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Tinder becomes top-grossing iOS app after letting people pay to see who likes them

Tinder becomes top-grossing iOS app after letting people pay to see who likes them

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After years of various revenue models, it looks like the feature people were truly willing to pay Tinder for was the ability to see who exactly swiped right on their profile without swiping right back. Tinder had been testing this feature as part of its paid Tinder Gold subscription tier in select markets for months, but after introducing it in the United States this week, the app rose to the number one spot on the App Store’s top-grossing chart in just one day, reports TechCrunch.

Tinder Gold is an optional, upgradeable tier that costs Tinder Plus users an extra $4.99 a month. (Tinder Plus on its own costs $9.99 monthly.) On Tuesday, Tinder rolled out Tinder Gold to select iOS users, but it appeared that was enough to push the service to the top of the charts. Previous monetization efforts from the company include the option to buy a la carte features like Super Like, which marks your profile with a blue star for the person who mutually swipes right back, and Tinder Boost, which puts your profile at the top of the stack when others are browsing for matches. Because you need to be a Plus user to buy Gold, it’s likely that users who wanted this new Like You feature paid for the full $14.99 monthly upgrade after previously using the app for free, which quickly boosted the service’s revenue.

The company said it plans to offer Tinder Gold on Android next month. While it may lead to more matches and dates, I’d be curious to see how people fare after knowingly swiping right on each other. A recent Match.com (which shares its parent company with Tinder) study claims iPhone owners are more likely to negatively judge Android users on a first date. Sigh, isn’t dating hard enough?