Anúncios
You have decided to pay for a dating app. That is already a step most people never take — roughly 2-5% of dating app users actually convert to paid subscribers.
But now you are facing a decision that could cost you anywhere from $90 to $480 over the next six months, and no app is going to give you an honest comparison of what you get for that money versus its competitors.
That is what this guide is for. We broke down the exact pricing, every feature you unlock at each tier, the real cost over time, and — most importantly — which subscription delivers the most dates per dollar based on how each app actually works. No marketing language. No affiliate links. Just the numbers.
The Price Tag: What You Actually Pay in 2026
All three apps use dynamic pricing that can vary based on your age, location, and device. The figures below reflect standard US pricing as of early 2026. Longer commitments always reduce the monthly rate, so we are showing both the month-to-month and six-month prices.
Bumble Premium
| Duration | Total Cost | Monthly Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 week | ~$24.99 | ~$100/month equivalent |
| 1 month | ~$39.99 | $39.99 |
| 3 months | ~$76.99 | ~$25.66 |
| 6 months | ~$99.99 | ~$16.67 |
Annual cost at best rate: approximately $200 (6-month plan renewed once).
Tinder Gold
| Duration | Total Cost | Monthly Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 week | ~$18.99 | ~$76/month equivalent |
| 1 month | ~$39.99 | $39.99 |
| 6 months | ~$139.99 | ~$23.33 |
Annual cost at best rate: approximately $280 (6-month plan renewed once).
Hinge+
| Duration | Total Cost | Monthly Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 week | ~$14.99 | ~$60/month equivalent |
| 1 month | ~$29.99 | $29.99 |
| 3 months | ~$59.99 | ~$20.00 |
| 6 months | ~$89.99 | ~$15.00 |
Annual cost at best rate: approximately $180 (6-month plan renewed once).
Side-by-Side Price Comparison
| Plan | Month-to-Month | Best Monthly Rate | Annual Cost (Best Rate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hinge+ | $29.99 | $15.00 | ~$180 |
| Bumble Premium | $39.99 | $16.67 | ~$200 |
| Tinder Gold | $39.99 | $23.33 | ~$280 |
Cheapest option: Hinge+ on the 6-month plan at $15/month.
Most expensive option: Tinder Gold on the 6-month plan at $23.33/month.
Difference over one year: Choosing Hinge+ over Tinder Gold saves you approximately $100 per year at the best rates. That gap widens significantly on month-to-month plans — Hinge+ is $10 cheaper per month than both Tinder Gold and Bumble Premium.
Feature-by-Feature: What Every Dollar Buys
Price means nothing without context. Here is exactly what each subscription unlocks, organized by the features that actually impact your dating results.
Seeing Who Already Likes You
This is the single most valuable premium feature on any dating app. It eliminates blind swiping and lets you match instantly with people who are already interested.
Bumble Premium — Beeline: Shows you every single person who has swiped right on your profile. You can scroll through the entire list and match with anyone instantly. Depending on your profile quality and location, this list can range from 10 to 200+ people. The Beeline updates in real time as new people like you.
Anúncios
Tinder Gold — Likes You Grid: Displays up to 25 profiles per day of people who have already swiped right on you. You can match with any of them without waiting for a mutual swipe. The grid refreshes daily with new Top Picks — algorithmically curated profiles based on your activity patterns.
Hinge+ — See All Incoming Likes: Shows all incoming likes at once instead of one at a time. On free Hinge, you see likes sequentially — you have to respond or skip each one before seeing the next. Hinge+ removes this bottleneck and lets you browse everyone who liked you in a single view. You can also sort by “Your Type,” “Recent,” “Last Active,” and “Nearby.”
Winner: Bumble Premium’s Beeline and Tinder Gold’s Likes You grid are equally powerful — both give you immediate access to interested users. Hinge+ is slightly less transformative since free users already see incoming likes, just more slowly. However, the sorting options in Hinge+ (especially “Last Active” and “Nearby”) add genuine utility that the others lack.
Unlimited Swipes and Likes
Bumble Premium: Unlimited swipes. Free Bumble caps you at approximately 50-100 swipes per day depending on your market. Removing this cap matters most in densely populated areas where you could potentially match with hundreds of people daily.
Tinder Gold: Unlimited swipes (inherited from Tinder Plus). Free Tinder has varying swipe limits that depend on your activity level and location. The unlimited upgrade is most noticeable for heavy users who exhaust their daily allotment within minutes.
Hinge+: Unlimited likes. This is the most impactful upgrade of the three. Free Hinge limits you to 8 likes per day — one of the most restrictive caps in online dating. Going from 8 to unlimited is not an incremental improvement. It fundamentally changes how you use the app. At 8 likes per day with a 1-3% match rate, you might wait 3-5 days between matches. With unlimited likes, that timeline compresses to hours.
Winner: Hinge+ by a wide margin. The jump from 8 to unlimited is far more meaningful than the jump from 50-100 to unlimited (Bumble) or from a soft cap to unlimited (Tinder). If you only upgrade one app, this alone makes Hinge+ the strongest value.
Advanced Filters
Bumble Premium: Unlocks filters for education level, height, exercise habits, drinking frequency, smoking habits, star sign, political views, and relationship intentions (casual, relationship, marriage, not sure). These filters narrow your pool to people who meet specific criteria before you ever start swiping.
Tinder Gold: Minimal filtering beyond the basics. Discovery Settings cover age, distance, and gender. Gold adds Top Picks — algorithmically selected daily profiles — but you cannot filter by education, career, lifestyle, or relationship goals with the same precision as Bumble or Hinge. Tinder is fundamentally a volume platform, not a precision platform.
Hinge+: The most granular filters available. Advanced Preferences cover height, children status, family plans, drug use, smoking, marijuana use, drinking habits, political views, and education level. Any filter can be set as a “dealbreaker,” meaning the algorithm strictly enforces that criteria — you will never see profiles outside your dealbreaker parameters. This is a feature neither Tinder nor Bumble offers.
Winner: Hinge+ dominates. The dealbreaker function alone sets it apart. On Bumble and Tinder, filters are preferences — the algorithm tries to honor them but may still show you profiles outside your criteria. On Hinge, a dealbreaker is a wall. If you set “Has children: No” as a dealbreaker, you will never see a single parent in your feed. For people who have clear non-negotiables, this saves enormous time and emotional energy.
Visibility Boosting
Bumble Premium: Includes 1 Spotlight per week (30-minute profile boost to the front of other users’ feeds) and 5 SuperSwipes per week (sends a notification to the other person that you are especially interested). Additional Spotlights can be purchased separately.
Tinder Gold: Includes 5 Super Likes per week (a notified, highlighted like that stands out from regular swipes) and 1 free Boost per month (30 minutes of elevated visibility). Additional Boosts cost $7.99 each. The combination of Super Likes and monthly Boost provides consistent visibility, though less frequent than Bumble’s weekly Spotlight.
Hinge+: Does not include any built-in visibility boosting. No free Roses beyond the one per week that all users get (including free users). No profile boosts. To get visibility features on Hinge, you need to upgrade to HingeX ($49.99/month) for constant profile boosting and Priority Likes, or purchase Boosts ($9.99 each) and Roses ($3.99 each or $19.99 for 6) separately.
Winner: Bumble Premium offers the most visibility tools included in the base premium price. Tinder Gold is close behind with Super Likes and a monthly Boost. Hinge+ loses this category entirely — if visibility boosting matters to you, Hinge+ does not deliver it.
Privacy and Control
Bumble Premium: Incognito Mode lets you hide your profile from everyone except people you have swiped right on. This means you are invisible to coworkers, exes, or anyone else browsing the app unless you actively choose to show interest in them. Travel Mode lets you change your location to swipe in another city before you arrive.
Tinder Gold: Passport lets you change your location globally — functionally similar to Bumble’s Travel Mode. However, Tinder Gold does not include an Incognito mode. You would need Tinder Plus or higher for the basic ad-free experience, but true profile hiding is not a Gold feature.
Hinge+: Does not include any privacy-specific features. No incognito mode, no profile hiding, no location spoofing. Your profile is visible to all users in your area regardless of whether you have a paid subscription.
Winner: Bumble Premium, decisively. Incognito Mode is a genuine privacy tool that no other app at this price tier matches. For professionals, public figures, or anyone who wants control over their visibility, this is a significant advantage.
Unique Features Worth Noting
Bumble’s Women-Message-First — Not a paid feature, but the structural foundation of the app. In heterosexual matches, women must send the first message within 24 hours or the match expires. This means every conversation you have on Bumble starts with confirmed interest from both sides. No premium subscription on Tinder or Hinge can replicate this mechanic.
Tinder Gold’s Top Picks — Daily curated profiles selected by the algorithm based on your swiping patterns, profile preferences, and behavioral data. These are not random — they represent what Tinder’s machine learning model thinks are your highest-compatibility matches. This feature does not exist on Bumble or Hinge in the same form.
Hinge’s Prompt-Based Profiles — Again, not a paid feature, but it fundamentally changes the dating experience. Instead of a bio-only format, Hinge profiles require users to answer conversation-starting prompts. This gives you specific talking points before you ever send a message, leading to higher-quality opening lines and more substantive conversations.
The 6-Month Cost Analysis: What You Actually Spend
Most dating experts recommend giving online dating at least 3-6 months to see results. Here is what each subscription costs over a full six-month period at every pricing option.
| Subscription | Monthly Plan (6 months) | 3-Month Plan (×2) | 6-Month Plan | Savings vs Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hinge+ | $179.94 | $119.98 | $89.99 | $89.95 saved |
| Bumble Premium | $239.94 | $153.98 | $99.99 | $139.95 saved |
| Tinder Gold | $239.94 | N/A | $139.99 | $99.95 saved |
Key takeaway: The 6-month plan always delivers the best value, often saving 40-60% compared to paying month-to-month. Hinge+ on the 6-month plan ($89.99) costs less than two months of Bumble Premium or Tinder Gold at the monthly rate.
The real cost comparison over six months:
Hinge+ (6-month plan): $89.99 — the cheapest six-month investment.
Bumble Premium (6-month plan): $99.99 — just $10 more than Hinge+ with the addition of Incognito Mode, Beeline, and weekly Spotlights.
Tinder Gold (6-month plan): $139.99 — the most expensive option, with the Likes You grid and monthly Boost but weaker filters and no privacy features.
The Verdict: Which Subscription Delivers the Best Value
After analyzing every feature, price point, and real-world advantage, here is the honest recommendation.
Best Overall Value: Hinge+ ($15/month on 6-month plan)
Hinge+ delivers the highest impact upgrade at the lowest price. The jump from 8 to unlimited daily likes is the single most transformative paid feature in online dating. The advanced filters with dealbreaker enforcement give you precision matching that neither Tinder nor Bumble can match. Seeing all incoming likes with sorting options makes browsing efficient. And at $15/month on the 6-month plan, it is the cheapest premium subscription of the three.
Best for: Relationship-focused singles who want quality over volume and have clear preferences they want to enforce.
Best for Engagement and Privacy: Bumble Premium ($16.67/month on 6-month plan)
Bumble Premium is the strongest all-around package at just $1.67 more per month than Hinge+. The Beeline is a powerful time-saver. The women-message-first mechanic guarantees engaged conversations. Incognito Mode gives you privacy control that no other app at this price offers. And the weekly Spotlight and SuperSwipes provide built-in visibility boosting.
Best for: Professionals who value privacy, men who are tired of sending opening messages that never get read, and anyone in a competitive dating market.
Best for Volume and Global Reach: Tinder Gold ($23.33/month on 6-month plan)
Tinder Gold makes sense if maximum reach is your priority. With 340+ million downloads globally and availability in 190+ countries, Tinder gives you access to the largest pool of potential matches by far. The Likes You grid and Top Picks add efficiency to the massive volume. Passport lets you match in any city worldwide before you travel.
Best for: Frequent travelers, people in smaller cities where Bumble and Hinge have limited users, and anyone who prioritizes volume of matches over precision filtering.
The Optimal Strategy: Run Two Apps
The single best investment in online dating in 2026 is running Hinge+ and Bumble Premium simultaneously on their 6-month plans. Total cost: approximately $32/month ($190 for six months). This gives you Hinge’s precision matching, unlimited likes, and dealbreaker filters plus Bumble’s Beeline, Incognito Mode, and engagement-guaranteed conversations.
Together, these two subscriptions cover different matching philosophies (intentional versus engagement-driven), different user demographics (Hinge skews slightly more relationship-focused, Bumble skews slightly more professional), and different interaction models (Hinge lets anyone message first, Bumble requires women to initiate). The combination consistently outperforms any single-app subscription at any price — including options that cost 5-10 times more.
Two apps. Two philosophies. One strategy. Approximately $32/month.
That is the best deal in online dating.