How Many Users Does Badoo Have?

We found no Badoo member count we can vouch for, so we will not give one. The count you see online comes from somewhere, but a worldwide total says little about the women near you. The company's own report is more useful. It calls Badoo a market leader in several countries in Europe and Latin America. For a man choosing among dating apps, the number that matters is how many active women answer you in your city.

Bumble Inc.'s annual report to the SEC lists Badoo as one of the apps the company operates, beside Bumble, Bumble For Friends, Fruitz and Official. It calls Badoo the older of its two dating apps and one of the pioneers of free-to-use dating. It also says Badoo remains a market leader in several countries in Europe and Latin America.

In the pages we read, the report gives no list of countries and no count of Badoo members, so we will not name countries or put a figure on it. If a number from a news site or a forum disagrees, treat it as a claim without a source.

Several things can sit behind a big figure.

Accounts are not people. A total may count downloads, old accounts and people who stopped opening the app long ago. Badoo says being inactive for a long time does not delete an account, and neither does deleting the app from a phone. So an old account can still be counted while nobody is home.

It is worldwide. Women in another country never appear in your feed. A huge total in a place you do not live in tells you nothing.

It ignores your filters. You set an age range and a distance. A pool that is large on paper can be small once you ask for what you would actually date.

Some accounts are not real. Badoo says a team works around the clock to watch for fake accounts, spam and unsafe activity, and it uses an AI tool called Deception Detector to flag scams, backed by human moderators. The existence of that effort is a fair sign that the total is not all women you could meet.

a dating coach's rule for every app is that results depend on whether the women on it are really looking to date. The same app can be busy in one city and thin in the next, which is why forum answers about Badoo contradict each other. A man in one city says it is everywhere, and a man in another says nobody uses it, and both are right about where they live.

So the useful question is not how big the app is. It is how many women near you are active and willing to match with you.

• Women within the distance you would travel for a weeknight drink.
• How many of them have recent photos and filled-in details.
• How many of them match with you when you vote.

The first two are visible in a few days. The third takes about two weeks.

1. Install the app and finish your page before you vote. Use clear, recent photos with your face in the first one, and verify.
2. Set a distance you would really travel and an age range you would take out.
3. Spend ten minutes a day in Encounters for three days and write down how many women look active.
4. Check the dots. Green means online now, red means within the last few hours, and a lot of grey suggests a quiet pool.

If most women look alive, run a two-week test. If most look abandoned, you have your answer and have paid nothing.

In a big city you can keep the distance short and still see plenty of women. In a small one the pool runs out fast, and Badoo itself suggests relaxing your age and distance filters.

Do that one step at a time. A woman an hour away is a hard date to arrange, however good the chat. Stop at the point where you would really make the trip.

Be careful with your votes in a small pool. My warning on every app is that liking nearly everyone tends to make the app treat you as less attractive and show you to fewer of the women you want. Fewer, better chosen votes usually work better.

Open Tinder, Hinge or Bumble beside Badoo and compare the first twenty women each app shows you. That comparison is more reliable than any membership total, because it measures the pool you will really be talking to.

My advice is to run more than one app and let the results decide. If Badoo gives you matches and conversations, keep it. If it does not, use the time where it works.

A big number is not a reason to use Badoo, and a small one is not a reason to skip it. Use it free for two weeks with your best photos, and write down the matches, the conversations and the dates you set. Premium and Credits are multipliers, so pay only if the free weeks gave you something to multiply.