Dating App Trends: Tinder Business Model, Statistics and Revenue

Published On: May 14, 2019
Last Updated: March 14, 2023
Dating App Trends: Tinder Business Model, Statistics and Revenue

Finding a date for yourself is like a walk in the park with the advent of online dating apps. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the people to maintain social distancing norms. Hence, people were not ready to meet their dates in person.

Due to this situation, the dating industry decided to make various things virtual. Moreover, many people accepted it and started dating virtually from the comfort of their homes.

But the situation is getting normal again, and people have started dating in real life. Every now & then, behavior, patterns, and habits of people worldwide change regarding dating. Therefore, dating apps have to adapt to the trends to survive and thrive in the market.

We have conducted deep research and found some of the latest dating app trends in the market.

Here, we will first walk you through the popular dating app trends right now. Then we will walk you through the Tinder business model.

So without waiting much, let us start with some trends that will impact the dating industry in the coming years.

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Tinder Business Model Canvas

Have a look at the detailed business model adopted by Tinder that makes it the leading dating app around the globe.

Key Partners Key Activities Value Proposition
  • Hey! Vina Acquisition.
  • Technology Providers.
  • Media & Internet conglomerate IAC as an owner.
  • Spotify & Instragram Integrations in Tinder.
  • Web development & maintenance.
  • Application development & maintenance.
  • Enhancing the Algorithm regularly.
  • Promoting the platform in uncommon ways.
  • API management and a lot more.
  • To help people build better romantic relationships worldwide.
  • To resolve various physical and mental roadblocks that occur while forming relationships.
  • The platform ensures users to match rationally.
Channels Customer Relationships Customer Segments
  • App Store
  • Play Store
  • Website
  • Social Media
  • Blog
  • Press & more
  • Get the suggestion of users based on location & interest.
  • Like or dislike the suggested users’ profile by swiping left or right.
  • Get a match when both users like each others’ profile.
  • Profiles.
  • All the smartphone users above 18+ years looking for a match.
Key Resources Cost Structure Revenue Streams
  • Platform, App & Brand
  • Network
  • GPS Technology
  • Social Data
  • Data from Facebook API
  • Instagram & Spotify integration allow users to access each other’s profiles.
  • Seed Funding, etc.
  • Low cost of creative marketing via word of mouth
  • Low cost for innovating things
  • Low cost of data because it is offered by facebook
  • IT infrastructure
  • Servers and data structure
  • Engineers
  • Product development
  • IT maintenance
  • Operations & customer support
  • Advertisements
  • Sponsored Sports
  • Subscriptions (Tinder Plus, Gold, and Platinum)
  • In-App Purchases – More than one super like per day, undo last swipe, etc.

Ready to Build an App like Tinder?

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How Does Tinder Make Money? [Tinder Revenue Models]

Tinder, of course, has to make a profit to keep running, so how exactly does it make money? Now let us find out the exact ways through which it makes money.

So, to answer that question, Tinder follows a freemium-based model to earn revenue. Here are the three main ways Tinder generates revenue from the dating app.

Tinder Subscriptions

Tinder generates massive revenue by providing three subscriptions to the users. These include Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold, and Tinder Platinum.

Let us have a brief about these subscription tiers.

Tinder Plus
Tinder initially launched the dating app for free in 2013. Later in 2015, Tinder switched to the free business model and introduced one paid plan known as Tinder Plus.

Tinder Plus offers the following benefits in the plan:

  • Ad-free experience.
  • Unlimited right swipes.
  • 5 Super Likes a day. The free model offers just one super like a day.
  • Boost per month: Increases possibility of getting more right swipes.
  • Passport: It allows users to choose any city in this world and start swiping in that city.
  • Rewind feature: It allows users to rewind their last swipe.

Tinder Plus costs between $9.99 to $19.99 in the United States based on the user’s age.

Tinder Gold

After generating good revenue from the Tinder Plus plan, the company introduced a member-only plan called Tinder Gold.

Tinder Gold has all the features of Tinder Plus along with some additional features as follows:

  • Top Picks: The dating app provides a user with selected profiles based on the algorithm for 24 hours.
  • Who Likes You: It allows a user to know who liked them even before they have begun swiping.

The cost of the Tinder Gold is $14.99 to $29.99 per month. It further depends on the age of the person.

Tinder Platinum

It is the newest subscription plan added by Tinder in the year 2020. This plan has all the features of Tinder Gold along with some additional ones as follows.

  • Message Before Match: It allows users to send a tailor-made message along with the super like.
  • Priority Likes: A user’s likes get displayed in priority compared to other users who don’t have a subscription plan.

The cost of the Tinder platinum plan starts from $ 19.99. Further, the cost varies based on age.

In-App Purchases

It is one of the most popular monetization models worldwide. Tinder offers in-app purchases for various well-known features to users to enhance their chances of getting a date and generate more revenue.

Super Likes

Apart from providing Super Likes through subscriptions, Tinder makes money by giving Super Likes through in-app purchases.

The free version of Tinder offers users 1 Super Like a month. Further, Tinder provides more Super Likes in the quantities of 5,25, and 60.

Tinder Super Likes Cost:

  • 5 super likes: $7.99
  • 25 super likes: $29.99
  • 60 super likes: $59.99

Boosts & Super Boosts

It is yet another popular ad-on feature offered by Tinder. With Boosts, a user gets 10X more views on the dating app for the next 30 minutes. In the case of a Super Boost, a user gets 100X views on the dating app for the next 3 to 12 hours in a specific region.

Tinder Boosts Pricing:

  • Boosts: $6.99 to $49.99
  • Super Boosts: $39.99 to $129

So far, Tinder is generating millions of dollars from these sources over the last few years.

If Tinder is earning millions using these methods, why cannot you?

Want to Develop a Global Dating App?

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Apart from building an attractive dating app, Tinder has obtained many free & paid users worldwide by doing effective marketing.

Now let us find out how the dating business model works.

Dating App Business Models

So far, this online dating app has been a successful business idea, and most entrepreneurs are interested in jumping in this online dating business by getting attracted to the online dating app trends and making the most out of it.

So, these entrepreneurs are not madly plunging in this model, there must be a great profit and benefits in this business, which is indeed true. In this online dating app business, lies great business advantages and profits.

Online dating business model includes 2 types of app users.

  • Free users
  • Paid users

1. Free users:

Free users can easily avail limited functionalities of your app through your free version of the app.

It may include ads (the app owner must earn from some way, right?) So, if the free user does not want to pay anything, then the app owner can include ads in the free version, and earn something from publishing ads in the app.

The app owner can also add some extra in-app purchases for the free users, like extra benefits for some days at a particular price. This in-app purchase may include benefits like Extra Swipes, Getting a boost, getting featured in top profiles, etc features. Free users can avail these services by in-app purchase.

2. Paid users:

These paid users have paid a fixed amount or subscription fees to avail your services for a particular period of time.

These paid apps must not have ads, as the users are already paying for the membership. These paid users should be able to access all the functionalities available in the app.

However, they are free to make in-app purchases to avail extra benefits. These are available separately from the paid subscription benefits.

Tinder offers this type of extra in-app purchases that includes buying Tinder coins, which users can opt to get more benefits from Tinder. This type of in-app purchases helps the app owner generate extra business revenue and offer more benefits for the users.

Tinder is continuously adopting new features to attract users worldwide. By adopting this, Tinder has got a lot of free as well as paid users across the world. Here we will look at some of the latest statistics which prove the same.

Confused About Choosing a Business Model?

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Tinder Statistics

  • Tinder has nearly 75 million monthly active users across the globe.
  • Around 6.2 million users possess Tinder Plus, Gold or Platinum Subscriptions.
  • Tinder app has over 400 million downloads.
  • The dating app has made over 55 million matches since its launch.
  • Tinder is available in 196 countries and more than 40 languages.
  • Tinder is the favorite dating app for 73% of college students.
  • Active Tinders users open the app a minimum of four times a day.
  • Tinder is roughly worth around $10 billion, and day-by-day its worth is increasing with each swipe.

Now, we will look at how much revenue Tinder earns every year.

Tinder Yearly Revenue Statistics

Most people are always curious to know how much money dating apps make. Hence, we will state how much money Tinder makes yearly.

As per Craft, Tinder generated revenue of $2.0 billion in 2021. Here is the table that represents the revenue of Tinder over the last few years.

Year Revenue
2016 $180 million
2017 $430 million
2018 $800 million
2019 $1.2 billion
2020 $1.6 billion
2021 $2.0 billion

Moreover, we can say that this revenue will increase with each passing year.

The dating app is able to generate more revenue with the increasing number of subscribers. The below graph shows the rise in the number of paid Tinder subscribers.

Number of Paid Tinder Subscribers

From only 3m paid users in 2018 to a whopping 6m paid users in 2020, Tinder has made excellent progress in gaining popularity and business revenue.

Lastly, Tinder’s revenue indicates the popularity of online dating apps and how making a dating app can get you huge profits.

Bottom Line

So far, you might have become familiar with things revolving around Tinder and dating apps.

Now, it is your time to build a brand new dating app and earn a good profit.

Make sure that your dating app idea is unique and it is niche-specific. The reason being, people prefer these types of apps over standard apps. Further, niche dating apps help them to find a match with the same interest.

If you are not sure about the uniqueness of an idea, then take the help of a professional dating app development agency to validate your idea.

Guru TechnoLabs is a leading dating app development company. We will help you validate an idea, decide the business/ revenue model, and create a proposition for your dating app idea without any cost.

If you have any idea, then feel free to share your dating app idea with us. We are ready to sign an NDA to keep your idea confidential.

Ravi Makhija
Ravi Makhija

Ravi Makhija is an entrepreneur, an IT professional, tech geek, founder & CEO at Guru TechnoLabs - Globally Trusted Web & Mobile App Development Company. He loves writing about new technologies and the latest trends in the IT field.