How to Make an App like Tinder: Full Guide with Costs
How to Make a Dating App UI and UX to Attract Users?
April 24, 2024Push Notifications in a Dating PWA Can Improve Retention and Increase Sales
May 16, 2024
If you're looking to create a dating app in 2024, most likely you are considering how to make an app like Tinder.
Tinder is one of the most popular dating apps on the market today with an estimated 75 million monthly active users and 10.4 million subscribers in 2023. Firstly released a decade ago, this app has changed the whole industry and the dating game itself. A simple, easy-to-use interface with location-based search filters and image-oriented content generated 1.92 billion dollars in 2023, and it's constantly growing every year. Even though you can not impress someone with a Tinder-like interface in a dating app, a swiping tool has become essential and familiar.
Source: Statista.
Some Tinder Statistics
- The app is available in 190 countries and 40 languages.
- On average, people spend 35 minutes a day on the app.
- Tinder is most popular with people aged 18-34.
- Three-quarters of Tinder users are male.
What Is the Business Value of Owning an App Like Tinder?
Creating a dating app can be a lucrative venture. The value of a dating app lies not only in its ability to generate revenue but also in its impact on users' lives.
A unique feature that distinguishes your app from competitors can significantly enhance its market presence. Success in the dating app industry requires careful planning, innovative features, and flawless execution.
Here are some advantages of developing a dating app:
- Revenue Generation Through Monetization: You can earn on your dating app through subscriptions, in-app purchases, advertisements, and other monetization channels. Research indicates that about 20% of dating app users opt for premium services to enhance their experience, which underscores the potential for substantial income. We explained dating app monetization in one of our recent posts, take a look.
- User Engagement: The success of a dating app often hinges on its user retention rate, which measures ongoing engagement following the initial download. High engagement levels can significantly increase profitability.
- Market Expansion: A major advantage of developing a dating app is its capacity to attract a large user base. Modern lifestyles often limit opportunities for romantic encounters, positioning dating apps as valuable tools for social connection. Apps that offer diverse profiles—catering to various interests, ages, and genders—and feature an engaging user interface are likely to be well-received and retain users. Simply put, with one product and some minor enhancements, you can target a wide audience at once.
- Brand Opportunities: Partnering with businesses and brands for promotions or events, you can get additional revenue sources.
The dating app industry can be immensely profitable. Since its launch, Tinder has achieved remarkable financial success, contributing substantially to its parent company, Match Group’s revenue. This demonstrates the lucrative potential of well-executed dating apps in the market.
How to make a dating app?
Building a dating app today is still quite as challenging as it was a few years ago, especially if you want to create one from scratch. You need to consider many factors, but perhaps the first thing to think about is the feature set. Let’s focus our attention on it now.
Pro tip
Avoid the complexities of custom dating app development; with SkaDate, you receive a ready-to-launch platform packed with essential features for users, admins, monetization, and security, all tailored to the unique needs of a dating service.
With an investment of $2,999, you can launch a comprehensive dating website in just 24 hours, leveraging time-tested features that have become staples in the dating app industry. The process is straightforward: consult with our team, select a design theme, and you're set to go live in 24 hours, with the option to add native iOS and Android apps within a few weeks.
Elevate your platform further with a variety of free and paid plugins and tap into the expertise of our seasoned developers, boasting over 19 years of experience in crafting dating software. With SkaDate, your path from concept to launch is seamless, allowing you to focus on building and growing your dating business.
What Are Tinder’s Key Features?
Here are the main features to keep in mind if you want to create an app like Tinder.
Sign-In Enhancements
While signing in may seem like a fundamental step in your dating app, it offers an opportunity to enhance user experience and security. Common methods like signing in through Google accounts or phone numbers are essential, but integrating social media logins can transform the process. By allowing users to sign in with their favorite social media platforms, you streamline their access and simultaneously gather rich, authentic user data without seeming intrusive.
This approach not only simplifies the login process but also enhances the security and credibility of your platform. As fake profiles continue to be a concern in dating apps, linking a social media account can significantly boost the authenticity of user profiles, increasing trust among users. How to make an app like Tinder, yet even better? Focus on your target users. For example, depending on the audience you are trying to target, the social media for login may vary. For example, if you are making a Tinder for gamers, you can add a login with Twitch or Discord accounts.
User's Account
Writing a short bio and adding photos are the basics that you are definitely familiar with. But did you know that Tinder has a Smart photo feature? It reorders users' photos and places the one that gets the best reactions in the first place. Thus, the app helps its users to get more matches.
Geolocation and Location-based Search
It helps users find potential matches in their area. The app searches for users in a certain radius of the current location and shows potential matches. To make these features work, you obviously need to get a user's device location. Also, Tinder enhances user experience by tracking visits to popular social venues such as bars and coffee shops. This feature allows the app to notify other users who have visited the same locations, but only after the original user has left, ensuring privacy. The app continually refines its service by adjusting the types of locations it monitors based on user behavior; for example, it might stop tracking visits to cinema halls if many users consistently remove them from their lists of favorite spots. This dynamic adjustment helps maintain the relevance and usefulness of the geolocation features.
Communication
For dating apps like Tinder, the ability to communicate via messaging is essential. After swiping, the natural next step for users is to explore potential connections by asking questions and sharing interests.
Effective messaging is crucial; however, simply having a chat function is not enough. It's important to provide an opportunity to send not only text messages but also photos, videos, gifs, emojis, stickers, etc. Tinder allows its users to make video calls, which is very handy before a blind date with a stranger.
Matchmaking
The reality is that not every match is destined to be perfect. The act of 'swiping' in dating apps allows users to express approval or disapproval of potential matches based on their preferences. In Tinder, a right swipe signifies interest and willingness to explore a connection, while a left swipe indicates a lack of interest. This decision-making is often based on the other person’s photographs or their self-description, representing an initial level of engagement.
To enhance user satisfaction, it's effective for an app to analyze users' previous choices and tailor subsequent match suggestions accordingly. This targeted approach not only streamlines the process but also increases the likelihood of successful matches by aligning with users' expressed preferences, thereby capturing their interest with greater precision.
Push Notifications
You can use them to notify your users about new matches, messages, and other important events that are happening in the app.
Custom Settings
Offering users the flexibility to tailor settings such as notification muting, filter adjustments, and visibility preferences enhances user satisfaction. This level of customization makes the app more appealing compared to others that lack such options, providing a more personalized and controlled experience that aligns with individual user needs.
Better Personal Security
If you are thinking about how to build an app like Tinder, remember that such an app should incorporate several key security features to ensure the safety and privacy of its users. To combat fake profiles and catfishing, the app should include a verification system where users can authenticate their identity through multiple means such as photo verification, linking social media accounts, or even providing a phone number. Users should be able to report inappropriate behavior or block other users directly from the app. An option to use the app without appearing in the swipe pool can be beneficial, especially for users who need an extra layer of privacy and security. For additional privacy, consider features that allow photos sent in messages to disappear after a certain period, similar to those on platforms like Snapchat.
Enhanced Search Capabilities
If you are thinking about how to make an app like Tinder that people will like to use, you need to pay a lot of attention to the search functionality. In the world of dating apps, users are united by their quest for the 'ideal' date, though the concept of 'ideal' varies widely among individuals. To climb the ranks of popularity, it's essential to cater to each user's unique preferences, connecting them with matches that align with their ideals. This goal can be achieved with a robust search functionality that includes well-developed filters based on age, gender, distance, and interests.
Special Picks
Simply scrolling through a standard queue can sometimes feel monotonous. To enhance user engagement, the 'Highlighted Profiles' feature leverages the app's algorithm to present a curated selection of profiles. This feature showcases profiles with notable tags that describe a person’s interests or personality traits, such as 'dancer' or 'gym enthusiast'. This not only spices up the user experience but also helps users quickly identify potential matches who share similar passions.
As with any other dating app, Tinder offers premium features as well. Access to them depends on the user's subscription plan: Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold, or Tinder Platinum. Also, Tinder has a special membership option called Tinder Select, which can be added to any of the subscription plans. Tinder Select gives users extra capabilities, such as early access to new features, the ability to message without a match, and increased visibility in the “Likes You” grid of other users.
Source: Tinder.
One of the most interesting features is Messaging before Matching. Basically, a platinum subscriber can attach a note to a Super Like - a Like that can be seen before the match.
Another one is Boost and Super Boost. With this option selected, a profile moves to the top in the area for 30 minutes, therefore increasing its views and potential matches.
One more cool feature that Tinder is charging for is a Passport feature. It allows users to change their current location and search for matches in other cities or countries.
Pro Tip
Launching a dating solution with native apps typically requires a significant investment of time and resources. However, with SkaDate, you can efficiently set up a dating website complete with iOS and Android apps, as well as a Progressive Web App (PWA), all for just $2,999 and within 24 hours (we will need more time for apps because of the stores’ policies).
This rapid deployment is made possible through a carefully curated selection of top dating app features integrated seamlessly into our platform. We offer comprehensive features for admins, users, monetization, and security, which you can review in detail here. Additionally, SkaDate provides a range of free themes and extends functionality through both free and paid plugins. Our team, with 19 years of expertise in dating software development, is also on hand to enhance your solution with additional features and custom design elements.
How to Build an App Like Tinder?
Come Up with an Idea and Research the Market
The first and most important thing you need to do is generate an idea that stands out from other dating websites. It has to be unique and interesting enough to make users want to use it. If you want to survive in the market and compete with Tinder itself, you have to address your app to the specific niche or community, or cover needs that other dating apps can't offer.
To make an app like Tinder, you don't necessarily have to create a new interface or reinvent the wheel. You can take the existing solutions as an inspiration and create something new and improved. There are many examples of such apps on the market. Bumble is one of them. This app was created by Whitney Wolfe, one of Tinder's co-founders, after she left the company due to sexual harassment allegations. Despite the similar interface, Bumble has a different concept. On this app, only women can initiate conversations. This simple change has made Bumble more attractive to women and, as a result, increased the number of its users.
Another example is Hinge. This app was created for people who are looking for serious relationships instead of casual hookups. The interface and concept are quite similar to Tinder. However, there are some crucial differences. First of all, Hinge requires its users to link their Facebook or Instagram accounts to the app. This way, the app can show not only the user's pictures but also his interests and mutual friends. Secondly, Hinge provides its users with a limited number of potential matches per day. This number is usually around 10-15 people. The app wants its users to think about their choices and not just mindlessly swipe left or right.
We have gathered some dating app ideas for your inspiration in our latest post.
Finalize the Concept and Choose the Features You Need
After you've done some research and got ideas, it's time to finalize the list of features you want to see in your future application. If you are building a dating app like Tinder, you already know that you want to make it around a swiping feature.
You may want to add something special, a feature that helps you to stand out in your niche, say, a panic button, behavioral analytics, advanced matchmaking, gamification, rewards, gifts, extra payment methods, and more. To find more information, you can check our popular posts with tips:
In these posts, we discuss the must-have features and give a lot of info about starting a dating business in general.
Create a User-friendly and Catchy Design
You may have a great app idea and feature-rich software, but a challenging interface can ruin everything. Make sure that your design is simple, attractive, and engaging. It's important to make a good first impression on users as they will decide whether to stay or leave within seconds.
We have a detailed guide to creating an engaging dating UI. In brief, your app's interface should be intuitive and user-friendly. Don't let users struggle with navigation or a too complex account setup. People should figure out how the app works without any instructions.
To choose the right design for your app, you can look for inspiration from other presently popular dating apps or websites. Yet, there is no sense in simply following the trends. Think carefully about how to show your unique dating app idea through its design. You can always consult professional designers and ask for suggestions. Once you have an idea of what you want your app to look like, you can start working on the wireframes and then move on to the visual design.
Choose a Team and Start Dating App Development
Developing a dating app requires a variety of specialists: developers, designers, testers, and product managers. If you don't want to be lost in the process and see clearly the project's progress, you need a company that works based on Agile methodology—a flexible workflow where the whole process from the start to the end is divided into smaller iterations.
What are the key factors you should take into consideration?
- First of all, on the company's expertise in the field. If you want to make an app like Tinder, look for companies with relevant experience and have already delivered similar projects.
- You may want to check if the company has a good portfolio. When looking at the company's website, take a close look at the projects they have. Make sure they are of high quality and have good reviews.
- Also, ensure that the company you want to work with is easy to communicate with. The development process is a long and complex one and you need to be able to rely on your team. It's essential to make sure that the company you choose is available and responsive when you need them.
If you don't know where to start, reach out to the SkaDate team. Our team has more than 19 years of experience in building dating software and is ready to help you create a successful dating app.
Also, consider the size of the development team required. For large-scale, enterprise-level solutions, engaging a substantial development team is essential to manage the complexity and breadth of the project effectively. However, with the SkaDate platform, you can get access to a comprehensive and expensive solution designed by experts in the dating field for just $2,999 (one-time fee). Read more about this indeed profitable option here.
Сhoose the Tech Stack for Your Tinder-like App
To create an app like Tinder, choosing the right technologies is critical for scalability and performance. This decision is essential, particularly as your app grows, much like Tinder experienced. Initially, Tinder utilized MongoDB, a NoSQL database, to match users. However, as the app grew in popularity, maintaining performance with MongoDB became challenging, prompting a switch to the more robust Amazon Web Services (AWS) for hosting.
Given this scenario, it's crucial to consider a robust technology stack for your dating app that can handle growth without sacrificing performance. Here’s a proposed technology stack and some key tools for developing a dating app for both iOS and Android platforms:
- Programming languages: PHP, Kotlin, Swift, and Java
- Database: MongoDB, SQL, Redis
- Framework: Express.Js, React, Node.Js, Next.js
- Web Server: Nginx, Apache
- Cloud storage: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
- Payment Gateway integration: Stripe, CCBill, PayPal
As you develop your dating app, the selection of these technologies will not only impact your app’s initial performance but also its long-term viability. Ensure your development team is well-versed in these technologies. Ideally, choose developers who not only know how to code well but also have experience in creating dating platforms or similar apps, as they will bring valuable expertise to your project.
How Much Does It Cost To Create an App Like Tinder?
The investment required to develop a dating app varies widely depending on several key factors such as the app’s complexity, the chosen technology stack, the features you plan to include, and the hourly rate of the development team.
For a basic native mobile dating app on either iOS or Android, the development costs typically range from $70,000 to $82,000. If you aim to launch on both platforms and choose to use the same vendor for both versions, the combined cost is generally around $130,000.
For more advanced platforms similar to Tinder, which often include a broader set of features and more sophisticated technology, the development costs can escalate to between $160,000 and $200,000. These figures reflect the substantial resources required to ensure a robust, scalable, and feature-rich dating application.
We’ve recently posted an article where we explained how the dating app costs are formed and which factors can influence it. While an average dating website and app can cost about $160,000, you can get SkaDate for just $2,999. For this $2,999, you get a comprehensive dating website, two apps (for iOS and Android), a PWA, and access to more than 30 plugins.
They Launched Dating Business with SkaDate
The Future of Tinder-Like Apps
Dating apps like Tinder have significantly evolved, transforming from a casual interaction tool to a booming industry projected to reach 452.47 million users and grow to $3.46 billion in revenue by 2028.
Source: Statista.
Dating platforms have revolutionized how we connect with a vast community, making it easier than ever to explore potential connections. The shift towards remote work and the restrictions on physical gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic have further catalyzed this trend, underscoring the increasing reliance on digital solutions for social interactions.
As we look to the future, the landscape of dating apps appears promising. The evolution from simple location-based matches to incorporating multimedia sharing and diverse user skills suggests that we're just seeing the beginning of what these platforms can offer. Soon, dating apps might become a common backstory for many couples. The potential for further transformation and integration into our social fabric continues to grow, pointing towards a bright and dynamic future for digital dating solutions.
Additionally, shifts in social norms such as increasingly hectic lifestyles and the widespread acceptance of digital interaction have significantly boosted the popularity of online dating over traditional dating methods.
While entering the online dating business is a lucrative idea, it is also important to be fast to enter this competitive and fast-growing environment. SkaDate allows you to save time and money without compromising quality. You can create an app like Tinder, and even better, very quickly. In fact, you get a comprehensive and competitive dating website, two native apps, and PWA with all the needed functionality, support, and enhancement options for $2,999. It’s time to realize your dating app idea and enter the online dating market.
