“He likes you!” “Tom gave you a ♥” “You’re popular today! You have had 3 visitors!” The alerts from my dating apps keep my phone pinging all day. Tinder, Badoo, Taimi, Growlr – they all have one goal: Get you to spend money with them. You would be surprised how much money you could spend on dating apps per month. Especially if you want to be on many of them at the same time. Dating apps prey on our loneliness and innate need to find someone and it’s big business. Tinder for example made $1.91bn in 2023 alone [source].

Most of us feel the need to be with someone. For a short time, or a long time. Or forever. The myriad of apps allow us to put ourselves out there and look for someone. But it comes at a price. You could easily spend £500/year on these apps! You can use almost all of them for free. But sooner or later we get tired of all the imposed limitations of the free version and with a sign we sign up.

Can we sell you something extra? How about a boost for extra views?
Dating apps nowadays resemble low-cost airlines: They suck you in with low prices and then expect you to pay for every little extra they can sell you.
Likes, bosts, passport, messaging – it all costs extra and the higher tier packages that includes all or most of the features cost a fortune per year.
Since many users are only on one dating app, you have to subscribe to multiple apps to hedge your bets and increase your chances of meeting someone. But it all adds up and you could end up spending thousands per year!

Keeping you hooked
Just like the gambling industry the dating app industry try and keep you hooked. They use psychological tricks just to get you to come back to continue your spending. In fact when you think about it these apps have no incentive for you to actually find someone and get yourself off the app. What they want is for you to remain on their app, as a loyal subscriber, providing a predictable and growing revenue stream for their business. After you install the apps they bombard you with notifications to get you to open the app and subscribe or pay for a feature. “See your likes” is the most common way to lure you back: if you don’t pay you can’t see who’s tapped like on your profile. Of course you want to see who that might, be right? Especially when you see a grid full of blurred out faces – do these people all like me? Really? Wow. But there is that small matter of payment before the big profile face reveals.

£450 a year – it all adds up!
So, how much could you actually spend per year?

APP	Cost of a standard monthly subscription in GBP Prices correct October 2025.
Tinder	34.99
Grindr	14.99
Taimi	18.99
Surge	12.49
Badoo	24.99
Hinge	34.99
Romeo	8.69
Bumble	34.99
Growlr	14.49
Scruff	14.99
HER	13.99
happn	22.99
Blued	9.66 [cost based on Thai user]
heeSay	12.49

If you subscribe to 3 or 6 months there are usually discounts to be had, Badoo for example offer a 69% discount for a 6 months subscription coming in at 119.99 and Tinder offers 6 months at 75% discount @ 105.99. That would be a whopping £211.98 per year still! It may not even be that little, if you also want to subscribe to a 2nd and 3rd app. How about a Hinge and Tinder combo for example? That would set you back £451! It really is expensive to be alone.

Straight Tax
Have you noticed the “straight tax” yet? Purely LGB audience apps cost less than the apps also used by opposite-sex attracted people. I guess it’s because the market is smaller for LGB people so the market can’t bear the prices straight apps seem to be able to charge.

Spend more on extras!
These are just the standard subscriptions. It doesn’t stop there! Because now there’s all the extras. Want to be seen? Boost for an hour! Upgrade for the day? Sure, just come here – part with your money and we will reignite that faint hope of finding someone. 

 

Dating apps are like playing the lottery
In some ways the dating apps are like playing the lottery. Just like entering the lottery, you pay for the app subscriptions but the odds of actually finding someone are pretty low. Much has been published already about men and women on the apps, where men go and like many women on the apps but the women are much more selective and like far fewer, and often the same men. So if you are a straight man, the chances of getting a match can be slim. If you are a straight woman you are probably bombarded with likes and it must be overwhelming at times. We all have the same in common though: we part with our money to these apps because most of them are barely usable if you don’t pay and we live increasingly isolated lives where fewer of us go and meet in real life.