Hinge is a dating app that’s not just about swiping. Its tagline, “designed to be deleted,” reflects its product philosophy: It wants you to find long-term romance so that you can then take the app off your phone. Hinge, which is owned by Match Group — the owner of many dating apps and sites, including Match.com and Tinder — has a reputation as the relationship app.
Match Group has called Hinge one of its fastest-growing brands by revenue, and it’s among the favorites of analysts to eventually become a significant contributor to Match’s bottom line in addition to Tinder. Where others focus on scale, Hinge’s attention is on quality of interactions — fewer mindless swipes, more meaningful exchanges.
How Hinge Works: Profiles, Prompts, Likes, and Chats
Unlike swipe-based apps, Hinge shows you one detailed profile at a time. You don’t “like” a person, per se — you like something about them, be it an answer to a prompt or a photo (or an audio snippet), and with that, you can begin the chat by adding a comment. That tiny design decision nudges people toward actually responding to something real, instead of randomly spitting out a “hey.”
Profiles center around prompts — the thoughtful, short cues placed on Hinge to reveal character and values. Some popular ones include “My simple pleasures,” “I go crazy for,” and “The way to win me over is.” Voice prompts give texture, so users can hear tone, humor, and self-assuredness in seconds. The result is a profile that reads more like an opener at a party than a résumé.
Free accounts have a finite number of likes per day, which makes choices feel more purposeful. Hinge additionally limits the number of “Likes” anyone can have open at once, holding out for those we’re most interested in. And Hinge’s “Your Turn” feature nudges people to respond — making that slow fade and rude behavior a little less acceptable by calling you out. But these are all examples of how one company serving just a sliver of the population knows other markets may exist with users looking to exit what they consider to be toxic vibes or soul-crushing dating app addiction.
Features That Shape Matches and Improve Safety
Standouts is Hinge’s curated feed of extra-applicable people culled from your preexisting behavior and likes. Here, users can send a Rose — a premium like that indicates heightened interest and tends to land prominently in the recipient’s inbox. You start with a somewhat limited number of Roses, each of which is provided to you in the app, and you can buy more if you wish.
Boost and Superboost make your profile more visible to the point that a greater number of potential matches will see it in a short period. There’s also in-app video chat so you can verify your match before meeting up for a date, selfie requests to avoid awkward catfishing, and Match Notes for uploading sensitive information about yourself without the fear of the whole world seeing it. In combination, these features have the potential to increase quality while preserving safety.
Hinge is notably inclusive. Users can select a spectrum of gender identities, and also have the option to pair with other members’ profiles or see others who’d be interested in chatting with them. They also can filter for lifestyle choices that are important to future coupledom — from plans for children (or not), whether you want marriage (or don’t), drinking, smoking, religion, and a partner’s politics — without turning the experience into an Excel spreadsheet.
Free and Paid Options: Plans, Filters, and Visibility
The free plan allows you to make a complete profile, pull up and evaluate profiles, send a predetermined number of likes, and message your matches. For lots of people that’s enough to get traction, especially with great prompts and photos.
Hinge+ eliminates the daily like cap, opens the floodgates on all incoming likes at once, and adds advanced filters. There are things like height range, whether someone has children or family plans, and if someone smokes or drinks — all the filters that allow you to rule out mismatches early.
HingeX taps another tier: hopped-up recommendations, priority likes that make your interest pop toward the top of someone’s inbox, and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get visibility increase that might as well let you “skip the line.” Prices are subject to change and vary by region, so it’s also a good idea to check with the app for current rates and bundles.
Why People Choose Hinge for Real, Lasting Connections
Prompts force specificity. It’s easier to start a real conversation when someone has shared their go-to Sunday activity, most-used spice, or oddly specific green flag. Engagement tends to go up when users comment on a specific prompt or photo than when they send a generic like, Hinge has reported in its Hinge Labs research — something many daters can confirm through anecdotal experience.
Culturally, Hinge is stuck somewhere between swipe apps and more traditional dating apps with women at the helm, like Coffee Meets Bagel or Bumble. Voice prompts can even be responsible for the sort of viral crazes that circulate on social platforms: you may have seen challenges to replicate a sound, rhythmic playback, or set of lyrics somewhere online lately. All by way of saying: personality succeeds when it’s heard as well as read.
Context matters here too. Pew Research Center says a large number of adults have pursued online dating and are looking for a serious relationship. Hinge’s product decisions — offering limited likes, setting up deeper profiles, curating date spots in users’ own cities, and focusing on user experience — all respond to that desire for quality over quantity. On the safety front, the Federal Trade Commission generously encourages all dating-app users to meet up in public places and look out for red flags, and Hinge includes tools for blocking, reporting, and meeting before hanging out.
Getting Started and Succeeding on Hinge: Tips and Habits
Post some headshots that show you in multiple aspects of your life and answer a few prompts with specifics — the coffee shop you’ll never give up on, the concert that revolutionized your thinking about a genre, the hill you’re willing to die on.
Details are how others get hooks to respond.
When swiping, like something specific and make a short comment to demonstrate you’re reading the profile. Keep a few (other) filters on for your must-haves, but don’t over-narrow things down. It’s an app designed to engender fewer, better conversations — and if it works, you’ll do just as the tagline suggests.
