Tinder Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021)

Tinder is a dating app that matches users to others based on geographic proximity. It works through a simple interface that allows users to swipe right to ‘like’ or left to ‘pass’. If two users both like each other, it’s a ‘match’ – and they are then able to chat through the app.

Tinder users are able to view selected pictures pulled from their potential match’s Facebook account (also used for verification purposes), a short text bio, and linked Spotify and Instagram accounts if chosen. They can also see age, and if they have any Facebook connections in common. The Tinder app is built around the idea of the double opt-in – taking out the element of embarrassment and unwanted attention. You can only talk to someone if you both like each other.

It was also intended to provide a social platform through which users can meet people that they don’t know and wouldn’t usually meet – as opposed to the traditional social media model that focuses on connecting with those with whom you are acquainted in real life.

With its basis in physical proximity, it dispenses with the complex algorithms utilised by other mobile dating apps and simply reduces it to the simplest level that you might find in real life: physical attraction. For that reason, Tinder has gained a reputation as a ‘hook-up app’ – though with its entrenchment in the world of modern dating, it’s not uncommon for Tinder users to be looking for a deeper connection.

The app was founded in 2012 in Hatch Labs, a startup incubator run by InterActiveCorp (parent company of Match Group), by Sean Rad (former CEO and chairman) and Justin Mateen (former CMO), who had met at the University of Southern California. IAC is also responsible for dating sites Match.com, OKCupid, and Zhenai (China).

After initially being trialled in a series of US college campuses, Tinder was rolled out fully to great success, processing 350 million swipes per day by late 2013 (that’s 4,000 per second), rising to one billion swipes per day before the end of 2014. The free-to-use app introduced a premium subscription model in 2015 with added features (Tinder Plus), and a third level in 2017 (Tinder Gold). One-off in-app purchases can also be made.

Since then, Tinder has only grown bigger to become an irreducible element in the modern dating landscape. Read on to find out just how many users Tinder has today, how they’re using it, and how much revenue Tinder’s parent company, Match Group is bringing in.

Key Tinder statistics
57 million Tinder users around the world
5.9 million Tinder subscribers pay for a premium Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold
Tinder is used in 190 countries, and is available in 40 languages
Tinder was processing one billion swipes per day by late 2014, that has now risen to 1.6 billion
Tinder users go on one million dates per week
Over 20 billion matches made since Tinder launched
Over 50% of active Tinder users are active at 9pm, according to Nielson
Active Tinder users log in on average four times a day
Various studies show different percentages, but most find 18-24 demographic forms core of user base
Tinder’s parent company Match Group reported $444 million of revenue in Q3 2018
7.5 million swipes per day in India (2016), where Tinder has established its first international office
Around 10% of Brazilian internet users use Tinder
40% of US college students say “Tinder is for hookups, and Bumble is for dating”, though 54% of claim that there is no difference
70% of these college students have never met up with their matches…
…and 45% say they use Tinder mostly for confidence boosting procrastination
95% of Tinder users meet their matches within a week (compared to 25% of online daters overall, and 15% of offline daters)
9% of Tinder users said it’s hard to commit to someone due to the vast array of dating options, compared to 44% of other online daters and 42% of offline daters
85% of Tinder users say “I love you” within the first year of dating, compared to 80% of offline daters
Female Tinder users are more careful in their approach, with 91% reporting that they only liked profiles that they actually felt attracted to (compared to 72% of men)
35% of men report casually liking most Tinder profiles (with some overlap with the above)
Researchers using a female Tinder profile and unselectively liking male profiles got 200 matches within an hour, and 600 by the 4-hour mark
Male Tinder profiles only garnered 100 matches by the same juncture
For men, the median time between getting a match and messaging standing at 2 minutes (63% of men message a match within 5 minutes), while the equivalent for females is 38 minutes (only 18% message within 5 minutes)
The average Tinder message sent by a man to a woman is 12 characters long, while the other way around, the average is 122
72% of mobile dating app users believe Tinder is the most racially diverse dating app, with 77% of Tinder users claiming to be very open-minded when using dating apps, and 74% having gone on a date with someone of a different racial background (compared to 66% of non-Tinder users)
One study found that 12% of male Tinder profiles identified as homosexual or bisexual, compared with 0.01% of female profiles
Tinder revenue stood at $1.15 billion in 2019; 56% of total Match Group revenue of $2.05 billion
Tinder revenue grew at CAGR of 123% between 2015 and 2019
Tinder top non-game app in terms of revenue, generating $77.4 million in February 2020
Match Group market cap $18.6 billion as of late March 2020
Tinder is estimated to be worth $10 billion

Tinder User Statistics
It is estimated that 50 million people worldwide use Tinder, though concrete figures have not been made available. The BBC pin the figure at a slightly higher 57 million. Both of these figures data back to 2018 – no more recent figures are readily available.

We have a clearer picture of paid Tinder users. As of Q4 2019, Match Group reported average 5.9 million Tinder subscribers.

These are spread over 190 countries, with the Tinder app available in over 40 languages.

Tinder subscriber growth, thousands of users

Source: Statista

Online dating penetration runs deep in key markets. According to 2020 Pew Research Center statistics, 30% of US adults have used a dating app – up from 11% in 2013 – with 23% going on a date and 12% finding a long-term relationship as a consequence.

As of mid-March 2020, Tinder ranked 179 in the Google Play Store, though as recently as late February it was as high as 123, at which point it ranked fourth among lifestyle apps. By mid-March it had fallen to seventh.

Tinder Google Play download rank, US

Source: SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb’s usage rank, which looks at daily active users rather than installs, places Tinder in 79 as of mid-March 2020, falling from 62 roughly a month prior. We might speculate that the coronavirus pandemic may have played a part in this, with apps other than dating apps presumably of more appeal under these conditions.

In the lifestyle category Tjnder remains in top-10, though has fallen from fourth to sixth.

Tinder Google Play usage rank, US

Source: SimilarWeb

By way of comparison, as of mid-March 2020, Tinder’s usage rank was 38 in Canada, 41 in the UK, 59 in France, and 61 in Germany.

On the Apple App Store, Tinder’s download rank has been a bit more up and down over this period, with an opening rank of 81, and a closing rank of 70 – via a low of 107 in late February and a high of 46 in early March.

In lifestyle it remains in second place, at the beginning and end of the period.

Tinder Apple App Store download rank, US

Source: SimilarWeb

It ranks a bit higher in international markets; 53rd in Germany, 55th in Canada, and 61st in the UK (mid-March 2020).

Who uses Tinder?

In 2017, GlobalWebIndex attracted the ire of Tinder, by claiming that only 38% of users were aged 16-24, with a further 45% aged 25-34. Tinder on the other hand argued that over half their user base was aged 18-24 (though the two nearly tarry up if we extend the range to 34, with Tinder’s 85% not hugely different to GlobalWebIndex’s 83%).

The GlobalWebIndex survey also shows that 76% of Tinder users were based in an urban setting, while 17% were rural and 7% rural. As has been found in other sources (see below), men outnumber women by 2:1 according to this particular analysis.

Tinder demographics worldwide

Source: GlobalWebIndex

Tinder does not reveal its own demographic data, except to say that half of its users belonged to Generation Z – that is those born from around the mid-90s, making the oldest in their mid-20s at this point.

In the US, Tinder users skew heavily male. As of December 2019 it was estimated that 78.1% of Tinder users were male, compared to 21.9% female, according to stats published on Statista.

In the UK, it was estimated by Ogury that 85% of the online dating market was male, as of April 2019. This imbalance was even more pronounced among Tinder users, for which the ratio was 9:1 in favour of male users.

Pew Research Center data from October 2019, published in February 2020, investigated what percentage of various demographics used dating apps. While this looks at dating apps collectively, we might assume that Tinder – as comfortably the most popular dating app in the US – accounts for no small percentage of these.

Here we see that the single highest demographic for Tinder usage is among LBG users, the majority of whom (55%) have used dating apps. They are also the most likely to have entered into a serious relationship as a consequence, with 21% doing so.

The next highest results comes from slicing the results by age, with 48% of those aged 18-29 using dating apps, joined by 38% of 30-49-year-olds; 17% and 16% entering into serious relationships with someone they met online.

Aside from sexuality and age, education is the only other decisive indicator, with usage far more concentrated among those who have attended college – even if it was only for a short period.

More men (32%) had used dating apps than female (28%), but not by a huge distance – although these figures refer to those who have ever used dating apps, so doesn’t take into account how often or active usage is.

US dating app user demographics

Source: Pew Research Center

We Are Flint carried out surveys in early 2018 to map the demographics of various popular apps.

In the US, it was found that twice as many men use Tinder than women. In terms of age group, we still see the highest levels of usage among younger users. Over a third of those aged 18-24, and a quarter of those aged 25-34 use Tinder, as well as one in five in the 35-44 bracket. There’s a small spike in Tinder usage among over 75s as compared with the immediately younger bracket. Notably the GlobalWebIndex stats cited above mention that 3% of the Tinder user base were widows or widowers.

Unsurprisingly, usage is much higher among urban populations, as there just aren’t as many matches in rural areas. Usage among higher income brackets is fairly consistent at 20%, while those in lower brackets tend to use it a little less. Curiously, the data doesn’t represent a straight line, with the lowest prevalence found among those in the $60,000-$70,000 group.

US Tinder demographics

Source: We are Flint

In the UK, while more men still use Tinder, we’re far closer to parity than. Usage is still more pronounced among younger users, though a greater proportion of 25-34 year olds can be found on Tinder than 18-24 years olds here. As we go up the age groups, usage declines abruptly.

We see the same disparity between urban and rural users as in the US, and the same curious dip in usage among a lower income bracket (here occurring at a lower point than in the US). The UK results also break the users into social grade – based on the type of the work carried out by respondents. We see that Tinder usage is far more prevalent among white collar/skilled workers, with over three times the usage reported by manual/unskilled workers.

UK Tinder demographics

Source: We are Flint

A study carried out by researchers at Queen University Mary University London, Sapienza University of Rome, and the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group analysed 500,000 Tinder users (in London) in 2016 to glean more about Tinder demographics and how Tinder users were using the app.

The study looked at the age distribution of the profiles they came across, finding a median age of 25.2 for women, and 25.7 for men – this is different to other mobile dating apps in which the female user base tends to skew older. There are various cultural reasons for this, the research group posits. According to Tinder statistics, 40% of Tinder users rank age as one their top two most-important characteristics.

Age distribution of London Tinder users

Data source: A First Look at User Activity on Tinder

SurveyMonkey Intelligence break down the geographical distribution of the users of various mobile dating apps in US. The greatest preponderance of Tinder users are to be found in the west and the south of the US, while the smallest number can be found in the Midwest.

This is roughly in line with the overall population of the US, so perhaps the takeaway from this graphic is that Tinder users are fairly evenly distributed among the US population.

Geographical distribution of US dating app users

Source: SurveyMonkey Intelligence

According to Tinder statistics published by SurveyMonkey, only Bumble has a higher proportion of users aged between 18-29. Just over half of Tinder users fall into this bracket according to this analysis.

How old are mobile dating app users?

How old are dating app users?

Source: SurveyMonkey Intelligence

An analysis by Wandera compared the most-used mobile dating apps in the US and the UK. Tinder comes first in the latter, and second in the former, behind Match group stablemate Match.com

Most-popular mobile dating apps US and UK

Most-popular apps US and UK

Source: Wandera

Another set of US Tinder statistics published by SimpleTexting again found Tinder well out in front for the 18-24 demographic – with over three times as many users as its nearest rival Bumble. Tinder usage level by age describe a simple line, declining as we go up the age groups. Only Coffee Meets Bagel shows a similar trend, albeit with a far small sample. Bumble, OkCupid and Hinge are all most popular with 25-34 year olds.

US online dating age demographics

Source: SimpleTexting

Top Tinder neighbourhoods in major US cities

Elite Daily published a series of maps which ranked the neighbourhoods of major US cities according to where users swiped right (aka liked) the most.

As we might expect, Tinder users in affluent Downtown Manhattan and Uptown Manhattan were swiping right more than any others, followed by Brooklyn.

Best Tinder neighbourhoods New York

Source: Elite Daily

Before it was all about the tech, San Francisco was known for its diversity. Fittingly, then, the most swiped right neighbourhood in San Francisco is the Castro – which is notable for being one the first gay districts in the US.

Best Tinder neighbourhoods San Francisco

Source: Elite Daily

Tinder users in Chicago’s wealthy Lincoln Park neighbourhood swipe right the most – with right swiping concentrated in a small cluster around the city’s Old Town.

Best Tinder neighbourhoods Chicago

Source: Elite Daily

Boston’s historic South End comes out in front in the hometown of Rocky and Cheers (and MIT and Harvard). Indeed, South End can boast more right swipes than any other neighbourhood in the entire US.

Best Tinder neighbourhoods Boston

Source: Elite Daily

The accolade of most swiped right neighbourhood in Los Angeles goes to West Hollywood, which edges out Beverly Hills (which finishes in third behind Siverlake). Much like San Francisco’s number one Tinder neighbourhood the Castro, West Hollywood is noted for being a gay village.

Best Tinder neighbourhoods Los Angeles

Source: Elite Daily

International Tinder User Statistics
Brazil is reportedly the world’s third-biggest Tinder market, after the US and UK. Around 10% of Brazilian internet users use Tinder according to a survey by eMarketer, making it the most-used mobile dating app in the country (as of June 2017).

Percentage of Brazilian internet users who use mobile dating apps

Percentage of Brazilian internet users who use dating apps

Data source: eMarketer

If this data sample is reflective of the wider picture, then it represents a shift since a BBC study (alongside App Annie) of mobile dating apps around the world conducted over 2015. At this point, Badoo was dominant across South America. Indeed, we can see that Badoo had a slight edge over Tinder at this stage globally speaking, though Tinder dominated in several key strongholds – the US, the UK, France, Scandinavia (and Finland), Australia and India. It was running a close second in others.

Notably, this study looks at the number of downloads, based on Google Play and Apple App Store data, rather than any kind of usage after that. It takes into account the world’s 50 biggest app markets, plus Nigeria and Kenya.

Most-popular dating apps around the world

Source: BBC

Focusing in on Europe, we see a rough split at this time, with Tinder dominant in northern Europe, and Badoo with the edge in southern and eastern Europe. Lovoo possessed a small stronghold in the German speaking world, while Russians preferred to use Frim.

Tinder already had the European edge at this stage.

Most-popular dating apps in Europe

Source: BBC

Unsurprisingly, Tinder claimed first place in the land of its birth, the US, which overspills to its neighbour in the north, Canada. Like the rest of Latin America, Mexico was a Badoo stronghold.

Most-popular dating apps in North America

Source: BBC

South America doesn’t really give us much by way of narrative, with the Badoo number one in the four markets analysed. The BBC analysis, however, does reveal that Tinder was a close second in each of these. As we saw above, this may now be a close lead.

Most-popular dating apps in South America

Source: BBC

Heading across the ocean, we see a wider spread of apps used in Asia, with seven different apps alternately claiming the status of most-popular across the 13 counties analysed. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of pattern here as such beyond a trend towards country-specific apps, though Tinder again had the edge.

Most-popular dating apps in Asia

Source: BBC

In the Middle East, Badoo was more popular, with Egypt the only other nation aside from Russia which preferred to use Frim. In Saudi Arabia, perhaps not the first name that leaps to mind in relation to dating apps, WhosHere was the most-popular app. Notably, this is local to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so accounts for local sensitivities. Israel was the only Tinder stronghold at this time.

Most-popular dating apps in the Middle East

Source: BBC

Finally, the BBC looked at three key markets in Africa. In each of these markets, Badoo was the most downloaded dating app.

Most-popular dating apps in Africa

Source: BBC

While the Brazilian market may be a big one, Tinder’s first international office wasn’t opened based in Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paolo. It was instead opened in Delhi, the capital city of India. The Indian market is considered to be ripe for the taking. However, while the usage of dating apps – Tinder in particular – seems to be on the up in the world’s second-most populous nation, there are still social norms with which it must contend.

Tinder usage in India

Tinder downloads in India

Source: WSJ

Back in 2016, Tinder reported 7.5 million daily swipes in India, and the highest average number of messages exchanged per match in the world.

There’s one big problem, however – and that is the Tinder app is overflowing with male users, while female users for various reasons have not shown signed up in the same numbers. This is in no small part down to technological exclusion among Indian women, as well as the continuing prevalence of arranged marriages and the stigma attached to women who are viewed as ‘promiscuous’.

This finding is reported by the WSJ, though there is no official data cited.

Tinder has introduced a range of female-specific features in the country to help change the status quo – these include the Bumble-imitating option to only allow the female in a male-female match to message first.

Tinder Passport – top destinations

In 2015, Tinder introduced the ‘Tinder Passport’ feature for Tinder Plus subscribers. While normal Tinder usage uses location settings to cast out a net from users’ current location, the Tinder Passport allows you to change this and look for matches in a different location. Users planning on taking a trip overseas or to a different city can then use the Tinder app in advance to search for matches and set up dates before arriving.

As we can see from the below data (published in 2016), it seems that using Tinder has become a key part of the holiday experience – with a host of top tourist destinations featuring. London comes out on top, followed by Paris and New York. The only county to be represented more than once is Australia, with Sydney edging out Melbourne.

Top Tinder Passport destinations

Source: Tinder (via Observer)

Tinder witnessed a huge spike in matches during the football matches of the World Cup 2018 in Russia: 66% in fact, driven by a 42% increase in right swiping (the liking kind). There was also a considerable spike in users using the Passport feature to transpose themselves to Russia – 24%.

With fans converging from all over the world, looking to celebrate or console their team’s results, it’s understandable. Well, we say ‘their’ team – the top country for passporting to Russia did not even qualify for the tournament – step up the US. India also made the top-10, despite never qualifying for the tournament.

These are the countries in which Tinder Passport usage was the highest:

US
UK
Germany
Spain
France
Brazil
Sweden
Denmark
Belgium
India
Tinder usage experienced a similar spike in Brazil, during the World Cup of 2014 – increasing by 50%.

During the Covid-19 outbreak of 2020, Tinder Passport was made freely available to all users.

What Do Tinder Users Want?

A survey of college students, found that a significantly greater proportion of users were interested in a ‘hookup’ than were looking for a relationship. We have to bear in mind, however, that these Tinder statistics pertain to a younger demographic, who are more likely to be concerned with experimentation than with settling down just yet. Notably, in August 2018, Tinder introduced TinderU – a product aimed exclusively at college students, which requires a university-affiliated email address in order to access.

Hookups weren’t the most popular option, though; that accolade goes to ‘confidence-boosting procrastination’. Indeed, hookups even drop into third place, behind ‘other reasons’. These aren’t clearly explained, though Tinder does tout itself as a friendship as well as a dating app.

Why do students use Tinder?

Source: LendEDU

When asked to compare Tinder and Bumble (a rival app, the premise of which that women must message first), 40% claimed that “Tinder is for hookups, and Bumble is for dating”, though 54% of respondents claimed that there was no difference.

A US survey carried out by SimpleTexting found that 52% of online daters (users of multiple apps, though Tinder was the most-used) have never had a one-night stand. On the other hand, over 20% had had two or more one-night stands.

Online dating and one night stands

Source: SimpleTexting

Confirming the popularity of the confidence-boosting procrastination found above, we might note that over 70% of users responding to the LendEDU survey have not actually gone so far as to meet up with one of their matches.

Have Tinder users actually met up with a match in real life?

Source: LendEDU

On the other hand, a survey conducted by Tinder entitled ‘Modern Dating Myths’ found that 95% of Tinder users meet their matches in person 2-7 days after matching on the app. This compares with 25% of online daters overall, and 15% of offline daters (20% of whom wait over a month, and a third of whom have never initiated a first date).

The survey looks to prove that Tinder users are more interested in commitment than may seem the case: Overall, 9% of Tinder users said it’s hard to commit due to the vast array of dating options, compared to 44% of other online daters and 42% of offline daters. It also found that, overall, 74% of online daters of both sexes had had more than one long-term committed relationship as an adult, compared with 49% of offline daters.

The study also found that 85% of Tinder users say “I love you” with the first year of dating, compared to 80% of offline daters.

SimpleTexting looked into how long relationships formed through dating apps lasted (multiple apps). They found a relatively wide spread of lengths. While 24% lasted only one-two dates, 14% had ended or looked set to end in marriage, and 15% had gone on more than a year.

How long do online dating relationships last?

Source: SimpleTexting

Tinder users on being single

A survey conducted by Tinder along with consulting firm Morar HPI looked at what 1,000 young single adults – that is aged between 18 and 25, i.e. the core Tinder demographic – thought and felt about being single. The study found that a considerable majority of 72% had consciously chosen to be single for a period of time, with 81% agreeing that being single had benefits that ran beyond romantic, reports Cosmopolitan. These include studying (47% of women, 34% of men) – an issue of concern, given Tinder’s targeting of university-age users.

One of the romantic reasons for doing so is making sure that when one does settle, one does with the right person. This was particularly the case for female respondents to the survey – 61% who were unsure about long-term relationships reported feeling concerned about settling with someone for the wrong reasons – 46% of men reported the same.

There were also differences in how men and women felt about being single: 25% of women but only 17% of men felt empowered by not being in a relationship. Flipping the question to whether being single meant more independent gets considerably more positive responses – 54% of women felt this, and 50% (of those who were wary of long-term relationships) were worried that they’d lose this in a relationship, compared with 44% of men.

A majority (55%) believed that other single people were more fun than people in relationships, while 39% worried that being in a relationship would make them more boring.

Tinder used the findings of this survey to inform a campaign, entitled “Single is a Terrible Thing to Waste”.

The results of a survey carried out by Tinder cited by Global Dating Insights found that 70% of women aged between 18 and 35 value finding a partner that respects them as an individual, while 68% valued loyalty. Male users valued loyalty more than anything, with 56% saying this was important to them.

64% of the women surveyed sought independence in their partner also, while only 51% of men agreed.

Of course, the core Tinder demographic is singletons looking for romance of whatever shade…but whether or not that is the makeup of the user base has been called into question. Tinder was a the centre of a storm of controversy in 2015, when a Tinder statistics published by GlobalWebIndex suggested that 42% of Tinder’s user base already had a partner. Breaking that down, 30% of surveyed users (of a sample of 47,000) were married, with another 12% on top of this in a relationship.

Tinder vigorously denied this, arguing that their largest Tinder demographic was 18-24 year olds. Of this group, 93% had never been married Tinder replied – though this figure (drawn from ONS data) pertains only to the UK, as it was made in response to request from The Guardian (in all Tinder claimed 1.7% of its users were married). GlobalWebIndex hit back, arguing the veracity of their methodology.

Tinder Users: Intentions, Interests, Inclusivity
Male and female Tinder users

A survey of mobile dating app users in selected countries around the world conducted by Ogury found that Tinder seems to be more popular among male users than female. Taking sheer numbers out of the equation for a minute , in four of the five countries analysed (the US, the UK, France, and Italy), a greater proportion of male dating app users used Tinder, while female users tended to prefer other apps. The exception is Spain, where a marginally greater percentage (not volume – this is important to note) of female dating app users used Tinder.

The greatest difference in percentage terms comes in the UK according to these Tinder statistics, where male Tinder users outnumber by 25 percentage points. The greatest disparity in relative terms is the US, where over twice as many male mobile dating app users use Tinder as female.

Tinder is notable the only app that makes the top five in each of the countries surveyed – and features for both men and women in each of these.

Top dating apps by country

Source: Ogury

Staying with the Ogury Tinder statistics, remember what we said about the percentage of female dating app users not being the same as the volume? The next set of Tinder stats reflect this – showing that male dating app user greatly outnumber their female counterparts in each of the cities in question. The closest we have to parity is again in Spain, with around two men for every woman in Madrid. Things look the worst for male dating app users in New York, where the ratio stands at 3:17. London is not too far behind at 1:5.

Dating app usage by international city

Source: Ogury

A different set of data, collected by SurveyMonkey Intelligence found a slightly less dispiriting imbalance, with the percentage of women on Tinder standing at not too terrible 43% (though it’s well of the pace set by Christian Mingle – though that as imbalanced towards women as Tinder is towards men accordingly to this analysis).

Percentage of women using dating apps

Source: SurveyMonkey Intelligence

According to SimpleTexting, Tinder is comfortably the most popular app among both men and women in the US, with 50% of men and just under 35% of women reporting that they used the app – giving a ratio of 7:10. In this estimation, OkCupid was the closest thing to a fully-balanced dating app.

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