Up until a few months ago, I’d never paid a cent for dating apps. When they first seemingly propelled themselves into Australian dating culture, it seemed embarrassing to even be USING the internet to find love, let alone to pay for it. Over the years, dating apps have become the norm for anyone single looking to date. In fact, I can’t think of a couple that I know who have been together for under 3 years, who didn’t meet on Tinder or another app.
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While Tinder has become totally socially acceptable (in fact you’re almost out of the loop if you’re not using it these days), paying for their extensions of the free app still has a stigma attached to it. The general vibe is, if you need to pay for “more app”, you’re like the unluckiest person in love or something.
But what this attitude overlooks are the benefits the app subscriptions can have if you’re time-poor or just frustrated with the swiping game. I tried out Tinder Plus to see how it affected my dating app use.
Tinder Plus pricing varies based on length of subscription, in-app promotions and more. I committed for 6 months.
Here’s my take on all the benefits.
PASSPORT
I was travelling around Australia while I had the subscription and decided to test out the location feature, where you can change where you search – so, I could search Byron Bay while I was still in Sydney, for example. You can even change COUNTRY with Passport, like I could be swiping in LA right now if I wanted to.
This was fantastic for me specifically – I was travelling and it was fun to see the guys in the next town I’d be in. You can still adjust the radius and you can put yourself in a really specific spot. Like, if you want to date ONLY people at the Wategos Beach in Byron, you can plonk yourself there and dial the radius down to 2km.
For life, I’m not sure how useful this would be. I suppose it depends on the area you live and work. Like, if you live really out of the city CBD but want to match with people in a certain area or neighbourhood, this would be super useful as opposed to only catching the folks who live in your radius. Or if you travel for work a lot, so you could feasibly date someone in Melbourne pretty regularly, but you’re based in Sydney “officially”, you know?
There’s also the fact that, as I found – dating when travelling can be a really nice way of meeting people. I got pretty lonely at times and it was so nice to go have a beer and some pub food with someone I thought was cute, from time to time.
REWIND
Rewind meant I could swipe back when I accidentally saw a babe but swiped them left. Something that used to frustrate me was when I was swiping right several times in a row, and stopped concentrating. Bam! Up popped a total 10/10 and because I was mid-left-swipe rampage, I managed to bin them. With Tinder Plus, I could simply rectify an accidental left-swipe. Too easy.
You’ve got unlimited rewinds at your disposal with Plus, and while I didn’t use it often, I was stoked to have it there when I needed to.
SUPER LIKES
Okay, I’ve never used Super Likes – I have nothing against them, I’ve just never been game to let someone know I like them without the reassurance that they like me back. For the uninformed, Super Likes push you further to the front of the person your keen on’s feed of people. You’ll be highlighted blue, indicating to them that you’ve Super Liked them. It’s basically like walking up to someone and saying “you’re cute”.
So I didn’t use the 5 free Super Likes Tinder Plus gave me per month. But hey! If you like a Super Like, this is good news for you. I actually appreciate when guys super like me – it’s flattering, and it IS useful if you want to get someone’s attention.
FYI – if you upgrade to Tinder Gold, you can actually see who has already swiped right on you – so if you want to Super Like a total babe and you have Tinder Gold, you can check if they already liked you in the first place. HUGE MOOD.
BOOST
THIS was amazing. Boost is basically this 30 minute time period where you get to be one of the top profiles in your area. Anyone who has used Tinder regularly in a radius that was heavily populated with people knows how valuable this can be. Being able to be one of the top profiles means more matches. You get one Boost per month on Tinder Plus, but I found the benefits lasted all month – it was rare for me to swipe right and not match with the guy I was keen on while using Tinder Plus, and I don’t think that’s coz I suddenly became hot shit, you know? I think it’s because I’d use Boost and then have all these matches waiting for me, because guys had actually come across my profile.
UNLIMITED LIKES
You get unlimited likes with Tinder Plus, but this didn’t really affect me. I’ve never reached the end of my swipes!
OVERALL…
The biggest benefit I found with Tinder Plus was how easy it was to match with people I liked. I found I had already been liked by most guys while using Tinder Plus, and I think a lot of this had to do with the Boost function. You know when you jump on Tinder and you have those waves where everyone seems to have already liked you? That was me, but all the time for those six months.
If you’re busy and time-poor, an upgrade could be the thing that makes your right-swiping more efficient. I think if I were still dating (I met a guy! ON TINDER!) I’d totally commit to Plus, even for a period of time just to get me ahead of the game and be getting on those actual dates with guys I’m interested in, instead of sitting and swiping every evening.
