EXPRESS: Design and Pricing of Online Dating Subscriptions

Abstract

Online dating is now the most common way for new couples in the U.S. to meet, with more than 30% of Americans having used dating apps and annual industry revenues exceeding three billion dollars. Most dating apps monetize through subscription pricing, offering users fixed periods of app access for recurring fees. However, applying subscription pricing to online dating presents unique challenges. Unlike other digital services, users’ valuations of dating app services typically decline over time as continued participation can be costly in terms of both time and emotional effort, and repeated renewals may signal unsuccessful searches. Further, a dating app's dual objectives of (i) building a large user base of paying subscribers, and (ii) successfully matching those users, are ostensibly in tension, since users who achieve their goal of finding a partner subsequently exit the platform. Given the inherently transient nature of user engagement with dating apps, it is notable that leading U.S. dating apps, such as Hinge and Bumble, have begun offering increasingly long subscription options, including lifetime subscriptions. In this paper, we analyze the performance of subscription pricing strategies with varying service lengths for online dating platforms. We propose a natural model of dating app monetization and use it to evaluate how subscription length affects both profit and steady-state user base size. Notably, we find that lifetime subscriptions simultaneously maximize both objectives, providing a compelling explanation for their emerging use. Finally, we extend our analysis to subscription menus with two options and show that offering one short-term option and one lifetime option guarantees at least 57.7% of the optimal performance.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Production and Operations Management, 2026 · DOI ↗