How to Buy and Activate a Boost on Hinge

Go to your Likes You page and tap the Boost button. If you have not bought a Boost yet, the button takes you to a purchase screen. If you already own one, the same tap activates it instantly, and the button then shows how much time you have left.

1. Open Hinge and go to your Likes You page.
2. Tap the Boost button.
3. If you have no Boost, make the purchase from the screen that opens.
4. If you already have a Boost, tapping the button starts it straight away.
5. Watch the button for the time remaining while it runs.

That is the whole process. The part worth thinking about is the order you do it in.

Hinge says a Boost you already own activates the instant you tap the button. Treat that tap as the moment your hour begins.

So never tap the button just to see what it does. Picture a man who buys a Boost at lunch and forgets he has it. That night he pokes the button to check, and he has just started an hour he may not be around for.

You do not need to tap it to find out what you have, either. When you have no Boost, the button offers you a purchase. When you have one, it starts it.

Buying and starting are really two separate decisions. You can buy whenever you like. Start it only when the next hour is one you can actually spend on the app.

A Boost puts more women in front of you. It does nothing to what they find when they get there, so check three things first.

Your first photo. It decides most of what happens, because it is the first thing she sees. Your face should be clear, the light should be good, and nobody else should share the frame.

Your other photos. Together they should answer a simple question: what does an ordinary week with you look like? A dinner, a hobby, a trip, a group of friends. Five shots from the same afternoon answer it badly.

Your written answers. Read each one and ask whether a stranger could reply to it. An answer with a small story or a real opinion gives her something to say. A list of adjectives about yourself gives her nothing.

If any of those three is weak, fix it before you spend anything. a dating coach describes paid features as multipliers: they take whatever your page already earns and give you more of it. A page that earns nothing gets multiplied into more nothing.

Choose a time when you will be free for the full hour and when women are likely to be on the app too. An ordinary weeknight evening at home is a better bet than the hour before you head out.

coach has a further tip from his own experience and his clients'. A Boost does best when you have not been active on the app for a while, because there are more people you have not been shown to yet. Run several in a row and each one does a little worse than the last.

Stay on the app and keep your Likes You page open. On Hinge, coach finds, women often like something on his page first, so the likes come to him rather than him going out to find them. During a Boost that happens faster than usual.

Answer them as they come in with real messages. Match with the women you actually want to take out, and skip the ones you do not. A match you never intended to talk to only adds to your list without adding a date.

When she commented on something of yours, reply to what she said. When she sent a plain like, react to one specific thing on her page. Keep it light and short: a line or two, a little playful, and then a question.

Once the timer runs out, look at what the hour did. Did more likes arrive than on a normal night? How many turned into conversations? How many of those are heading toward a plan?

Move the good conversations forward over the next day or two while the interest is still fresh. Share a couple of real details about your life, mention going out early, and suggest a place and a time before the chat runs out of steam.

If the hour clearly beat a normal evening, a Boost is worth buying again. Next time, space it out from this one. If it barely moved the numbers, save the money and work on the first photo instead.