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Should you still buy a GoPro in 2026?

4 min readL'équipe Fox Rider
A GoPro HERO 12 Black posed in three quarters

Unusual question from a camera rental company, and we will answer it with a public document, without adding a word to what he says. This is not to judge the GoPro cameras — they film very well, and we rent two of them. It’s about what a buyer is committing to today.

What the company's accounts say

On June 1, 2026, GoPro filed an amended version of its financial documents indicating “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern. It is a standardized accounting formula. It does not mean ni bankruptcy, ni cessation of activity, ni disappearance of products: it means that the company itself is signaling to its shareholders an uncertainty about its continuity.

The accompanying figures for the first quarter of 2026: turnover down 26%, to $99 million, and gross margin at 4.3%, compared to 32.1% a year earlier. On May 19, 2026, the company also announced its sale, as part of an open strategic review.

The GoPro HERO 11 Black from the front, front screen on
The HERO 11 Black: a camera that works today will work tomorrow. The subject of this article is elsewhere.

What it changes for you — and what it doesn't change

Nothing in this document relates to equipment already sold. A GoPro who films today will film tomorrow, and memory cards don't get erased because a company issues an accounting warning.

A new purchase, on the other hand, is a gamble over several years: the warranty, software updates, availability of parts and accessories, resale value. These are commitments made by a society – the very one which signals uncertainty about its continuity. We don't pretend to know how this will end, and no one does. We only say that buying is taking this gamble, and renting is not.

MISSION 1, and the nuance that matters

You may have seen the GoPro MISSION 1 and the MISSION 1 Pro. They were unveiled on April 14, 2026, during the NAB show. Unveiled, not marketed: we found no evidence of shipment to customers. An open pre-order is not a sale, and the distinction is not cosmetic in this specific context.

Why you won't find any prices in this article

Because none of those we have identified are publishable. On a marketplace consulted on August 19, 2026, a HERO11 Black was displayed €242 more expensive than a HERO13 Black, although more recent; a MAX 2 cost € 210 less than the MAX it replaced. These spreads don't describe a market, they describe third party sellers. We won't release a price GoPro until we have a solid reading, and that's true beyond this mark: several of the "promotions" we checked on August 19, 2026 showed a discounted price higher than the regular price of the same product, on the same merchant page.

The GoPro HERO 12 Black in profile, battery door closed
The HERO 12 Black, one of the two GoPro models in our fleet.

What we offer instead

We rent HERO 12 Black and HERO 11 Black . Two or three days are enough to know if the format suits you, and to know it from your images rather than from those of a tester. The applicable excess is indicated on each product sheet; the details of the grid are in our article on security deposits.

If the question is broader – rent or buy, from how many days – we have dealt with it with the numbers in hand in Renting vs buying GoPro .

Choose my dates and book

Our sources, and their limits

The financial filing of June 1, 2026 and the for-sale announcement of May 19, 2026 are public corporate communications; the figures for the first quarter are derived from this. On the other hand, we have not found any verifiable information on the brand's next models, and we will not invent any: neither Hero 14, nor new MAX, nor calendar. Finally, this article makes no judgment on the image quality of GoPro cameras. It relates to the risk that a buyer takes.

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