Dating apps paid users

Tinder has revolutionized modern dating.

For millennia, meeting a partner only happened in real life. Then in 1995, Match.com launched as the first online dating site.

Online dating has taken years to grow in popularity and overcome the cultural barriers that once stood in its way.

But with the explosion of smartphones in the 2010s, it was time for another revolution. In 2012, Tinder opened up with a beta launch. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today we’ll be exploring the stats and data behind one of the the first—and certainly one of the most popular—dating apps in history. We’ll cover details on who uses Tinder, how they interact with the app, and what type of revenue Tinder generates.

We’ll wrap up by comparing it with many of its competitors in the field of dating apps.

Let’s get started!

Tinder user demographics

Let’s start with the first and most basic question—who’s using Tinder?

According to research by We Are Flint, it’s about one in five US men, and one in ten US women of adults aged 18+ who use Tinder.

The numbers are also heavily skewed towards younger age brackets, with one-third of respondents age 18-24 on the app, compared with one-fourth of respondents aged 25-34, and one-fifth of respondents aged 35-44.

And when it comes to income, users tend to be slightly more affluent, with 20% of earners in the top three household income brackets—$100k, 80k+, and $70k+—saying they’re on the dating app.

Finally, Tinder is far more prevalent in the city, with 16% of urban dwellers claiming to be on the app, compared to only 9% of rural respondents.

The app is slightly less popular in the UK, with an equal number of women, yet only 13% of men, claiming to use the app.

In general, numbers across the board in Britain are lower, though still trending in the same directions as US users.

Between 11-15% of the top four income brackets—£2k1+, £28k+, £34k+, and £48k+—are also on Tinder, more than the two lower brackets (up to £14k and £14k-21k).

Similarly, urban destinations are more popular than rural, and 21% of professionally employed brits—with social grade A, B, or C1—are on the app, compared with just 6% of grades C2, D, and E.

The most consistent trend across Tinder, and dating apps in general, is that men are far more likely to be on the service than women.

While 2019 data isn’t available on Tinder, in 2016 the app’s users in the US were about two-thirds male, or a 2:1 ratio of men to women.

And this basic data plays out to the typical distribution of dating apps across all online users, not just on Tinder.

In the US, men are more likely to have used a dating service than women, with 10% of US men and 5% of US women agreeing that they’re currently on a dating app or website.

Notably, the numbers are much closer when asked about past use on a dating app or site, with 27% of men and 22% agreeing they’ve done so in the past.

This seems to indicate another trend across dating websites and apps, especially on Tinder. While both men and women sign up, women are far more likely to stop using the app.

We mentioned earlier that Tinder tends towards younger demographics, which holds true for all dating websites and apps, as of 2019.

What’s notable is that this seems to be a trend that’s been happening across multiple years. The reason? The middle bracket aged 35-54 are the most likely to say they’ve done so in the past.

This could indicate that these users—some of whom would have been in the younger bracket in the early days of Tinder, and all of whom would have been in that age during the early days of online dating—used those platforms when younger.

So, why don’t the older generations tend to use platforms like Tinder?

One of the reasons is likely a cultural influence. While apps have become indispensable for younger generations, older groups might not see the possibility of finding a match on an app.

This data can be seen relatively easily by looking at users’ likelihood to use a dating app or website to find a new partner.

With one exception (18-29 year-olds being the top category to answer “not very likely”), the numbers are nearly perfectly aligned by age.

Younger groups said they’d be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to use a dating app or website, with 45-62% of older demographics saying they were “not likely at all.”

Whichever reason it is, Tinder users are overwhelmingly young. Research on Tinder’s age distribution in 2015 showed that 60% of the users were aged 18-24.

And with this younger demographic, we can also see influences on what Tinder users are looking for.

App interaction statistics

Now that we have a good understanding of the types of people that are on Tinder, what does their behavior look like?

Let’s break down the expectations, perceptions, and results that come into play with Tinder’s ever-growing user base.

What are Tinder users looking for?

The first and most obvious question we need to ask is what these users are looking for. While the traditional view is that dating apps—but Tinder in particular—are just for hookups, the reality simply doesn’t hold this to be true.

In fact, among dating app users in the United States in 2019, “finding an exclusive romantic partner” is the most common result, with with 49% of respondents in agreement.

The answers aligned with typical motives associated with dating apps—“have casual sex” and “find non-exclusive romantic partners”—were selected by 23% and 20% of respondents, respectively.

Surprisingly, a full 7% of respondents said they were on a dating site or app to “cheat on my significant other.”

It’s worth noting recipients could select multiple answers, so the percentages don’t add up to 100%.

When this survey data is broken down by age, the answers certainly show predictable trends based on the demographics we looked at earlier.

Specifically, casual reasons for using the app were more strongly associated with 18-34-year-olds, only slightly associated with 34-55-year-olds, and least associated with those over age 55.

Notably, 0% of those over 55 indicated they were on an app to cheat.

And finally, one more breakdown can provide some extra insight into the study: by gender.

Stereotypes would indicate that men are more likely to look for casual sex or non-exclusive partners, and the results do show that men are 2-3 times more likely than women to look for these type of relationships.

However, finding an exclusive romantic partner is still the single biggest reason for both genders to use a dating platform, with 51% of women and 47% of men choosing it.

How do people perceive Tinder?

When it comes to perceptions of dating apps, there’s a huge disparity between what people think about those who use said apps versus those who don’t.

This gap in perceptions has been dubbed the “dating app disconnect,” due to the mostly negative perceptions by those who haven’t used such apps versus those who have.

The biggest positive difference is that dating apps are “interesting,” with a gap of 29% between users of dating apps and non-users.

The next-biggest difference was that such apps and sites are “dangerous,” with a gap of 19%, with 29% of users in agreement, compared with 48% of non-users, the most common response amongst those who don’t use dating apps.

The reason for this seems to be fairly obvious when we look at how people judge their experience on apps. Of those who have used dating apps, 47% have had a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” experience.

In contrast, only 19% have had a “very negative” or “somewhat negative” experience.

Unsurprisingly, men tend to have a better experience than women—though one in three men and one and three women said their experience was neutral.

The biggest problems with dating apps, based on 2018 survey data, is untruthful identities and being contacted in ways that make the user feel uncomfortable, with approximately one in three dating app users having experienced one or both of these.

Broken down by gender men are more likely to encounter someone lying about their identity, while women are more likely to be contacted in a way that makes them uncomfortable.

While these are certainly problems facing Tinder, they don’t seem to be stopping its growth. The overall positive experience of users likely helps lead to its continued success.

Where do Tinder matches lead?

We now have a general idea of what people are looking for when they sign up for a dating app like Tinder.

But where do matches end up? While Tinder doesn’t market itself as an app for “finding your soul mate” as do other services, where do users tend to take things offline?

Thankfully, a recent 2018 survey provides answers. The single most common result on a dating website or app is going on one or more dates with someone, but presumably not having a relationship that lasts much longer.

Of dating app or service users, 31% said this was the extent of their connection. The next-most-common was finding a long-term romantic partner, with nearly one in four agreeing.

Finally, 14% said they found a hookup through a dating app or service and 9% a platonic friendship.

Earlier data suggested 49% sought a relationship, 23% a hookup, and 19% a platonic friendship.

By combining these two statistics, we can get an idea of what actually happens on these apps. The data indicate that hookups are the easiest goal to fulfill on the site, with percentages suggesting 60% who seek hookups eventually find them.

The search for a relationship or platonic friendship is more difficult, with slightly less than half (47% of both categories) finding the type of interaction they were looking for.

So while users are most likely to say they’re looking for a relationship, those out for something more casual tend to do better on such apps.

And before we wrap up this section, let’s look at one more interesting tidbit from a 2019 survey.

When asked how they researched a match before meeting in person, 60% of Americans admitted to looking at social media profiles and 55% for searching their name online.

A surprising one in seven—15% of respondents—said they had run a background check on potential partners before physically meeting them.

How do males and females interact differently on the app?

When we look at how people meet partners on dating sites and apps, the numbers present a paradox.

Despite being far more men on these platforms than women, men are over 50% more likely to find a partner on a dating app or site than women. Yet if they were matched on the same apps, shouldn’t the responses of men and women be roughly equivalent?

But why? There are three possible explanations.

The first theory is that discrepancy comes from same-sex matches. This would indicate that one-third of men’s matches are with other men. While this could be the case, it doesn’t seem to fit the overall demographics of men in the dating market very well.

The second (and probably more likely) explanation is that a broader selection of men is more likely to match with a narrower selection of women. In other words, 20% of men are matching with 13% of women.

Women tend to be more selective than men in dating apps. But for those who aren’t, there are simply more options and potential partners.

Finally, it could be that women are less likely to confirm finding a partner on apps. This could be due to social stigma or a difference in terms.

In other words, men might consider a single date or hookup as “meeting a romantic partner,” whereas women might not.

What profile features work best?

While Tinder takes large data samples and is able to predict profile success, there don’t appear to be any secret factors contributing to highly-effective profiles.

But that might not be the most helpful data, anyways, since many of the data provided on dating profiles like on Tinder isn’t even accurate.

One notable statistic is that according to a US study, only 60% of respondents say they “always present themselves truthfully” on dating profiles.

When it comes to types of profiles, trends are easy to spot. In fact, Tinder has published the most common features of 2018 in their “The Year in Swipe” data.

For the most part, top songs and trends of 2018 show up in profiles, including Drake, Travis Scott, and Juice WRLD. Pizza, tacos, and sushi fill out the top three foods.

In a slight throwback, the top three TV terms are Friends, Netflix, and The Office. In the top five, only one term is a reference to a show that’s currently running—Game of Thrones.

The most popular emoji is the “face with tears of joy” or “laughing so hard I’m crying” face, followed by a winking face and a dog.

Due to Tinder’s heavy skew towards younger demographics, these aren’t surprising findings.