Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Dynamic Paywalls That Drove Millions in New Revenue – Shawn Gong, Tinder

Short Sub Club episode (for RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps report) with Shawn Gong, monetization/growth product leader at Tinder. Covers an ML model that picks the one paywall/product to show each user (A/B tested vs the static paywall; multimillion-dollar annual lift, with retention/renewal counter-metrics), unbundling Passport (travel mode) as an a la carte purchase and the price increases, price anchoring to the 7-day Plus plan and subscription-first fallback used to curb cannibalization, and why the high-end Tinder Select tier is being scaled down.

Play the episode

6 tactics

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Use a prediction model to show each user just the one plan they'll likely buy

Estimated multimillion-dollar yearly revenue gain in an A/B test

“we can try to build ML models and then use that to predict users willing to pay and then we can surface the best product they're most likely to buy”

Workedpaywallpricing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Sell the travel feature on its own for 1 day, 3 days or a week

Conversion jumped, but it pulled buyers away from the cheapest subscription

“they can use it for one day, three day a week based on the offers we provided”

Mixedpricingpaywall

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Raise the price of the standalone feature so it stops stealing subscriptions

Fewer lost subscriptions, slightly lower conversion, higher total revenue

“we should increase the price for a la carte and to see how that will change the conversion and then subscription cannibalization”

Workedpricing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Price the 7-day feature pass the same as a 7-day subscription, shown side by side

Less cannibalization and more revenue, but still not good enough

“we increase the price again and then also have upsell on the paywall”

Mixedpricingpaywall

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Offer the subscription first; show the one-off purchase only to people who say no

“let's use our perfect ML model again, so we will show users subscription first. If you don't want to buy subscription, we show you a la carte, so we'll give you a second chance”

Unknownpaywallpricing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Tinder · B2C · dating app

Add an even pricier top tier for the biggest spenders

Didn't fit a mass-market brand; being scaled down

“Let's try if we have an even higher end tier and then provide even better service and product, would user buy them or not?”

Failedpricingpositioning-niche

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-04

Numbers mentioned

Subject	Metric	Value	Quote
Tinder	revenue Incremental annual revenue from the ML-driven dynamic paywall vs the static paywall (A/B test), 'based on our prediction'	multimillion dollars annual increase estimate	“based on our prediction, I think it's definitely multimillion dollars annual increase for Tinder”
Tinder	conversion rate Purchase conversion after launching standalone a la carte Passport; it also cannibalized Plus subscriptions	went crazy (large increase) approximate	“when we launched this standalone a la carte Passport feature and then the conversion went crazy”
Tinder	revenue Effect of raising the a la carte Passport price	total revenue went up; conversion down a little; cannibalization reduced approximate	“the subscription cannibalization reduced as we expected, and then the conversion reduced a little bit, but total revenue actually went up”
Tinder	price A la carte Passport price anchored to the weekly Plus subscription	7-day Passport = 7-day Plus subscription price	“for our seven-day Passport feature a la carte, the price is the same as seven day Plus subscription”