Tinder says a Purchase Failed error on an iPhone means your Apple ID is already linked to an active subscription on a different Tinder account. Each Apple ID can be tied to only one Tinder account and one subscription at a time. To buy on the account you are using now, you first have to delete the old account through Settings, then Delete Account.

One Apple ID, one account, one plan

Apple pays for your Tinder subscription through your Apple ID. Tinder allows that Apple ID to hold one Tinder account and one subscription at a time.

So if you once subscribed on a different Tinder account, maybe one you set up with another phone number or email, that account still holds the subscription. When you try to buy again from a second account on the same Apple ID, Apple refuses, and Tinder shows Purchase Failed.

Nothing is wrong with your card and nothing is wrong with the app. The Apple ID is simply already taken.

Finding the other account

Most men who see this error have forgotten the old account exists.

Think back to any account you made before this one. You might have signed up with a different phone number or a different email address. Try signing in with each one until the old account opens. It is the one with the active plan.

Deleting the old account first

Tinder says that to buy on the new account, you must first delete the old one. Sign in to the old account, tap the profile icon, go to Settings, and select Delete Account.

Tinder describes a matching error, where a subscription is tied to another account, and gives the same fix with one more step. Delete the old account, then log in to the new one and restore the purchase. A subscription can be restored on a new account, so the plan you already pay for does not have to be bought twice.

What the old account takes with it

Deleting is final for most of what is on that account.

Tinder says starting over loses your matches and your messages. Consumables go too. Super Likes and Boosts cannot move from one account to another, so any you had left stay behind. Tinder's Terms of Use say you get no money back for unused virtual items when an account is closed.

So before you delete, open the old account and look through it. If there is a conversation worth keeping, get her number first. If there are Boosts left, use them. After that, delete it with nothing to lose.

Or keep the old account instead

Deleting the old account is not the only way out. That account is the one holding your plan, so you could sign in to it and carry on there.

Compare the two before you choose. Which one has the conversations worth continuing? Which one has the better photos and the better words? Keep that one. If it turns out to be the old account, stop using the new one. Deleting the new one later will lose whatever matches and messages it holds, so read through those first too.

Run one account, not two

The simplest way to avoid this error is to have one Tinder account and keep it.

Two accounts split your effort. Your matches, your conversations and your paid features end up scattered across both, and neither gets your full attention. One account, with one plan on one Apple ID, is easier to manage and easier to judge.

It also makes a dating coach's test possible. His rule for anything the apps sell is to try it, see whether it makes a real difference, and drop it if it does not. You cannot measure that when half your results are sitting on an account you forgot about.

Make the one account worth paying for

Once the purchase goes through, the plan still has to earn its place.

coach calls paid features multipliers and points out that a million times zero is still zero. If your account brings in a few matches in an ordinary week, a subscription has something to multiply. If it brings in almost none, the plan will not rescue it. Put a clear, recent photo of your face at the front, taken in good light with nobody else in it. Open with a line about something she posted instead of a greeting. Then count your dates over the next few weeks, and let that number decide whether the subscription stays.