Tinder isn’t the best at reading the room or taking a hint. Even though its announcement of the outrageous $500-a-month tier, Tinder Select, led to considerable backlash back in September, the company has recently been expanding the membership offering by inviting additional users to apply for it.
Yes, there’s a whole application that you have to fill out. And you have to have an invite in order even to be eligible to do that. Tinder Select is the app’s most premium offering and prioritizes the app’s most active users to send out invites.
The perks you get for this huge ask include being able to see the app’s “most sought after profiles,” slide in the DMs without matching first, gaining early access to new features, not having to watch ads, and flexing on others with the Select badge on your profile.
CNN claims Select came out at a difficult time for Tinder’s parent company, Match Group. And might be an attempt at reparation. Reuters tells us that the feature did, in fact, end up boosting revenue by 9% when it was released, but the company fell short of its revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter. This could be an explanation for why Tinder has recently been pushing the feature again.
Tinder’s ultra-premium tier isn’t outrageous to everyone. In fact, some experts think it’s a good idea to separate folks who are mean business from people who are just looking to have some fun. Online dating coach and author Damona Hoffman says, “There should be some way to separate the serious, engaged users from the people that are there for entertainment so that I think is worth paying for. You’re not going to pay $500 for a hookup.”
A freemium model on a dating app is nothing new. There are paid features that users can choose to sign up for on several apps. Hinge, another Match Group product, has a regular, free version and a paid version for $35 a month. Earlier this year, though, the app added another version that costs around $60 per month and includes their new “motivated dater feature.”