Best dating app for over 50: Pew's age data, prices, and the scams

Updated October 4, 2026 · 11 min read

We found no app that publishes results by age, so "best dating app for over 50" has no measured answer. What exists: a Pew count of the apps US online daters have used (Match 54% and Tinder 17% among those aged 50 to 64), dated list prices for the over-50 services, and scam figures for people 60 and over.

We did not use any of these services for this page. We looked at Pew Research Center’s 2023 reports, the FBI’s 2025 crime report, App Store listings, the terms of two services, two ranking lists we could read in full and four forum threads. Anything that is our opinion is labeled.

Which dating app is best for over 50?

We found no app that publishes outcomes by age, so the question has no measured answer. The ranking lists answer it anyway, and not with the same name. AARP’s review, updated August 24, 2026, puts SeniorMatch first (AARP, 2026b). The list on seniorliving.org, from January 14, 2026, puts SilverSingles first (seniorliving.org, 2026). Forbes Health has a senior list as well. We could not open it in full, so nothing from it is on this page.

What can be checked is narrower: where people over 50 have been, by Pew’s count; what each service cost on one day; and what people 60 and over report losing to romance scams. We found no age data from the three apps we score, Hinge, Tinder and Bumble, either. Our method and scores are on our best dating apps page. How many people over 50 date online at all, and what they want from it, is on our dating after 50 page.

Where over-50s have been, by Pew’s count

Pew Research Center asked US adults who had ever used a dating site or app which of eight named apps they had used. The survey ran July 5 to 17, 2022, with 6,034 adults, and the report came out February 2, 2023. The table shows the share of online daters in each age band who had ever used each app (Pew, 2023a, printed page 4).

The base is online daters, not all adults. Only 20% of all US adults aged 50 to 64, and 13% of those 65 and over, had ever used a dating site or app (Pew, 2023a, printed page 18). Measured against all adults aged 50 to 64, the apps shrink: 11% had used Match, 6% eharmony, 3% each Tinder and OkCupid, 2% Bumble and 1% Hinge (Pew, 2023a, printed page 21).

Pew’s July 17, 2023 short read splits the same survey at age 50. Among online daters, 11% of those 50 and older had used Tinder, against 59% of those under 50. For Match it was the other way round: 50% against 24% (Pew, 2023b). Tinder also drops by decade, from 19% of online daters in their 50s to 6% in their 60s and 1% at 70 and over (Pew, 2023b).

OurTime, SilverSingles and SeniorMatch were not among the eight apps Pew asked about, so Pew has no figure for any of them.

Our reading: the people over 50 who have dated online have mostly been on Match and eharmony. That says where they have been, not where they would do best.

The over-50 services we have not reviewed

Four services aim at people over 50, and we have scored none of them. The table shows who runs each one, who may join and what the US App Store listed on October 4, 2026.

Sources for the table: SilverSingles, 2026; SeniorMatch, 2026; Apple App Store, 2026.

The two services the lists put first, SeniorMatch and SilverSingles, name the same operating company in their own terms (SilverSingles, 2026; SeniorMatch, 2026). None of the lists we read says so. Global Dating Insights lists SilverSingles among the brands of Spark Networks, whose German unit entered preliminary insolvency in January 2026 (Global Dating Insights, 2026a). Another Spark brand, EliteSingles, told users on April 28, 2026 that it would close on April 30 (Global Dating Insights, 2026b).

“Not reviewed” means we have not scored a service, and we borrow no verdicts from other sites. The prices are in-app purchase list prices on the US App Store listings (Apple App Store, 2026). Prices on the web and in other countries may differ. In Sweden, the over-50 search results are led by OurTime and Mötesplatsen, which our Sweden hub covers along with our Swedish best-app guide.

Mainstream apps after 50

We found no age data published by Hinge, Tinder or Bumble. We score them on the same five axes as every other app, and the scores are on their app pages. Pew’s figures for this age group are small: 3% of all US adults aged 50 to 64 have ever used Tinder, and 1% Hinge (Pew, 2023a).

Tinder is the one app here with a court record on age that we found. In Candelore v. Tinder, the California Court of Appeal (case B270172, January 29, 2018) dealt with a complaint alleging that Tinder Plus cost $19.99 a month for users 30 and older, against $9.99 or $14.99 for younger users (Candelore v. Tinder, 2018). The court concluded that the pricing model, as alleged, violated California’s Unruh Act “to the extent it employs an arbitrary, class-based, generalization about older users’ incomes”, and sent the case back. That was a ruling on the pleadings, not a verdict after a trial.

A class settlement of about $60 million, covering California only, received final approval in June 2026 (Mealey’s, 2026). The details are on our Tinder page. We found no age-pricing case against Hinge or Bumble.

Our view: at 50 or 60 the mainstream apps work the same way they do at 30, with a thinner pool in your age range. Pew’s numbers show that, and we found nothing from the apps that says otherwise.

What it costs

All prices here are list prices for in-app purchases on the US App Store, read October 4, 2026 (Apple App Store, 2026). The three over-50 services label their periods. OurTime’s cheapest tier is one week at $19.99, a month is $39.99 and six months $89.99. SilverSingles sells a month for $18.99 and six months for $84.99. SeniorMatch asks $34.99 for a month and $109.99 for six.

The mainstream app listings we read do not label theirs. Hinge+ was listed at $16.99 and $19.99, Tinder Plus at $9.99 and Gold from $13.99 to $24.99, and Bumble Premium from $17.99 to $32.99, none with a billing period (Apple App Store, 2026). Several prices for one tier probably mean several plan lengths, and our Hinge vs Bumble comparison goes into what that means in practice.

Our rule of thumb: convert everything to a monthly price before you compare, and where the store gives no period, do not assume a month. Six months of SilverSingles works out to about $14 a month, SeniorMatch to about $18 and OurTime to $15. Four single weeks of OurTime come to $79.96, about twice the price of its month (our arithmetic, from the prices above).

In the three over-50 services above, the lowest monthly figure comes with the six-month plan. And a price list does not say what you get for the money. None of the three over-50 services publishes what its free tier allows in a form we could check.

Scams: the numbers for 50 and over

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center counted 23,159 confidence and romance fraud complaints in 2025, with $929,287,469 in reported losses (IC3, 2026, pages 7 and 8). People 60 and over filed 10,188 of those complaints and reported $584,032,745, so most of the money lost in this category was lost by people 60 and over (IC3, 2026, pages 45 and 46). These are complaints, not all victims. People who never report do not appear.

AARP’s February 2026 survey of 1,008 adults 50 and over, run by NORC in mid-November 2025, asked people who had been approached for money where it started. Dating apps were named most often, at 63% (AARP, 2026a). The rest of that survey is on our dating after 50 page.

Pew asked online daters about four kinds of harassment. Among those 50 and over, 36% of women and 29% of men had received an unwanted sexually explicit message or image, and 50% of women and 40% of men had experienced at least one of the four (Pew, 2023a, printed page 10).

Our rule of thumb, four habits: a video call before money or travel comes up; a reverse image search of the profile photos; no payment apps or gift cards for anyone you have not met; and a report to the platform and to the police. Readers in Sweden can call Polisen on 114 14, as our romance fraud story explains.

What people over 50 say in forums

Mumsnet and Gransnet are British forums for parents and grandparents. We read four threads. Each one is a single conversation, paraphrased here, not a survey.

• Mumsnet, February 12, 2026, 34 replies. A poster asked which apps to suggest to a nervous friend. Replies said OurTime had gone downhill, that Tinder had worked for some in their mid-50s, and that filtering mattered more than the app (Mumsnet, 2026).
• Mumsnet, April 6, 2025, 98 replies. A divorced 50-year-old asked which app to use. Most replies described dishonest profiles and suggested hobbies instead, and she decided against online dating (Mumsnet, 2025).
• Gransnet, August 16, 2024, 38 posts. A woman in her 60s found that the men on dating sites could not keep up with her, and replies suggested groups built around an interest (Gransnet, 2024).
• Gransnet, March 3, 2023, 17 posts. Success stories and scam warnings sat side by side, with advice to go slowly and meet in public (Gransnet, 2023).

One caution. Gransnet also hosts sponsored threads paid for by dating companies, labeled as such. Gransnet labels these threads as sponsored.

Numbers on review pages need the same care. AARP’s review page says a 2025 AARP survey of 300 adults 50 and over found that around half (49 percent) had used a dating site in the past three years, and that 41 percent had come across a fake profile or a scam attempt (AARP, 2026b). The page publishes no method beyond the sample size, and it carries affiliate links.

Our reading: across the four threads, posters talk more about who is on an app near them than about the app itself. That is the one thing the lists we read do not tell you.

How to read an over-50 list

AARP’s list, by Taylor Leamey and updated August 24, 2026, names four services. SeniorMatch is “best overall” with a 9.9, followed by eharmony at 7.2, Tawkify at 8.5 and Match at 9.3, so the printed order is not the score order. The page says “AARP may earn a commission through affiliate links” (AARP, 2026b).

The seniorliving.org list, by Matthew Jones and dated January 14, 2026, puts SilverSingles first, then OurTime, eHarmony and Zoosk. It says it tested 10 products over 50 hours, and that the site is “supported by commissions from providers listed on our site” (seniorliving.org, 2026).

Five questions sort most of these lists:

1. Method. Does it say how it tested, and for how long?
2. Prices. Do they carry a date?
3. User numbers. Is there a source for each one?
4. Money. Does the site get paid when you click?
5. Ownership. Does it say who runs the service? For over-50 services this matters more than usual, because the two lists we read in full crowned two services that name the same company in their terms.

Our rule of thumb: when two lists crown two services run by the same company, you are reading a brochure.

How to use this

1. The local pool as the test. Online daters over 50 have mostly been on Match and eharmony, by Pew’s count (Pew, 2023a), which is not the same as where you would do best. Two weeks on one app shows whether anyone your age is near you.
2. One month, not six, until you know. The six-month plans cost less per month and lock you in the longest.
3. The period label in the store before you compare. If there is no label, the price is not a monthly price.
4. The scam habits above. A video call before money or travel, a reverse image search, no gift cards or payment apps, and a report when something is off.
5. Our dating after 50 page for the rest. Profiles, pace after a divorce and what daters over 50 say they want are covered there.