Is Tinder Free to Use?

Yes. Tinder is free to download on the App Store and Google Play, and it also works in a browser at Tinder.com. The free version lets you set up an account, like people, match and chat, which covers every step between a stranger and a first date. Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold and Tinder Platinum are optional subscriptions. They add extras such as unlimited Likes, seeing who Likes you and Priority Likes.

Everything that leads to a date is in the free version. You can put up your photos, write a few lines about yourself, like the women you want to meet, and match when one of them likes you back.

Once you match, the chat is open. Nobody asks you to pay before you can write to her, and nobody limits how long the conversation runs. So the part of Tinder that decides whether a match becomes a drink on Thursday costs you nothing.

That matters, because most men lose at that stage, not at the swiping stage. They match, send something flat, and the chat stops after four lines.

Tinder sells three subscriptions: Plus, Gold and Platinum. Among the extras it lists are unlimited Likes, See Who Likes You and Priority Likes.

A good way to read that list is to ask what each extra changes. Unlimited Likes changes how many women you can like. See Who Likes You changes how quickly you find the women who already liked you. Neither changes what a woman sees when your card comes up, and neither changes what you say once she matches.

So every paid extra works on reach and convenience. The two things that decide your results, your photos and your conversation, are the same on every plan.

a dating coach makes a simple point about apps like Tinder. They are businesses. Tinder started out free, and it earns its money from the people who pay, so in his view it has every reason to look after them.

He is just as clear about what paying can and cannot do. Paid features multiply the results you already get. If a free account brings you a few matches, a paid one can bring you more. If a free account brings you nothing, you are multiplying nothing, and the answer stays nothing.

That makes the free version a test you should run first. Give it a few weeks of steady use. If women like what they see, you have something worth multiplying. If almost nobody likes you back, the fix is your photos and what you wrote, not a subscription.

The real limit on a free account is volume. Unlimited Likes is sold as a paid extra, so a free account gets a limited number of them.

For most men, that limit helps. a dating program put a list of questions to a former Tinder employee, and the swiping advice was plain: be selective, and tap into a woman's page before you decide. Look past her first photo. Read what she wrote. Like the women you would be glad to hear from.

If your Likes run dry by lunchtime each day, you are almost certainly spending them on women you barely glanced at. That leaves you with matches you do not care about, and slow, lazy replies to the few you do.

A few habits make a free account work much harder.

Open the app a little most days. The same former employee advised staying active. Ten minutes on a weeknight beats two hours every other Sunday, and it means you answer while people are still around.

Answer the matches you have before you swipe for more. My order is simple. Work your best leads first, then go looking for new ones. A woman who already matched with you is closer to a date than any card you have not seen yet.

Make the first message about her. Pick something specific she shared, a photo or a line she wrote, and react to it in a sentence or two. If she mentions a dog, ask what the dog is called and whether it has ever eaten something it should not have. That is easy to answer, and it gets a conversation going.

Suggest a plan early. Once she is replying with some energy, name a place and an evening. Free Tinder can get you all the way to a date, as long as somebody actually asks.

Once the free account brings a steady trickle of matches, a paid month is worth testing. My advice on paid features is to try them rather than argue about them. He has noticed a strong bias among men who study dating against ever spending money on it, and he calls that bias a hindrance.

Run it like a test. Count your matches and real conversations for two weeks on the free version. Then count the same things for two weeks on the paid plan. If the numbers clearly moved, keep it. If they did not, cancel it and put the money toward better photos, which decide whether women like you in the first place.