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Article about top paid dating sites 2016:
| Online dating | The Guardian
Money can&#x2019,t buy you love, but some services claim it could get you more dates. And does being over 30 cost you more? Dating apps: is it worth paying a premium to find love?



Money can’t buy you love, but some services claim it could get you more dates. And does being over 30 cost you more? I ’m an accidental expert on dating apps – I’ve spent the vast majority of my life single, with a variety of them downloaded. The aim has been, as many dating profiles say, to find a reason to delete the apps. Recently I noticed that Tinder was advertising one of its premium services to me, Tinder Gold. I’ve never paid for a dating app, instead opting for the free version most services offer, and at £14.59 a month it seemed steep. I had just turned 28, so I wondered if I was being charged more than a younger user. If you’re single at 28, does big tech know you’re filled with enough existential dread that you’ll pay whatever it takes to get a date? Tinder has three levels of subscription, Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold and Tinder Platinum, each with different prices. What I hadn’t realised until I started looking into it was that, as well as being linked to the different services on offer, the monthly fee was also linked to age. I did some research, asking friends, friends’ younger siblings and Facebook groups I’m a member of – an unscientific sample of Tinder users. I asked them to send me a screenshot of the price Tinder was asking them to pay. In this random group of users there was a clear distinction when it came to Tinder Gold – users aged about 30 were being charged £27.49 or £29.49, while those under 30 were being charged £13.99 or £14.49. Tinder Plus seemed more random. I was being asked to pay £4.99 a month for that service, and while some users over 30 said they were being charged £19.49, most who responded were being asked to pay £4.99, £8.99 or £9.99. How do the other options add up? Tinder is not the only dating app to offer a premium service, many offer one or more price points, as well as a free version. We have rounded up the advertised prices and what you get for your money from each one. And it seems £14.59 a month wasn’t as steep as it first seemed. One member of Bumble could be paying £14.99 a month for Bumble Boost, giving them access to features including the ability to swipe (show that you’re interested in) unlimited users. Another might be paying £32.99 for Bumble Premium, offering those services plus others, including the ability to see who has already liked them. Coffee Meets Bagel charges £34 a month for its Premium service – for that price you can see and contact everyone who likes you. You will also get a huge amount of information on other users, including details of whether they have recently been online. Grindr also offers a more expensive package, Unlimited, at £31.99 a month. The features include removing the limit on the number of profiles you can view. It also has some features that might make some users uncomfortable, allowing you to see when another user is typing and the ability to browse the app without being visible to other users. Dating apps offer different levels of subscription. Photograph: Erik Reis/Alamy. Hinge claims you’ll go on twice as many dates with its paid-for Preferred membership. If you’re hopeful you can delete after only one month, it will cost you £29.49 for a subscription. But if you pay for three months upfront, it is £58.99, only £19.66 a month. For six months’ membership, you can pay only £14.66 a month. While most apps allow you to pay for premium services for just a month at a time, Plenty of Fish has a minimum premium subscription of three months for £39.99, which works out at £13.33 a month. The minimum time period to subscribe to eharmony’s premium subscription is six months for £99.99, which is £16.66 a month. Like most apps it will give you a discount for signing up for longer and if you opt for 24 months of membership, it will cost you only £8.33 a month. Sophie Thomas, a celebrity dating and love coach, says it is worth buying into a premium service. “It’s absolutely possible to meet your ideal match using free services. However, if you’re serious about this substantial area of life, then investing in dating is an act of commitment to show up at your highest level,” she says. “Paid subscriptions also tend to grant better search facilities, which can save time. If you definitely want children, for example, then there’s no point scrolling through hundreds of people who don’t. “Getting to know someone takes time, so rushing into committing to one person isn’t usually advisable. It can therefore make sense, once you know that you’re happy with an app, to buy a longer subscription in order to give yourself that time to date until you find the right person.” James Preece, the host of the Love Machine podcast, agrees that it is worth spending money. However, he adds: “It’s not simply a case of the more you pay, then the better results you’ll get. If your profile, photos and messages are terrible, then you’ll still have awful results. “If they are good, then unlocking extra features such as the ability to be seen by more people can boost your opportunities … Some upgrades – such as those on Bumble – allow you to use more filters when you are searching. That can really help getting quality matches.” Some experts say paying for a premium service can help getting quality matches. Photograph: asiseeit/Getty Images. The dating and relationships coach Kate Mansfield disagrees, however. She argues that the most dateable people will be snapped up before they sign up for a paid-for service. “The truth is this: quality, confident people who love themselves and know what they want and deserve don’t need to pay for matchmaking or elite services – they are able to navigate the free apps and find the best partner for them,” she says. “You might think that paying for an elite or premier service is the answer but throwing money at this is the absolute worst thing that you can do because while you might expect to be buying access to premier quality dates, it is in fact the opposite – you are now paying to be in a pool of people who are also struggling to make dating and relationships work.” Instead of a paid-for app, she advises working on yourself: “Invest in coaching or therapy to get yourself in the best place possible and then use Tinder, Hinge or Bumble’s free version to find love.” Tinder’s stance. To try to make sense of what my friends and I were being charged, I contacted Tinder. It told Guardian Money: “Tinder operates a global business, and in some geographies we offer discounted subscriptions to younger members.













top paid dating sites 2016