Hinge Trials Lower-Cost Subscription To Lure Cost-Conscious Daters

Hinge is introducing a cheaper membership tier aimed at users put off by current prices and subscription overload, while Match Group tweaks its approach to keep people paying for dating services.

Match Group said Monday that the new Hinge plan will add extra search filters and flexible location controls so members can better decide who they see and where they meet. Company executives indicated the offer targets women and others who are sensitive to price, noting Hinge’s average revenue per paying user is roughly $30 — about twice what Match Group earns from a typical Tinder subscriber — and that fewer Hinge users convert to paid plans compared with Tinder. The company did not disclose the new plan’s cost.

The test comes as many people grow weary of paying for apps and the repetitive browsing that comes with them. Between mounting subscription bills and a general sense that swiping rarely leads to satisfying in-person connections, a growing share of users are weighing whether premium dating features justify their cost. Lowering the entry price is one clear tactic to try to reverse that mindset.

Even so, Hinge is not struggling. The app reported global monthly active users rose roughly one-eighth from a year earlier, direct sales climbed about one-fifth, and paid accounts increased by nearly one-quarter to 2.3 million. Those paid members generated $221 million in direct revenue during the quarter. Match Group defines direct revenue as money from subscriptions and purchases inside its apps.

By contrast, Tinder brought in $480 million in direct revenue but saw a small dip — down about one part in 50 year over year — and its paid subscriber base, at 8.9 million, slipped by around one part in 25. Executives suggested a cheaper Hinge option could convert more casual users into subscribers without asking them to pay as much up front.

Industry observers say price cuts can help, but they rarely fix deeper engagement problems alone. “Making a plan cheaper can widen the pool of potential payers, but it needs to be paired with features that keep people coming back,” said a consumer-app analyst who reviewed the company’s results. If not, lower prices risk higher churn and smaller lifetime value per user.

Match Group is also pushing product changes intended to make dating apps feel less like endless one-on-one matching. Recent additions include group meetups and in-person event programming, and the company plans to begin testing quicker, in-the-moment recommendation algorithms next quarter that react to user behavior within seconds. Executives said they will lean on those experiments as they roll out the new Hinge tier, acknowledging that price moves alone probably won’t reverse widespread user fatigue.