Unveiling Dating App Development Cost in 2024

Quick Summary:

The online dating and matchmaking market is expected to reach an 11.03 billion USD valuation by 2028 with a CAGR of 5.6% from 2021 to 2028. Are you looking to join the bandwagon and secure your place in the world of dating apps? Here is an in-detailed guide for you to decode dating app development costs for your next dating app project.

People often do not have time to sit back, pause, and socialize with new people outside their existing circles in this fast-moving world. This makes finding new bonds, connections and love all the more difficult. Dating apps solve precisely this problem of the modern society by providing users access to a consolidated database of other people on such dating apps with their basic information and pictures that you can browse through, and swipe left and right to indicate interested or not interested, all at the tip of your fingertips. Users have total control over the age, gender, proximity and other preferences they want from their partner and search exactly for people who match those requirements.

If you are planning to develop a dating app, you need to keep in mind a couple of considerations to ensure its viability and efficiency. In this blog, we will cover:

  • Dating App Statistics, Market and Trends
  • Basic Expectations of People from Dating Apps
  • How to Develop App Like Tinder
  • Factors That Affect Dating App Development Cost
  • Cost Comparison of Popular Dating Apps

Dating App Statistics, Market and Trends

Revenue and number of users over the years 2016-2020 as per BusinessofApps

Here are some key statistics that help us understand the growth:

Year Revenue Users
2015 $1.69 billion 185 million
2016 $1.88 billion 200 million
2017 $2.05 billion 220 million
2018 $2.23 billion 235 million
2019 $2.52 billion 250 million
2020 $3.08 billion 270 million

Global Dating App Valuations

global dating app valuation

Dating App
Dating App Valuation
Tinder
$40 million
Bumble
$14 million
Tantan
$10 million
Badoo
$10 million
Hinge
$6.4 million
Grindr
$2.5 million

Global Dating App Market Share

global dating app market share

Dating App
Dating App Valuation
Tinder
$75 million
Badoo
$60 million
Tantan
$25 million
Bumble
$20 million
Match.com
$17 million
Plenty of Fish
$15 million
Hinge
$10 million

Basic Expectations of People from Dating Apps

To create the most successful dating app, you need to understand the three fundamental expectations that people have from any dating app:

People Expectations from Dating App

  1. Privacy and Safety
  2. UI/UX
  3. Convenience

1. Privacy and Safety

One of the primary reasons for dating apps’ popularity is the ability to screen people before going out with them. Traditional dating or blind dating often makes people uncomfortable as they barely have any information about the person before meeting them one-on-one. This raises concern about women safety as well, hence having a person’s profile and basic information puts people to ease about the whole dating experience.

What you can include in your dating app to ensure the privacy & safety of your users:

Photo Verification

You can add A.I. and Deep Learning algorithms in your dating app and ask users to pose in certain predefined poses by accessing their camera and clicking a picture to run a thorough test that the user is the person they are claiming to be. You can give them verification badges that make them look more authentic and let other users know they are verified.

Two Factor Authentication

Give your users an option to opt for two-factor authentication, which requires them to add a randomly generated code sent to their email or mobile after filling in their login details to provide an additional layer of protection from hacking attempts.

Hide Profile

Often, users do not necessarily want their profile to be seen on the dating app by other users if they are not actively online there. Hence, you should give them an option to hide their profile from any new users except those they have swiped on.

Women Make First Move

Dating apps like Bumble adopted this approach. When a user matches with another user, the female user gets an additional 24 hours to initiate a conversation if they are willing to. This approach helps address women safety by giving them the power to reassess if they feel like talking to the other person or not.

2. UI/UX

Your dating app needs to provide a clear and valuable solution for your users’ problems. Hence, you need to pay great attention to the overall app UX that is unique and easy to comprehend. Your priority at all times should be user engagement and user’s convenience.

2.1 Pay attention to Visual Design

Minimalism is all the rave these days, but to pursue minimalism, most dating apps compromise on showing essential details of a user on the first screen of their cards, which can be offsetting for many people. Hence, you need to find the perfect balance between user details and minimalist design style.

2.2 Messaging

Pay keen attention to the user interface and messaging logic of your dating app. You should focus heavily on making real-time alerts on your dating app as appealing and noticeable as possible. Keep reminders for messages, matches, reminders and so on.

What can you include in your dating app to ensure efficient UI/UX?

  • Push notifications
  • Pop-ups with advice
  • Personal letters
  • Hello bars

3. Convenience

Your dating app naturally needs to provide convenience to your end-users in creating an account, interacting with profiles, editing their preferences, and all such important tasks for them to not feel overwhelmed or irritated by your app’s complexity and unintuitive design.

What can you include in your dating app to ensure user convenience?

  • Add social media login options
  • Keep industry-standard and straightforward interactions, so users have a lesser learning curve
  • Keep essential features available with minimum taps

How to Develop Dating Apps like Tinder

Tinder is undoubtedly the market leader of dating apps across the globe. One of the most straightforward yet practical reasons for this is that it is home to the largest pool of single people compared to most competitors. Tinder was also one of the first to revolutionize online dating and begin the ‘swipe’ culture.  Let us try to decode this popular app to understand what worked so well.

1. Key Features of Tinder

Here is a list of some of Tinder’s best features that you could include in your dating app as well.

Social Media Login

Tinder also allows users to create their accounts via their Google and Facebook accounts, apart from the standard mobile number registration option.

User Profile

If users make their Tinder account by logging in with Facebook, it synchronizes the data from their account and sets up an initial profile based on pictures they upload there.

Matching

Users can match with other users if they both swipe right or press the heart icon on each other. To reject or deny a profile, users can swipe right or press the cross icon. Additionally, Tinder also provides an option to ‘SUPERLIKE’ accounts.

Preferences for Discovery

Users can find other users by filtering and setting down their preferences regarding distance, age, gender, and much more.

Private Messaging

A simple yet effective messaging interface for matches to chat with each other. Users can currently send and receive messages, like a message and send GIFs to each other.

Push Notifications

Tinder sends push notifications to users when they have a match when their likes refuel if they are on the free version and for other purposes too.

Geolocation

Tinder asks permission for your GPS to find matches in your area.

2. Tinder Tech Stack

Deciding the right tech stack plays an important role in how well an app will work and how much would it cost. Here are the various tools and technologies Tinder uses to build and maintain its app

Tinder Tech Stack

3. Dating App Like Tinder Costs

Factors That Affect Cost Of Dating App Like Tinder

The overall cost of developing an app like Tinder from scratch will significantly depend on the complete feature set, app complexity and dedicated mobile app developers‘ hourly rates. If you consider the above metrics, creating an app like Tinder for scratch should take around 2200-2400 hours for iOS, Android, QA, Project Management, User Interface and Backend Development. Let us understand the average hours needed for each stage of developing a tinder-like app and the cost of developing a dating app like Tinder based on the development region.

Cost of Developing App Like Tinder – Country and Hourly Rates

Development Stages Development Hours (h) Average Developer Costs/Hour ($)
The U.S. UK Canada Ukraine India
Project Manager 210 $120 $120 $80 $45 $20
Business Analysis 24
UI/UX Design 150
Frontend Development (iOS+Android) 950
Backend Development 950
Total 2284 hrs $2,74,080 $2,51,240 $1,82,720 $1,02,780 $45,680

Depending on where you get your dating app developed, your estimated cost of developing a dating app can range from $45,680 (India) to $2,74,080 (U.S.).

Alternatively, you can quickly get a Tinder Clone App developed for around $5000 for Android and iOS. However, the customization and functionality will be severely limited.

Factors That Affect Dating App Development Cost

Now that we have a good understanding of how Tinder made its name in the dating app and the several costs associated with its development, let us break down the several factors affecting the cost of developing a dating app that you need to consider for building any small, mid-scale or enterprise-grade dating application.

Disclaimer – All the costs will be calculated based on Indian Developers Hourly Rates.

Dating App Development Cost Factors:

Cost Factors Of Dating App

  1. Type of Dating App Development – Clone vs From Scratch
  2. Dating App Development Cost based on App Complexity
  3. Development Approach – Freelance, In-house, Outsource
  4. Dating App Development Team Structure
  5. Dating App UIUX Design Costs
  6. Cross-Platform vs Native Dating App Development
  7. Cost of Adding Important Features and Functionalities

1. Type of Dating App Development – Clone vs From Scratch

The development approach you take for your dating app will significantly affect your match dating app costs. Generally, you can take either of the two approaches to develop on-demand dating apps – Clone Dating App or Developing a Dating App from Scratch.

Suppose you do not want to invest much time and budget on your dating app, and it is not the centre product of your business offerings. In that case, you can very well opt for a dating clone app and build dating apps like Bumble, Tinder or any other popular dating app. There are scripts available for such apps that can simply be purchased and executed to give you a ready-made dating app solution where you can integrate your brand identity to a certain extent. The cost of the Tinder Script App or Bumble Script App will be significantly lower compared to the app development cost for building an app from scratch; however, it would also have limited functionality, lesser security and almost nil customization options.

Factors
Tinder Clone Script Cost
Custom Tinder App Development Cost
App Development Cost $2000-$4000 $40,000-$50,000
App Development Timeline 1-2 weeks 13-15 weeks
Reliability and Scalability Highly Scalable Highly Reliable
App Customization Limited High
Features and Functionalities Limited Can add as many with proper coding knowledge

2. Dating App Development Cost based on App Complexity

Your dating app complexity has a direct impact on the cost of making a dating app. Hence, if you need to build a dating app that can perform complex functions like payment processing, syncing with the internet, processing in-app purchases, sending push notifications, using real-time GPS or linking users with other users, it will naturally be more expensive as compared to an essential dating app development cost.

Cost of Basic Dating App vs Complex Dating App Development Timeline

Development Stages
Basic Dating App Timeline
Complex Dating App Timeline
Project Management 100 hours 240 hours
Frontend (iOS+Android) 320 hours 950 hours
Backend 310 hours 960 hours
UI/UX 30 hours 120 hours
QA Analysis 50 hours 130 hours
Total Hours 810 hours 2400 hours
Average Hourly Rates for Dating App Development in India $20-$30
Total Dating  App Development Cost
(Total Hours * Average Hourly Rates)
$16,200 – $24,300 $48,000 – $72,000

3. Development Approach – Freelance, In-house, Outsource

Whom you get your dating app developed from also influences the overall cost of dating apps. You can take three approaches for developing your dating app: in–house, hiring a freelancer, and hiring an offshore development centre.

The estimated hourly rates for different dating app development approaches are:

  • Freelancers – $12-$24 per hour
  • In-house $150-$250 per hour
  • ODC (India) – $20-$30 per hour

As you can see, there is a considerable price difference between hiring an in-house team versus going for freelancers or an offshore development company. You should also note that apart from the hourly wages you will have to pay for your in-house team, you also need to give them leaves and other employee benefits that will only add to your expenses.

Requirements
In-house
Freelance
Outsource
Access to Technical Expertise High Low High
Project Budget High Low Medium
Project Urgency

 

Medium High Medium
Security Concerns High Low High
Project Scope High Low High

Also, ReadOutsource I.T. Projects To India!!! Top Things You Should Consider

Now, between freelancers and offshore development centres, you can hire a skilled freelancer if you have a semi-technical team and only need an expert to look over one aspect of your project. However, suppose you want complete app solution services. In that case, you should rely on the expertise of one of the best on-demand dating app development companies who will manage your project from ideation to final deployment.

Here are some requirement considerations that you can use to assess if your project is better suited for freelancers, in-house teams or offshore development companies.

4. Dating App Development Team Structure

Any dating app needs collaborative efforts between many I.T. experts to take care of different aspects of your dating app development process. If you outsource your project to an offshore development agency, then you will get an overall price estimation for your project. Alternatively, you can also approach them to hire individual talents missing from your in-house team to complete your dating app development team. In either case, it is good to know what talents you need to hire and their average hourly rates.

Dating App Development Team
Average Hourly Rates
Project Manager $45 – $120
Scrum Master $30 – $76
Product Owner $29 – $74
Designers $30-$75
Frontend Developers $40- $75
Backend Developers $61 – $80
Business Analysts $20-$56
QA Lead $15-$45

5. Dating App UIUX Design Costs

Simple Dating App Cost – $840 | Average Dating App Cost – $3560 | Complex Dating App Cost – $10,600

App design plays one of the most pivotal roles in turning interested audiences into potential customers. When it comes to dating apps, the overall visual design plays a critical role in attracting users and making them actively use your app.

From a cost point of view, if you go for pre-built templates to design your dating app, it would not be authentic, and your dating app would look like just another generic app with nothing new or exciting to offer.

Hence, it is always advised to outsource your dating app design to an experienced on-demand app development team with credible experience in building and designing dating apps. It is also essential to reflect your brands’ identity through your dating app in terms of colors, shapes, fonts and more. Similarly, you need to make sure your app follows a logical and easy to follow design guide that makes sense and makes the user journey seamless through an effective UX design strategy.

Design Stages Hours
Simple Dating App Design Average Dating App Design Complex Dating App Design
Wireframing 14 58 160
UI Design 20 90 190
UX Design 8 30 180
Total Hours 42 178 530
Average Hourly Rates $20-$30
Total Dating  App Design Cost

(Total Hours * Average Hourly Rates)

$840 – $1260 $3560-$5340 $10,600-$15,900

6. Cross-Platform vs Native Dating App Development

Another critical decision that affects your cost to build a dating app is whether you go for cross platform or native app development approach for your dating app. Building a cross-platform app enables you to target both iOS and Android at almost half the price of developing a native app for both platforms individually.

Hence, if you are banking on maximum user participation and downloads for earning through your dating app, you should opt for cross platform mobile app development. In contrast, if you plan to target a specific market or have a budget to afford native app development on both platforms, you should go for native development. Native apps have better functionality and a richer user experience.

App Development Approach Average Cost of Online Dating App Development
Android iOS
Native App Development $30,000 $45,000
Cross Platform App Development
$100,000

7. Cost of Adding Important Features and Functionalities

Any dating app needs a particular set of critical features to be an accurate and complete dating app solution that satisfies user needs and demands. Some essential features are also needed to ensure users’ data privacy and security. When they sign up for your services, they trust you with their social logins, critical personal details, and other sensitive data. Here are some of the most important features that affect the cost of developing a dating app.

Dating App Feature Feature Development Time Average Developer Rate Feature Development Cost
Authorization 25 $20-30 $500 – $750
GPS 5 $100 – $150
User Profile 80 $1600 – $2400
Settings 55 $1100 – $1650
Matching Algorithm 90 $1800 – $2700
Notifications 25 $500 – $750
Communication 130 $2600 – $3900
3rd Party Integrations 30 $600 – $900
Total 440 hrs   $8800 – $13,200

Popular Dating App Cost Comparison

Now to wrap it up, let us have a quick comparison between the leading dating apps in the market in terms of their pricing models and the basic features they provide.

Popular Dating App Cost Comparison

1. Bumble

Subscription Price: Premium $2.99/month or $46.99 for three months.

Users: 42 million monthly users.

Key Features of Bumble Premium

  • Women make the first move
  • Unlimited data filters and preferences settings
  • See who swiped right on you
  • Use Travel Mode to set your location to another area for 7 days
  • Rematch with users if the match expires

2. Hinge

Subscription Price: Premium $29.99/month or $19.99/month for three months.

Key Features of Bumble Premium

  • Additional filters for politics, drinking, height, smoking, kid preferences and more
  • See everyone who likes you in a single view
  • Unlimited likes

3. Plenty of Fish

Subscription Price: $10.18/month for eight months

Users: 150 million registered users.

Key Features PlentyofFish Premium

  • Sixteen pictures are allowed to be added to a user’s profile. (Free version allow eight)
  • Ability to see extended profiles
  • Read recipes and delete messages notification
  • Profile views with time and date viewed

4. Tinder

Subscription Price: $14.99/month for age below 30, $29.99/month for age above 30

Key Features Tinder Premium

  • Check you likes your profile
  • Top Picks Daily
  • Hide age and distance
  • Five super likes daily
  • Unlimited likes

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Wrapping it up!

This is your go-to guide for estimating dating app development costs for your next Tinder-like app project. Consider all these factors and come up with an efficiently laid out dating app budget plan to create the best dating app amongst your competitors.

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    Ronak Patel

    Ronak Patel, the CEO of Aglowid IT Solutions, is a NASSCOM member and a published writer in top tech publications like DZone and Hacker Noon. With a background as a full-stack developer, he brings a wealth of technical expertise. Ronak's marketing acumen complements his technical skills, ensuring the delivery of innovative IT solutions that excel in the market.

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