Tinder · B2C · dating app
Limit free swipes per day and charge for more
Stopped mass-swiping and auto-swipers; turned into a strong revenue driver (no numbers)
Workedpaywallpricing
What they did
Put a paywall on the number of swipes a free user can make per day, after seeing people swipe through their entire city in a few sessions and use auto-swipers. The goal was a healthier marketplace; monetization was a side benefit. General principle: charge for one or two things early, then follow power users to decide which 'superpowers' to gate, considering what share of users should have each one.
What happened
Improved the ecosystem and 'turned out to be a great thing for monetization'.
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How a Single Paywall Experiment Generated $50M – Jeff Morris, Chapter One, Ex-Tinder“We put a paywall on the number of swipes that you could do on a daily basis because we found there were people who were just swiping their way through literally their entire city in a very small amount of sessions or you had things like auto swipers.”
“And so we put up that paywall also to create a better ecosystem, but it also turned out to be a great thing for monetization.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Tinder
All 22 Tinder tactics- Use a prediction model to show each user just the one plan they'll likely buyEstimated multimillion-dollar yearly revenue gain in an A/B test
- Keep dating free for most users so there are plenty of people to match85-90% never pay; the 10-15% who do fund the business
- Sell a paid 'super like' that stands out from a normal likeSuper Likes are 3x more likely to get a match
- Raise the price of the standalone feature so it stops stealing subscriptionsFewer lost subscriptions, slightly lower conversion, higher total revenue
- Price the 7-day feature pass the same as a 7-day subscription, shown side by sideLess cannibalization and more revenue, but still not good enough
- Offer three subscription levels and sell extra boosts on topFormer CPO calls it one of the best ways to price consumer apps; no revenue split given
More from this episode
- Tinder: Put a toggle in the top bar that opens a new paid tierAbout $50M in revenue from one small A/B test
- Tinder: Give each paid feature its own paywall and check its sales every morningShowed 2-3 features drive most new subs; weak ones were made free
- Tinder: Offer several paid tiers, from cheap starter to big spenders at $50K a yearGuest's biggest revenue unlock at Tinder; no numbers given
- Tinder: Set different prices by country, starting with fast-growing markets like India
- Tinder: Polish the paywall like a core feature, e.g. add a gold shimmerGuest says it showed users they cared; no numbers
- Tinder: Ask for payment only after a user gets a match and starts chatting
- Tinder: Build engagement and retention first; push monetization only years laterReached 30-40M monthly users before revenue became a focus in years 4-5
- Tinder: Create a revenue team with its own iOS and Android engineersGrew from 6 engineers in 2016 to 40+
- Flighty: Give the first flight free with every pro feature, then lock some
- Make free users pay before they can fix their buggy first buildFrustrated users complained publicly on Twitter
- Supabase: Ship a new feature every single dayBecame the default database for most major website builders