How Do You Pay for a Dating App With Cash?

You cannot pay a dating app in cash. The apps bill through a card, PayPal or the payment system built into your phone's app store, and Tinder's help center does not list cash among its ways to pay. The closest thing to paying without a bank card is a Tinder gift card, which you buy online and redeem on the Tinder site.

Tinder's help center lists most credit and debit cards, PayPal, and Venmo, with Venmo available on the web only. It adds that the options vary by location and device.

Cash is not on that list, and neither is a coin machine or a payment at a store counter. If you want to pay with something other than a card, the web purchase and the gift card are your routes.

Tinder sells gift cards online in the US at tinder.com/giftcard. Each one covers one month of Tinder Gold.

To use it, you log in on tinder.com/giftcard and enter the card number and PIN. A few rules go with it:

• The card does not expire.
• You can only redeem it when you have no active subscription.
• Each card is one month, so a longer stretch means more than one card.

The second rule trips men up. If you already have a paid plan running, the card has to wait until that plan ends.

On an iPhone or an Android phone, the purchase usually goes through the app store. Tinder says purchases on iPhone and Android follow Apple's and Google Play's payment options.

That changes the question. The payment methods you can use are the ones Apple or Google accept for your account, so check what your store lets you add before you decide how to pay.

Bumble works the same way on Android. Purchases there have to go through Google Play. Card, PayPal and Apple Pay subscriptions can also be managed in the Bumble app.

Hinge splits it by phone. On iOS you can pay through the Apple App Store or through Hinge payment, which is powered by Stripe. On Android you pay through Google Play.

You have three honest options.

• Use the Tinder gift card, bought online, if Tinder is the app you want.
• Pay on the web where the app allows it, using PayPal or Venmo for Tinder.
• Use whatever balance or payment method your Apple or Google account already holds, if the store accepts it.

Whether a prepaid card works depends on the card and the store, so look at what the checkout screen takes before you count on it.

A man who cannot find a way to pay with cash is usually trying to avoid a recurring charge. That is a reasonable worry, and the gift card is the option here built for it, since each one covers a single month of Tinder Gold.

Paid plans on the big apps renew automatically until you cancel. If you do pay by card, find the cancel setting on the first day, in the place where you bought it, and put the renewal date in your calendar.

Whichever route you take, keep the confirmation. A Tinder gift card has a number and a PIN, and both belong somewhere you can find them, because a card you cannot read later is a card you paid for and never used. A purchase through Apple or Google Play leaves its receipt in that store account, and a card or PayPal payment leaves one in your email.

If a charge ever looks wrong, the receipt is how you work out which place billed you, and that tells you where to ask about it. It also tells you where to cancel, since you cancel in the same place you bought.

Most men who ask how to pay for an app are really asking whether paying will fix their results. Often it will not.

A paid plan changes how many women you can reach and who sees you. It does not change what the woman sees when she looks at you. If your first photo is weak or your opening message could have gone to anyone, a paid tier just sends the same weak pitch to more women.

So order your spending. Fix the photos first, then the messages, then decide whether the extra reach is worth a month's charge. If you do pay, a single month is a fair test. Run it with good photos and see what changes.