You probably didn't think it was possible, but Tinder just got even creepier.
The dating app's new paid subscription service Tinder Plus launched today, and it appears that not all singles are created equal, or rather charged equally. If you're under 30, you can purchase Tinder Plus for $9.99 a month in the United States, but if you're over 30, you've got to shell out $19.99 a month. As if the fact that you're over 30 and single isn't a painful enough reality already.
This is what Tinder said about the pricing in a statement to Quartz:
"We've priced Tinder Plus based on a combination of factors, including what we've learned through our testing, and we've found that these price points were adopted very well by certain age demographics. Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example. Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained, and need a lower price to pull the trigger."
All right, all right. That does actually make some sense for Tinder. With senior citizens getting discounts at movies and restaurants, I guess it's finally the youngsters' time to shine. Good for you, guys.
Tinder Plus also launched today in the United Kingdom, and users there will similarly have to pay £3.99 a month if they're 28 or younger or £14.99 a month if they're older than 28, according to the London Evening Standard.
So what's so great about Tinder Plus that you would want to spend money on it anyway? Well, it's got a few tantalizing, new features. There's a Rewind function, which allows you to recover a match you may have accidentally swiped left on instead of losing them forever. There's also a Passport feature, which lets you take your dating game global, letting you find matches from anywhere in the world. Subscribers will also not have to stare at pesky ads while scoping out dates, which is reportedly coming to the free version of the app, according to Re/code.
Now the question remains whether or not this new pricing strategy will work for Tinder. All of these new features are certainly appealing. However, I'm not sure Tinder's dream of a younger audience paying for them will come true. Even though the price for those under 28 years old is significantly less than for older singles, the fact that younger users will have to pay for this service at all could be a big deterrent for them when there's already a decent free version available. And we all know that once the young whippersnappers leave a social network, it's basically not cool anymore.
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