will actually want costs $99/month
BONUS: MOTTIV Review
MOTTIV Overview
MOTTIV is an app that can be used on the web or in their mobile application that creates a personalized training plan for athletes looking to prepare for any combination of running races, triathlons, cycling events, duathlons, and swimruns.
Athletes just need to enter the dates and distances of their races, how much time they're able to train, and their current fitness abilities, and they'll receive a personalized training plan that gets them ready for all their races at the same time.
MOTTIV excels at keeping athletes on track to reach their goals. Getting a training plan is one thing, but having the support and motivation you need to stick to that plan is far more important. MOTTIV keeps you motivated throughout the training process so you always know that you're on track and your goals are within reach.
MOTTIV Pros
- Ease of use: MOTTIV is designed for athletes who want a training plan that's done for them and easy to follow. All you need to do is input a little bit of data, then be ready to show up willing to work and follow the plan every day you have training scheduled.
- Unlimited training plans: Whether you have one race or 20 races to train for, MOTTIV can create a training plan that gets you ready for all of them. Premium members can add as many races as they want at no additional cost.
- Strength & Mobility: MOTTIV strength and mobility workouts are full-length videos that you can follow along with to make sure you're doing the right thing.
- Nutrition guidance: Eating the right thing before, during, and after your workouts will make every single workout you complete much more effective. Every single workout in the MOTTIV app has nutrition recommendations that are personalized to you.
- Progress stats: MOTTIV tracks and displays all your workout and progress stats for you. You don't need to learn how to work the app or where to find stats to know if you're on track or not. MOTTIV easily shows you what you need to know to know if you're headed in the right direction.
- Motivation: MOTTIV has some really excellent features that help keep you on track with your training plan because we all need a little support sometimes.
- Cost: MOTTIV provides all your endurance training, strength training, mobility training, personalized workout nutrition, and stats tracking, all in one place for one flat fee. Getting all these services separately would cost well over $60/month.
MOTTIV Cons
- Workout complexity: Some people find our workouts can be hard to understand when they first start using the app if they're new to endurance sports.
- Device connections: MOTTIV currently offers full workout synchronization with Garmin, as well as connections to sync with other apps such as Trainingpeaks, Strava, Wahoo, Zwift, and more. But our list of possible connections isn't as robust as Trainingpeaks.
- Lack of flexibility: While most people want a training plan they can follow, some people want a training plan that they can customize themselves to add and subtract workouts as they see fit. MOTTIV is designed strictly for you to follow along as close as possible.
- Slow interface: MOTTIV hasn't been around for as long as Trainingpeaks or TriDot, so some screens take a couple of seconds to load because the app is still being fully optimized.
MOTTIV Ease of Use
MOTTIV is designed to be the easiest app for endurance athletes to use. All you need to enter to create a personalized training plan are your race dates and distances, how much time you're able to train, and your current fitness abilities.
In addition to it being easy to create training plans, the MOTTIV app has features throughout the app that tell you why and how to perform every aspect of your training so you're never left guessing.
Who is MOTTIV Best For?
MOTTIV is best for athletes who are looking for a holistic training plan that includes endurance workouts, strength training, mobility workouts, and nutrition guidance.
If you are the type of person who wants to know what to do and have just a little help to know that you're on track and doing it right, then MOTTIV is for you.
MOTTIV Pricing
- Free plan
- Paid: $19.99/month, $179.99/year
Trainingpeaks vs. TriDot vs. MOTTIV: Which One is Better?
When comparing Trainingpeaks, TriDot, and MOTTIV, the answer to which one is better is, like most things, it depends.
If you have a larger budget and you like figuring out training on your own, you have a coach, and diving into your training as deep as possible is important to you, then Trainingpeaks is right for you.
Of course, we're biased, but we can't recommend TriDot given that you can get more for free at MOTTIV, for what costs $14.99/month on TriDot. And in fact, for just $19.99/month on MOTTIV, you get more than what costs $99/month at TriDot.
If you're looking for a holistic training plan app that can create a personalized training plan for multiple races at a time and keeps you motivated to stay on track to reach your goals, then MOTTIV is the app for you.
