Hinge Tests a Cheaper Tier as Match Group Chases Paying Users

Match Group is testing a lower-priced Hinge subscription tier, and the CFO says it's aimed squarely at women and cost-conscious users. The announcement came Monday during the company's third-quarter 2026 earnings call.

The new tier will give users more control through additional filters and custom location boundaries. Steve Bailey, chief financial officer of Match Group, framed the reasoning plainly: "It's designed for women in particular, but also for price-sensitive users."

Why Hinge's Pricing Is the Problem

Hinge currently runs three tiers: a free version with limits on filters and daily likes, plus the more customizable Hinge+ and HingeX, priced at around $89.99 and $99.99 for three months respectively. Spread out, that's roughly $30 to $33 a month — the premium end of the dating-app market.

Tinder, by comparison, sells Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold at around $25 and $35 a month, bundling perks like unlimited swipes and top picks.

Bailey didn't dance around the math. "Hinge is one of the highest-priced products we have. The revenue per payer, for example, at Hinge is almost twice that of Tinder," he said during the call. "It also has one of the lower payer penetrations. Its payer penetration is only slightly more than half that of Tinder."

That's the whole story in two sentences: Hinge extracts more from each paying user but converts far fewer of them. A cheaper tier is a direct attempt to close that gap. Match Group did not respond to Fast Company's request for additional details about the new offering.

What Does This Change for Users and Investors?

For users, the change is straightforward. Women and price-sensitive daters — the two groups least likely to pay $90-plus upfront for three months — get a middle path between the throttled free tier and premium pricing. More filters and custom location boundaries are practical, safety-adjacent features, not cosmetic perks.

For investors, the calculus is about volume versus price. Hinge's monthly active users are up 12% year over year, and every one of those non-paying users represents untapped revenue if the price point drops low enough to convert them.

Dating Apps Face a Trust Deficit

The cheaper tier lands amid growing consumer frustration with the dating ecosystem. A February 2026 Harris Poll found that 72% of Americans feel romance has become a transaction because of dating apps, and 77% feel dating has turned into a marketplace.

Yet Hinge keeps growing despite the pushback — that 12% year-over-year MAU gain suggests fatigue with dating apps hasn't translated into fatigue with Hinge specifically. A lower entry price gives that expanding base a reason to start paying rather than churn.

Tinder tells the opposite story. It remains bigger, with around 8.9 million paid users, but that base is shrinking — paid users are down 4% from last year. Tinder has responded by leaning on in-person experiences to combat user burnout and shift the focus away from swiping.

Match Group also owns OkCupid alongside Tinder and Hinge, giving it multiple bets on how the market evolves.

The test tier signals where Match Group sees the next phase of growth: not raising prices on converts, but finding a price low enough to widen the funnel. If Hinge's payer penetration moves even partway toward Tinder's, the discount pays for itself.