Which Hinge Preferences Are Free and Which Need a Subscription?

All Hinge members can filter by gender, distance, age range, ethnicity, relationship type and religion. Subscribers, on either Hinge+ or HingeX, can also filter by height, dating intentions, children and family plans. Their list also covers drugs, smoking, marijuana, drinking, politics and education level. Whatever you set on either list stays private, and the free list is where most men should start.

Hinge's help page lists the preferences all users can filter by. Gender, distance and age range are on it. So are ethnicity, relationship type and religion.

Those cover the questions that decide most first dates before anyone meets. Are you attracted to her at all? Does she live close enough to see? Are you at a similar point in life? Do you want the same kind of relationship? For a lot of men, a sensible age range, a realistic distance and the right relationship type are the whole setup.

Hinge's help page lists the extra preferences subscribers can filter by. It starts with height, dating intentions, children and family plans. Then come habits: drugs, smoking, marijuana and drinking. It ends with politics and education level.

Hinge's subscription page puts advanced dating preferences in both paid tiers, Hinge+ and HingeX, so you do not need the top tier for them. HingeX adds other features on top, but the extra filters come with either.

Subscribers also get quick filters at the top of the Discover feed, such as height and dating intentions, which they can tap on and off while they browse.

You can loosen a preference by ticking a box marked Show profiles outside of this preference, and your Dating Preferences screen will then show the word Flexible next to it. Gender is the exception: Hinge says gender preferences are strict by default and cannot be loosened.

Flexible is worth understanding before you pay for anything. Hinge's own help page on getting more matches suggests widening your preferences this way, and says it gives you the option to see more people and lets more people see you too. That second half is the part men forget.

The honest answer is fewer than you would guess. A filter is worth paying for when it removes women you would never date for a real reason, not when it removes women who do not match a picture in your head.

The ones that tend to earn their place are the ones about the life you want. Dating intentions, if you know you want something serious, or know you do not. Children and family plans, if you already have kids or already know you never want them. Smoking, if it genuinely rules someone out for you.

The ones that tend to cost more than they give are the cosmetic and proxy filters. Filtering women by height rarely changes who you would actually enjoy a date with. Education level is often a stand-in for something else you care about, like curiosity or ambition. It also filters out plenty of women who have exactly that.

Hinge's Discover feed is built on mutual fit. Its help page says the people you see fit your preferences and you fit theirs. Every firm filter you add removes women from your feed, and it works alongside whatever filters they have set too.

Hinge makes the same point about its own pricing. It says that if every dater could apply unlimited dealbreakers, everyone's dating pools would shrink. People would see fewer potential matches, including some who might be a good fit. A man who switches on every paid filter the day he subscribes is doing that to himself on purpose.

The useful habit is to separate must-haves from nice-to-haves. A must-have is something that would end the relationship later anyway. A nice-to-have is a preference you would happily drop for the right woman. Only the first kind belongs in a firm filter.

Filters work before the match. What happens after it is down to you. If women in your feed are not liking you back, or conversations die after two lines, a better-targeted feed will usually show you the same result with fewer people in it.

Filters are a tool for spending your time on the right women. Photos, prompts and what you say in the chat are what make those women want to meet you. Fix those first if they are the weak part.

A lot of men refuse to pay for any dating app on principle, as if paying were the same as being needy. That instinct costs more than it saves. If a feature genuinely changes your results, the money is small next to the time you get back.

But test it rather than assume it. Subscribe for a short period, switch on only the one or two filters that reflect real must-haves, and compare the dates you get with what you had before. If nothing changes, cancel and keep the free list. If something does, you have your answer, and it came from your own numbers rather than from anyone's opinion.