What Badoo Credits Are and What You Can Use Them For

Credits are Badoo's top-up system. Rather than paying a monthly subscription, you buy a balance of Credits and spend it on single actions. You can use them to move to the top of Discover, be seen by more people in Encounters, start a chat with someone you have not matched with, buy Extra Shows, send a Crush or buy read receipts.

Premium and Extra are subscriptions. You pay for a period, and a set of features comes with it for as long as the plan runs.

Credits work the other way round. You top up a balance, and each thing you choose to do takes some of it. You spend only when you decide to.

The two also fit together. Both Premium and Extra give you bonus credits when you buy Credits. So if you already pay for a plan and you also buy Credits, the same purchase goes a little further.

Tap the credit balance on your profile page. That is where you top up.

Prices change and differ from place to place, so check the amounts in the app itself rather than trusting a figure you read somewhere else.

• Moving to the top of Discover.
• Being seen by more people in Encounters.
• Starting a chat without a match.
• Buying Extra Shows.
• Sending a Crush.
• Buying read receipts.

Most of these do one of three jobs. They put you in front of more women, they let you talk to a woman before she has matched with you, or they tell you whether your message was read.

Moving to the top of Discover and being seen by more people in Encounters both put you in front of more women.

a dating coach has used paid visibility on other apps, and his experience is worth copying. A boost works best when you have not been on the app for a while and have not been shown to many people lately. Boosting again and again in quick succession gets you less each time, and he finds the apps tend to hold back a man who tries to grab too many matches at once.

So spread them out. Use one at a time, leave a gap before the next, and ideally use one after a spell away from the app.

Be clear about what paying to be seen gets you. It shows your photos to more women. If your photos already get likes, that is a good trade. If they do not, you simply get passed on by more people, so fix the photos before you pay to show them around.

In Discover, Credits let you open a chat with a woman who has not matched with you, as long as your account is verified.

coach sees real value in putting a message in front of a woman before she has matched with you. But she did not choose you, and women online ignore far more men than they answer, so the opener has to be good. Keep it short, make it about something on her page, and give it a little playful edge. Spend these Credits on women who are clearly your type, not on everyone who looks fine.

A Crush and Extra Shows are both on the list of things Credits can buy. My rule for this kind of paid extra is the same for all of them. Try it on purpose, see whether it moves your results, and stop if it does not.

Read receipts tell you whether she has read your message. That is all they tell you.

Be careful what you do with the answer. A read message with no reply is not a reason to send three more. If the conversation was going well, send one more light message later. If that goes nowhere too, put your attention on someone else. Knowing she has read it should make you calmer, not busier.

coach is generally in favor of spending money on dating apps. His reasoning is that the apps favor the members who pay, and that paying often saves you hours you would otherwise spend swiping. He is just as firm that you should test each thing rather than spend blindly.

So give yourself a budget, try one use at a time, and count what it does. Did the visibility bring more likes? Did the paid chats get replies? Did any of it lead to a plan?

Keep what works and drop the rest. None of it replaces the free part that matters most, which is moving a good conversation toward a plan. coach usually gets from the app to a woman's number within four to seven messages, and that is where the dates actually come from.