Rich with stats, highly customizable, and with an astoundingly low price for Elite membership ($4.99 per year) Runmeter may be the most comprehensive iPhone running app there is. It's made by Abvio, which also makes one of my favorite fitness apps for bicycling, Cyclemeter. Similar to Cyclemeter, Runmeter tracks just about everything there is to track during your outdoor workouts, from pace and distance to how many miles you've put on your sneakers, though some of the stats are for Elite members only. Data-obsessed runners won't do better than Runmeter for iPhone.
Getting Started
Bursting at the seams with features, Runmeter can seem overwhelming at first glance. After a run, you might find yourself swiping through as many as seven screens of information, with oodles of data points and graphs on each one.
Thankfully, Runmeter does a great job of letting you pare down the firehose of information to a more reasonable level. You can customize screens with data you care most to see and even eliminate screens altogether if you don't find them relevant.
When you first establish a Runmeter account, you'll want to enter some details about yourself, such as age, sex, height, and weight so Runmeter can better estimate your calorie burn after runs, but you don't have to register an email address if you'd rather not. For people who are concerned about companies collecting their data, Runmeter lets you decide how much information you want to give the app. Most other running apps require an email address at the very least to establish an account.
Similar Products
Endomondo (for iPhone)
Runtastic PRO (for iPhone)
Strava
MapMyRun (for iPhone)
Pear Personal Coach (for iPhone)
Cyclemeter (for iPhone)
If you download the app and are itching to hit the road, trails, or treadmill (indoor running supported), Runmeter won't get in your way. You can very easily launch the app, make sure Location Services are enabled, and press a big green Start button on the home screen to get moving.
Runmeter Elite vs. Free
If you are a free Runmeter user, you'll see a lot of settings and options grayed out as you explore the app. Those features are for Elite (i.e., paying) Runmeter members only, and include the ability to keep track of how many miles you put on a pair of shoes, audio feedback, auto-pause, and quite a few others, some of which I'll name below. But first, a word on pricing:
Quite a few features sit high atop the for-pay mountain, but the $4.99 per year membership is more than reasonable. Compare it with just about any other running app, and the value is crystal clear. Endomondo, for example, charges $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year for its Premium membership. The popular app Strava, which is fantastic if you are motivated by competition, costs $6 per month or $59 annually. An MVP account with Map My Run or Map My Fitness costs the same as Endomondo Premium. And Runtastic, one of my favorite running apps overall, still offers a one-time flat fee for Runtastic PRO ($4.99), a big reason it's our Editors' Choice.
As you can see, a year of Runmeter Elite costs the same or less than a single month's worth of premium features in other apps. Runtastic PRO is the only contender for value.
Let's get back to those Elite-only features. Are they important, and do you need them?
Elite membership does get rid of ads, but the ads are not at all intrusive in Runmeter. They are full-page pop-ups that are easily dismissed. I've never seen them play video. I don't mind the ads one bit.
Training plans are for Elite members only, which is common among running apps, but some training plans actually come included. Runmeter offers running schedules that prepare you for 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon races for free.
Auto-pause, which tells the app to stop recording your run when you pause at a stop light or to tie your shoe, is a feature I certainly like to have, but isn't a deal-breaker.
Only Elite members can use an Apple Watch ($300.00 at eBay) with their Runmeter app, which is a total bummer. Because the Apple Watch is still quite new, I'd imagine there's great value in letting Runmeter users experiment with it for free. It might be just the thing that gets people hooked on the app and leads them to pay for an Elite account.
Another weird limitation is that if you are a free user, you can't connect to Facebook or Twitter to share your progress and achievements. I guess Runmeter doesn't want free social advertising.
Here's where I start to draw the line: Free users can't hear audio feedback, such as an announcement every mile with your stats, nor can they control their music from within the app or remotely pause it. And if you're hoping to pair a heart rate monitor or other third-party device, forget about it at the free level. Harumph.
Additionally, free users can only track runs and walks, but not bicycle rides, skiing, skating, or other activities. Most running apps, including Endomondo and Map My Run let you track a variety of activities for free, so it's odd to see it locked away in Runmeter.
Still: $4.99 per year! Elite membership with Runmeter is a steal.
Data Overload
As mentioned, Runmeter is rich with stats, whether you're a free user or an Elite member. On the first screen, you'll see workout time, distance, speed, and calories burned while you're running, as well as totals at the end of the run. The second screen goes into more detail about speed: fastest speed, average overall speed, average speed of previous split, average speed of current split, and so on. Keep swiping, and you'll find more graphs, charts, and tables with elevation information, comparisons between your run today versus yesterday, as well as this week versus last week, and more.
In fact, every screen seems to have yet another menu or series of options! Explore the History section, and you'll find another menu at the top of the page that will take you to a more detailed summary list. Select any run from your history, and you'll see more information plus a mapped route, and yet another option to open a page with splits, laps/intervals, and zones (for heart rate data).
Settings let you remove graphs you don't want to see, which I really appreciate. On the home screen, where you start recording a new run, you can pop up some more settings that let you rearrange the order of screens (called "pages" here) or remove entire pages that you don't want to better pare down your data. Bye-bye splits and odometer pages! It's these customizations that make an otherwise overwhelming app much more useful.
Great Value, Rich With Data
Given that the free Runmeter has some limitations that I deem necessary to a runner's satisfaction, I'd say it's well worth paying $4.99 per year to get an Elite membership. If you're looking for a data-heavy running app, Runmeter is one of the best you'll find. It doesn't have nearly as much of a community as Strava or Endomondo, but it does the job if you run alone. If more isn't necessarily better in your opinion, you might find Runmeter too generous with data, in which case I'd recommend Runtastic PRO, our Editors' Choice, which keeps the experience of tracking runs a little bit simpler.
Rich with data and at a rock bottom price, Runmeter is an excellent app for tracking your route, pace, and many other stats while running.
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