Is It Safe to Pay for Dating Apps?

Yes, when you pay the real app through your phone's store or the company's own checkout. That is an ordinary purchase, the same as any other subscription. The risks are not in the paying itself. They are in a plan that renews until you cancel it, in look-alike sites that exist to take your card, and in any person on an app who asks you for money.

Tinder, Hinge and Bumble sell their paid plans through the Apple App Store, Google Play and their own checkout. You are buying from a large company that wants you to keep paying, and the transaction goes through a payment system you already use for everything else on your phone.

Nothing about the purchase exposes you more than buying any other subscription would. The sensible habit is the same one you would use anywhere: open the app yourself, go to the plan screen inside it, and pay there.

The most common money trouble men have is not fraud. It is a plan they forgot they had.

A paid plan on Tinder, Bumble or Hinge renews automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel it. Deleting the app does not cancel it, and neither does deleting your account in some cases. You cancel in the place where you bought it, which is the Apple or Google subscription list on your phone, or the company's own site if you paid there.

Cancel the day you buy if you only want one period. Tinder says you keep your paid features until the end of the billing period you already paid for, so you lose nothing by cancelling early.

The risk that deserves real attention is a site or link that imitates a dating service.

Be careful with an ad, a text or a message from a stranger that sends you to a "premium" page outside the app. Do not type your card into a page you reached from a link someone sent you. If you want a paid plan, open the real app or type the company's address yourself.

Also be careful with a site you have never heard of that asks for a card just to look at profiles or to read your messages. A real, known service explains what it charges before it takes your details.

This one is a different kind of paying, and the answer is no.

Say a woman you met on an app asks you to send money or buy a gift card. Or she asks you to pay for a "verification", cover a ticket, or put money into an investment she recommends. That is not a date. It is the standard shape of a scam. It often starts with a lot of warmth, moves you to another chat app, and then brings up a problem or an opportunity that needs your money.

A paid subscription to a real app is a payment to the company. A payment to a person you have not met is the thing to refuse, however good the conversation was.

Men also ask whether paying is safe for their image. Hinge says your subscription is private, and other people on the app cannot see that you pay. Women judge you on your pictures and what you write, and no one is looking at a badge.

Safe and worthwhile are not the same thing.

a dating coach says paying for features on dating sites is probably worth it in many cases, and that the paid tiers are built to keep paying members happy. He also warns that these features are multipliers. A multiplier does nothing for a result of zero, so first check that you are getting at least some matches for free. If you are, a plan that shows you to more women can increase what you already get. If you are not, fix your pictures and your first lines before you pay.

His advice is to test any single paid feature once, because it costs little to find out and it tells you more than any theory.

Before you pay, open the real app yourself, pay inside it, and note the renewal date. Cancel straight away if you only want one period. Never pay a person, and never type your card into a page that someone else sent you.

Do those four things and paying for a dating app is about as safe as any other subscription you hold.