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Is It a Match?
Online Dating Apps and the Push to Keep Users ‘Swiping Right’

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Chandler Willison

Research Analyst
Online-Dating

With winter here, many singles have been looking for partners for the colder months. This is great news for online dating apps, which have become one of the leading ways for people to connect.


Using M Science data, Research Analyst Chandler Willison highlighted seasonal trends in online dating activity. “There’s certainly a catalyst for joining the apps, certain times of year like winter,” he explained. “Oftentimes when you see changes, when people move from location to location, that’s when we’ll see lifts.”


For younger users, increased activity on dating app often aligns with the academic calendar. “Starting in September, we see a pretty big change in spending as students arrive at college and want to meet people.” Willison said. “There’s the added angle of moving to a new town or city. There may be more potential matches compared to your hometown. This can also be true during summer, as people return home.”


Understanding these seasonal trends offers insights into how top dating apps perform. “Typically, we will discuss growth on a year-over-year basis so we can compare these time periods on seasonality,” Willison said. “Around winter, summer, and the school year is when we see inflections on spend, which is important for year-over-year considerations.”

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Online Dating Industry Trends & Activity

Online dating services are far from new. Match.com launched in 1995 — nearly 30 years ago — and with the rise of smartphones, online dating has only expanded, transforming the way people connect. “It’s been a very stark shift. It hasn’t slowed down much,” Willison added. Simply put, relationships have transitioned from face-to-face meetings to phone-to-phone interactions.

So how do these platforms operate?

Nearly all dating apps offer free signup, removing financial barriers and making it easy for users to join — and they do. “There’s a significant amount of monthly average users and daily average users across these apps that are unpaid. This business mainly relies not on advertising, but on paid subscriptions and à la carte purchases,” said Willison.

Paid subscriptions enhance the user experience by offering features like increased matches, improved visibility, refined connections, and advanced filtering options. “Most of the purchasing that we observe is in terms of subscription, rather than à la carte, which is a smaller percentage of overall revenue across the board,” he continued.

Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are the dominant players, shaping the trajectory of the industry. “These three apps determine the business and overall direction for the respective companies of Match Group and Bumble.”

Understanding Online Dating’s Market Makeup

Match Group (MTCH) dominates the online dating industry with some of the biggest names in the space, including Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid. Over the years, the company has strategically acquired several smaller dating brands to expand its portfolio. “Match purchases a lot of competition,” Willison said. “Most of the time, they’re buying smaller apps and growing them.” However, Match Group is not the only major player. “In our data, Bumble is the second largest app in terms of spend and users, right after Tinder and followed by Hinge,” Willison said. “These apps are not targeted to a specific demographic, but they do have their specific market niches.” Perception and branding shape user attraction and usage patterns. Culturally, Tinder is often associated with casual relationships. “In the last year or so, Match Group has been marketing Tinder to intentioned daters. But the casualness of Tinder is still very much the core of its identity,” Willison said. In contrast, Bumble (BMBL) differentiates itself by prioritizing women’s empowerment. “Women are in the driver’s seat, controlling the interaction. Online dating can be difficult for all users, but Bumble is oriented toward making a better environment for women to interact with people.”







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Meanwhile, Hinge focuses on fostering meaningful connections. “Hinge has been oriented toward intentioned daters since its inception. That’s its tagline,” Willison said. And it’s working for them. “Hinge has exhibited really strong growth in the last several years. It has continued to grow quite strongly in terms of spend and payers within our data,” he added.

Some dating apps cater to specific demographics based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, race, religion, interest, career path, or belief systems. Examples include Grindr, BLK, Muzmatch, Chispa, Christian Mingle, JDate, and The League. However, these niche apps are not as popular as the broader, general-purpose platforms. “From our observations, non-demographic-specific apps account for the vast majority of overall users and spend,” Willison explained.

Challenges & Opportunities for Users

The shift from in-person to online dating has had a significant impact on how society socializes. “This is where people are in the dating environment,” Willison said. “But there is a gender dynamic at play.”

On most popular dating apps, men make up the majority of users and account for most of the spending. “The difficulty for men on dating apps is how to stand out. They’re competing for attention,” Willison said. To boost their profile visibility, many male users opt for à la carte subscription features that prioritize their profiles in the digital queue.

Some women on dating apps face the opposite experience from men. “Typically, the reported negative experiences include being overloaded with lower-quality connections. There are additional problems such as harassment or other negative user experiences,” he added. “The à la carte and subscriptions can help women filter and find improved matches.”

Given the influx of male users on these platforms, companies like Match Group and Bumble appear to be focusing on attracting female payers. “These companies talk about how important it is to attract female users, especially Gen Z female users, to their platform. That is a key indicator to the apps’ future growth,” Willison said.

In addition to gender trends, geography impacts user success on dating apps. “Most of the users are going to be in cities, so it’s easier to get more matches in a city rather than a rural or suburban area,” Willison explained. Scarcity in less populated regions often leads users to purchase geography-specific features. “Even if people don’t live in a certain city, they might purchase a weekly subscription when they visit or are on vacation.”

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Challenges Facing the Online Dating Industry

Recently, the online dating industry has faced criticism for gamification—a design approach that incorporates elements commonly found in games. By utilizing these features, users experience rewards similar to those in digital gaming, like obtaining favorable outcomes and receiving instant gratification. However, this gamified structure carries the risk of addiction and an overreliance on matches.

Despite this, Willison believes this phenomenon might now be alienating some users. “The effect of gamification does perhaps turn a lot of people off from dating in general,” he said. “Just because the share of people meeting has shifted online does not mean that there is the same amount of people dating.” The repetitive nature of swiping and messaging has left many users feeling fatigued. “For some men and women, there’s been a share who have just dropped out entirely. That’s a trend that we see in some geographies.”

Some of this behavior also stems from the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed much of dating into the virtual space for over a year. Today, some regions are seeing more of a rebound than others. “In the U.S. and parts of Europe, the dating space has rebounded well. But in places like Japan and South Korea, where dating activity took a significant  hit during the pandemic, recovery has been much slower. This indicates that some people are disengaged,” Willison explained. “It’s tough to attribute that completely to online dating being the prominent way to meet someone, but the issues, I don’t think, are entirely unrelated.”

The Future of Online Dating

So where is the industry headed?

While the future is hard to predict, Willison sees AI integration as inevitable for dating platforms. One potential innovation is the use of AI avatars. According to Willison, users could correspond with an AI, which would gather information and connect like-minded individuals. “Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder have already implemented AI by offering profile improvements, providing suggestions on pictures, helping develop descriptions, and prompting conversation starters. Having an AI avatar would be the next transformative thing,” he said.

Although the idea might seem unconventional, Willison believes it could simplify the dating process, helping users find more compatible matches without manually scrolling through dozens of profiles.

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Given the deeply personal nature of dating, could relying on AI be concerning? Willison doesn’t foresee major short-term risks. “People still crave human connection. I think dating will always have a place,” Willison said. “It is a possibility that we see U.S. and European markets start going in the direction of Japan and South Korea, where people drop out of the ecosystem. But I don’t think that is deterministic,” he added. He also expressed optimism about the future. “I don’t think that is eternal either. Activity could certainly rebound.”

The M Science Difference

M Science remains at the forefront of online dating
industry insights by leveraging detailed, granular data.

“From our digital purchase data, we’re seeing transactions that a group of these high-quality and consistent users across the U.S. and Europe are making within the iOS and Google Play stores,” Willison said. “We don’t only see someone spending on Tinder, Hinge or Bumble — we can view the specific services that they’re purchasing, and we can observe the length of that subscription.”

This level of visibility provides valuable insights into company performance, revealing what drives strengths, weaknesses, revenue per payer, and other critical metrics. “You really need this level of granularity to model to the top-line figure because revenue recognition is important,” Willison said.

For example, Match Group and Bumble record revenue over time based on subscription durations. In other words, if a user purchases a one-month or six-month plan, the revenue is recorded gradually rather than in a single lump sum. “If you’re using any other data source, one that does not maintain product-level detail, you cannot properly amortize spend for different users or different plans. You need that to properly evaluate activity in accordance with how online dating companies report revenue, payers, and such,” Willison explained.

M Science provides in-depth research reports on Match Group Inc. (MTCH) and Bumble Inc. (BMBL). Our monthly Online Dating Industry Report delivers critical insights, including year-over-year trends in female payers, Tinder and Hinge domestic revenues, dollar market share, subscriber mix, first-time payers, international in-app bookings, product mix, churn, and more.

We also monitor industry growth through key metrics such as bookings, payers, average order value, revenue per payer, amortized payers, and revenue.

Additionally, our Online Dating Dashboard visualizes near-real-time trends, offering a comprehensive view of digital market metrics, female payer trends, brand unique payers, dating cohorts, U.S. merchant transactions, consumer activity, customer overlap, app user behavior, and app performance metrics.

Our coverage extends to a broad range of major online dating brands, including:
 
  • Mainstream platforms: Bumble, eHarmony, Hinge, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Tinder, Zoosk
  • Niche platforms: BLK, Chispa, Christian Mingle, Grindr, Hawaya, JDate, JSwipe, Muzmatch, Upward
  • Emerging platforms: Clover, EliteSingles, Happn, Lovoo, Meetic, OurTime, Pairs
  • Live interaction platforms: Ablo, Azar, Badoo, Growlr, Hakuna, Meetme, Scout, Tagged
  • Exclusive and unique platforms: CMB, The League, Stir
 

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Online Dating Industry or to connect with Chandler Willison:

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