If you’ve got some cash to spare (and maybe haven’t gotten as many matches as you’d like so far) you’ll soon be able to pay to be at the front of the line on Tinder—for 30 minutes, at least.
The app introduced speed and convenience into the world online dating when it launched four years ago. Now, with over 50 million users competing for each other’s attention, the app is adding Tinder Boost, a new paid feature that will allow users to appear among the top profiles in their area for half an hour. “Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day and what you need is a boost in the right direction,” the company wrote in a blog post yesterday (Sept. 27). The makers claim this can up your chances of finding a match by a factor of 10.
Of course, nothing in life comes free and this premium feature, too, will have a price tag. Tinder Boost is currently testing out Boost in Australia before a worldwide rollout, and will use the trial to establish a price point that’s high enough to make sure not everyone uses boost at the same time, thereby dampening its effect. A global launch date has not yet been announced.
Other dating services offer variations of the premium feature. Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, offers a similar boost option on its website that places a user’s profile in the Popular Singles tab and at the top of search results. Bumble, the Tinder-like app where women make the first move, offers similar premium access for $9.99 a month. Instead of being discovered more in your area, Bumble lets you see people who have already liked you at the top of your feed. Tinder already has over $1 million subscribers for its monthly paid service, Tinder Plus, so there’s clearly interest in premium features on the platform. And considering Boost would allow for one-off payments, it could prove wildly popular for the occasional push.