Tinder 2026: how it works, what it costs, who it suits

Tinder is the swipe app: right for yes, left for no, and a match when both of you say yes. It has by far the biggest pool, a free tier with limits, and almost nothing that stops anyone from disappearing. The price depends on where you live, and in the UK it has depended on your age.

Updated October 6, 2026

Price

Free + Plus 109 kr / $9.99, Gold from 165 kr / $13.99

Platforms

iOS, Android

Countries

SE, GB, US

Owner

Match Group

Launched

2012

We did not use Tinder for this page. We looked at its store listings, its own feature pages, Match Group’s filings and the research, and scored it on the same five axes as every other app.

How it works

Tinder shows you one profile at a time. Swipe right to like, left to pass. If you both swipe right, it is a match, and only then can either of you send a message. Match Group, which owns Tinder, lists the swipe among its patents (Match Group, 2026).

Since 2023, profiles have a field called Relationship Goals, where you say what you are after, from long-term to short-term (what LTR means in a profile is on our glossary). Tinder announced it on December 14, 2022 (TechCrunch, 2022). Tinder says 40% of members who picked a goal chose long-term and 13% short-term, and that 60% of members added one within three months (Tinder, 2023). Those are Tinder’s own figures, and they only cover people who chose to fill in the field. They describe who answered, not everyone who swipes.

Free accounts can like a limited number of profiles. How many, Tinder does not say, and the figures that circulate online are guesses. We are not adding another one. You find the limit by hitting it.

On safety, Tinder offers photo verification (App Store, 2026). Since 2021, a prompt called “Are You Sure?” asks you to reconsider before sending a message its system flags. Tinder reported that early users sent more than 10% fewer inappropriate messages (Axios, 2021). Face Check, a newer verification step, is required for new users in several countries and in California. Tinder says it cut interactions with bad actors by more than half where it rolled out (Match Group, 2026). We found no evidence that it is live in Sweden.

What the app does not have is friction. Matches do not expire, nothing limits how many chats you leave unanswered, and we found no feature that pushes you to reply or close a conversation. Going quiet without a word, better known as ghosting, carries no consequence inside the app. A pool this size also makes it easy to keep several conversations going at once, which has its own name, roster dating.

Whether Tinder, Hinge and Bumble show read receipts, typing dots or activity status, and what Tinder’s paid read receipts were, is on dating app read receipts.

What it costs

Tinder is free to use, with limits; what each free tier allows is compared in our best free dating apps guide. On top of that sit three subscriptions, Plus, Gold and Platinum, plus one-off extras such as Boosts and Super Likes. The table shows App Store list prices on October 4, 2026. The store does not label billing periods, so we do not quote a monthly price. Where an item has several prices, the listing does not say which period each one covers. What to write once you have matched is in our guide to dating app opening lines.

A dash means we have no list price for that item. Platinum was not in the Swedish in-app list when we looked (App Store, 2026). Tinder’s own terms say pricing varies by a number of factors, as Which? quoted them (Which?, 2022).

Tinder’s feature page lists what each tier adds, without prices. Plus gives you unlimited likes and rewinds, which let you undo a swipe. Gold adds See Who Likes You, weekly Super Likes and a monthly Boost. Platinum adds Prioritized Likes and lets you message someone before you match (Tinder, 2026). In practice, Gold sells a shortcut. You see who has already liked you instead of finding them by swiping.

The price has also depended on who is paying. In an investigation published on January 21, 2022, the UK consumer group Which? used 199 mystery shoppers. For 12 months of Plus, people aged 30 to 49 paid about 48% more, and people 50 and over about 47% more. Tinder confirmed that it gives younger members discounts (Which?, 2022).

In California, the question went to court. In Candelore v. Tinder, a class of Plus and Gold subscribers aged 29 and over was certified on July 15, 2024, and the suit alleged that under-30s paid half. A $60.5 million settlement agreed on September 10, 2025 received preliminary approval on January 13, 2026 and final approval in June 2026, and it applies to California only (Mealey’s, 2026). Hinge’s store prices also vary, but we found no age-pricing case against it.

Paying is not the norm, either. Across all dating apps and sites, 35% of US online daters have paid at some point (Pew Research Center, 2023). That is a figure for online dating as a whole, not for Tinder.

Who it suits, and who it does not

Tinder is the biggest of the big three by a wide margin. Google Play shows more than 500 million installs, against more than 100 million for Bumble and more than 10 million for Hinge (Google Play, 2026). In the US, 46% of online daters have used Tinder, and so have 79% of online daters aged 18 to 29 (Pew Research Center, 2023).

It is also shrinking. Match Group’s total payers fell 5% to 13.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 (Match Group, 2026). Tinder’s daily active users were down 4% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, which Match Group called its best result in ten quarters (Match Group, 2026). A smaller drop counts as good news.

That makes Tinder the obvious pick if you want the most people to choose from, if you are under 30, or if you are after something casual. Pew’s numbers show that young people use it. They say nothing about what those people want from it.

It suits you less if you want to read something real about a person before you match, which is closer to how Hinge is built. If the choice is Tinder or Bumble, our Tinder vs Bumble page lays out what still differs. The same goes if you want the app to enforce some manners. Nothing in Tinder makes anyone answer.

In Sweden, the app is in Swedish (App Store, 2026). We found no reliable figure for how many people in Sweden use it, so we do not give one.

How we scored it. Pool is 5, because Tinder leads on installs by far. Serious is 2, and preliminary. The only data on intent is Tinder’s own Relationship Goals split, from members who chose to answer, and Pew’s 79% measures reach, not intent. Cost is 3. The free tier works, with a limit nobody can quote, and Plus has the lowest starting list price of the three big apps’ paid tiers, though no store labels the billing periods (App Store, 2026), and the UK test showed the price depending on age. Women is 3, and also preliminary. Pew’s harassment figures are not broken down by app, Tinder’s tools are photo verification and message prompts, and we could not confirm that Face Check is live in Sweden. Ghosting is 4, because nothing in the product makes you answer or end a conversation.

Scores

How we score