Dating App Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech, Streaming & Social | Last updated: September 24, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Across Match Group, Bumble and Grindr, the three listed Western dating operators, paying users fell 6.6% year over year to 17.8 million in Q2 2026 while blended monthly revenue per payer rose 5.6% to $21.78, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s analysis of their Q2 2026 SEC filings.
Quick Answer
Dating apps in 2026 are earning more from fewer people. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that combined paying users at Match Group, Bumble and Grindr dropped from 19.1 million to 17.8 million between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026, while revenue per payer climbed. The resulting Dating Payer Squeeze Index (DPSI) reads 12.2 points. Hinge (+22% revenue) and Grindr (+33%) are the two exceptions to the shrinking payer base.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, combined paying users at Match Group, Bumble and Grindr fell 6.6% year over year to 17.8 million in Q2 2026.
- Axis Intelligence Research’s Dating Payer Squeeze Index (DPSI), which measures how far pricing outruns payer growth, registered a baseline reading of 12.2 points for Q2 2026.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, a Hinge payer was worth 1.85 times a Tinder payer in Q2 2026: $33.11 versus $17.90 in monthly revenue per payer.
- Bumble App paying users fell 16.9% year over year to 2.08 million in Q2 2026, per Bumble’s Q2 2026 Form 8-K.
- Grindr grew Q2 2026 revenue 33% to $138 million with 1.4 million average paying users, per its Q2 2026 shareholder letter.
How Many People Pay for Dating Apps in 2026?
Roughly 17.8 million paying users sat across the three publicly listed Western dating operators in Q2 2026. That is the sum of Match Group’s 13.25 million payers, Bumble Inc.’s 3.16 million and Grindr’s 1.4 million average paying users, each taken from the company’s Q2 2026 filing.
| Operator | Payers Q2 2025 | Payers Q2 2026 | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match Group (all brands) | 14.09M | 13.25M | −6% | Match Group Form 8-K, Aug 4, 2026 |
| Bumble Inc. (Bumble + Badoo) | 3.78M | 3.16M | −16.4% | Bumble Form 8-K, Aug 5, 2026 |
| Grindr | 1.2M | 1.4M | +16% | Grindr Q2 2026 Shareholder Letter |
| Combined (Axis calculation) | 19.07M | 17.81M | −6.6% | Axis Intelligence Research |
One caveat belongs next to the total: Match Group counts payers at the brand level, so a person paying for both Tinder and Hinge in the same month appears twice. The combined figure is a count of paid subscriptions-and-purchases relationships, not of unique humans.
Paying users by dating app
| App / segment | Payers Q2 2026 | Y/Y change | Monthly revenue per payer | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tinder | 8.5M | −5% | $17.90 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| E&E portfolio (Match, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, Azar, Pairs and others) | 2.7M | −21% | $22.24 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| Bumble App | 2.08M | −16.9% | $27.55 | Bumble Form 8-K |
| Hinge | 2.0M | +17% | $33.11 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| Grindr | 1.4M | +16% | $26.51 | Grindr Shareholder Letter |
| Badoo App and Other | 1.08M | −15.4% | $11.21 | Bumble Form 8-K |
Alex Rivera: Look at who’s actually adding paying users: Hinge and Grindr. Both are built for someone who knows what they want, whether that’s a relationship or a specific community. The apps built for everyone are the ones losing payers. If you’re a dater wondering why Tinder keeps pushing upgrades harder, this table is the reason: fewer people are paying, so each payer has to be worth more.
Are Dating Apps Losing Users in 2026?
Paying users, yes; engagement, less clearly. Match Group reported that Tinder’s daily active users fell 4% year over year in Q2 2026, which the company called its best result in ten quarters, and that Tinder monthly actives declined 7%. Hinge’s global monthly active users grew 13% over the same period, per Match Group’s Q2 2026 results.
Bumble does not disclose monthly actives, but its payer line moved the most: Bumble App paying users dropped from 2.50 million to 2.08 million, a 16.9% decline calculated from the company’s reported thousands.
Tinder statistics 2026
- Direct revenue: $457.5 million in Q2 2026, down 1% year over year.
- Payers: 8.5 million, down from 9.0 million in Q2 2025.
- Monthly revenue per payer: $17.90, up from $17.14 — a 4.4% increase by Axis calculation.
- DAU: −4% year over year. MAU: −7%.
- In a Los Angeles pilot, 71% of eligible active users aged 18–24 engaged with the in-app Events tab, per Match Group’s Form 8-K.
Hinge statistics 2026
- Direct revenue: $203.5 million, up 22% year over year.
- Payers: 2.0 million, up 17%.
- Monthly revenue per payer: $33.11.
- Revenue in Hinge’s European expansion markets grew 86%.
- Hinge now contributes 24.2% of Match Group’s direct revenue (Axis calculation: $203.5M ÷ $840M).
- Match Group still expects Hinge to reach $1 billion in revenue in 2027.
Bumble statistics 2026
- Total revenue: $210.5 million, down 15.2%.
- Bumble App revenue: $171.7 million, down 14.7%.
- Bumble App ARPPU: $27.55, up from $26.85.
- Adjusted EBITDA margin: 34.6%.
- Q3 2026 revenue guidance: $205 million to $213 million.
Grindr statistics 2026
- Total revenue: $138 million, up 33%.
- App-based revenue: $113 million, up from $87 million.
- Average monthly active users: 15 million; average paying users: 1.4 million.
- Paid conversion: 9.3% of MAU (Axis calculation: 1.4M ÷ 15M).
- Full-year 2026 revenue guidance raised to about $540 million.
Alex Rivera: For a dater, the Tinder DAU line matters more than the revenue line. Fewer daily actives means fewer people actually swiping near you. Match Group itself doesn’t expect Tinder payers to grow again until Q4 2027, and its Q3 2026 guidance of $885 million to $895 million, down 2% to 3%, doesn’t bet on a quick rebound either. The Events push, with 71% of eligible 18–24s using the tab in the LA pilot, is Tinder admitting that Gen Z wants to meet in person, not just swipe.
Why Are Dating Apps Charging More? The Dating Payer Squeeze Index (DPSI)
The pattern across every filing is the same: price per payer up, payer count down. To put a single number on that, Axis Intelligence Research built the Dating Payer Squeeze Index (DPSI).
What it measures: how many percentage points the industry’s pricing growth is running ahead of its payer growth. A reading near zero means revenue growth is coming from both price and volume. A positive reading means operators are extracting more per payer while the paying base shrinks.
Formula:
DPSI = (year-over-year change in blended monthly revenue per payer) − (year-over-year change in combined payers)
Inputs (Q2 2026 vs Q2 2025):
| Input | Q2 2025 | Q2 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Match Group direct revenue | $845M | $840M | Match Group Form 8-K |
| Bumble Inc. total revenue | $248.2M | $210.5M | Bumble Form 8-K |
| Grindr app-based revenue | $87M | $113M | Grindr Shareholder Letter |
| Combined payer revenue | $1,180.2M | $1,163.5M | Axis calculation |
| Combined payers | 19.07M | 17.81M | Axis calculation |
| Blended monthly revenue per payer | $20.63 | $21.78 | Axis: revenue ÷ payers ÷ 3 months |
- Blended revenue per payer change: +5.6%
- Combined payer change: −6.6%
- DPSI = 5.6 − (−6.6) = 12.2 points (baseline reading, Q2 2026)
Advertising revenue is excluded at Match Group and Grindr so the index tracks money paid by daters. Bumble reports only total revenue alongside its payer metrics, so its total is used.
Alex Rivera: Here’s what 12.2 points means for the person holding the phone: the average payer is paying more for an app that fewer other people are paying for. Combined payer revenue fell only 1.4% while payers fell 6.6%, so price increases covered most of the loss. That only holds if the product gets better as fast as the price goes up. Tinder’s algorithm rebuild, Bumble’s platform migration and Grindr’s premium Edge tier are all bets that it will. If the DPSI drops next quarter because payers come back, those bets paid off. If it drops because prices stall while payers keep leaving, they didn’t.
Which Dating App Makes the Most Money Per User?
Hinge. At $33.11 in monthly revenue per payer, a Hinge payer brought in 1.85 times what a Tinder payer did in Q2 2026, according to Axis Intelligence Research. Axis calls this the Intent Premium Ratio: the spread between a relationship-oriented app and a swipe-first app inside the same company, same payment stack and same quarter.
| Rank | App | Monthly revenue per payer, Q2 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hinge | $33.11 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| 2 | Bumble App | $27.55 | Bumble Form 8-K |
| 3 | Grindr | $26.51 | Grindr Shareholder Letter |
| 4 | E&E portfolio | $22.24 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| 5 | Tinder | $17.90 | Match Group Q2 2026 earnings call |
| 6 | Badoo App and Other | $11.21 | Bumble Form 8-K |
Definitions differ slightly — Match Group reports revenue per payer on direct revenue, Bumble reports ARPPU per app, Grindr reports app-based ARPPU — but all three are monthly figures dividing user-paid revenue by paying users.
Alex Rivera: Your subscription price depends a lot on which app you use. Hinge makes nearly three times as much per payer as Badoo, and 1.85 times as much as Tinder, inside the same company. People on Hinge are paying to find a partner and upgrade to get there faster. People on Tinder are more likely to buy a boost now and then and cancel. So the biggest dating app in the world earns the least per payer of Match Group’s three segments.
Who Uses Dating Apps? Age, Orientation and Experience
The most recent nationally representative U.S. data remains Pew Research Center’s July 2022 survey of 6,034 adults, published in February 2023. No newer Pew wave has been released; these figures are flagged [older data] in the dataset.
| Group | Ever used a dating site or app | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All U.S. adults | 30% | Pew Research Center, 2023 |
| Ages 18–29 | 53% | Pew Research Center |
| Ages 30–49 | 37% | Pew Research Center |
| Ages 50–64 | 20% | Pew Research Center |
| Ages 65+ | 13% | Pew Research Center |
| LGB adults | 51% | Pew Research Center |
| Straight adults | 28% | Pew Research Center |
Among Americans who are single and looking, 45% had used a dating site or app in the past year, per Pew. Among all online daters, 46% had used Tinder, 31% Match and 28% Bumble, according to Pew’s key findings.
Do people like using dating apps?
Opinion is split almost evenly. Pew found 53% of online dating users describe their experience as at least somewhat positive and 46% as negative, per its 2023 report. The safety gap by gender is wider: 76% of men who have used the apps call them safe, against 58% of women, per Pew’s views survey.
Alex Rivera: LGB adults use dating apps at almost twice the rate of straight adults, 51% versus 28%. That explains a lot of Grindr’s filing. When an app serves the community most likely to date online, and 9.3% of its monthly users pay, it can grow payers and prices together. It’s the only listed operator doing both.
For fraud losses tied to online dating, see our romance scam statistics, which tracks FTC and FBI reporting separately.
How Profitable Are Dating Apps?
Very, even while shrinking. Match Group posted a 39% adjusted EBITDA margin in Q2 2026, Grindr 42% and Bumble 34.6%, per each company’s filing. Match Group’s net income rose 36% to $171 million on revenue that fell 1%, driven by a 9% cut in operating costs and a 16% drop in cost of revenue.
| Operator | Q2 2026 revenue | Y/Y | Adj. EBITDA margin | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match Group | $853.1M | −1% | 39% | Form 8-K |
| Bumble Inc. | $210.5M | −15.2% | 34.6% | Form 8-K |
| Grindr | $138M | +33% | 42% | Shareholder Letter |
Chart 5 — “Dating app revenue growth vs adjusted EBITDA margin, Q2 2026” (scatter, three points).
Alex Rivera: For users, these margins are the other side of the price story. Match Group grew profit while revenue shrank, mostly by cutting costs, so there’s room to spend on product if the turnaround needs it. What’s worth watching is Hinge’s share: about a quarter of Match Group’s direct revenue now comes from the app that’s still gaining daters.
Methodology
Scope. This report covers the three publicly listed dating operators headquartered in the U.S. that report payer counts in SEC filings: Match Group (MTCH), Bumble Inc. (BMBL) and Grindr (GRND). Privately held and Asia-listed operators are excluded because they do not publish comparable quarterly payer data.
Collection. All company figures were taken from Q2 2026 filings retrieved on September 24, 2026: Match Group’s Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 (August 4, 2026), Bumble Inc.’s Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 (August 5, 2026) and Grindr’s Q2 2026 Shareholder Letter and Form 10-Q (August 6, 2026). Brand-level Match Group figures for Tinder, Hinge and E&E were disclosed on the Q2 2026 earnings call and in the company’s supplemental materials; they are labeled company-reported. Survey data comes from Pew Research Center’s July 2022 wave (n = 6,034).
Axis calculations.
- Combined payers = Match Group payers + Bumble Inc. total paying users + Grindr average paying users.
- Combined payer revenue = Match Group direct revenue + Bumble Inc. total revenue + Grindr app-based revenue.
- Blended monthly revenue per payer = combined payer revenue ÷ combined payers ÷ 3.
- DPSI = % change in blended revenue per payer − % change in combined payers. Q2 2026 is the baseline reading.
- Intent Premium Ratio = Hinge revenue per payer ÷ Tinder revenue per payer.
- Grindr paid conversion = average paying users ÷ average MAU.
Comparability. Match Group counts payers per brand, so a user paying for two Match Group apps is counted twice; the DPSI treats that consistently in both periods. Bumble’s total revenue includes a small advertising and partnership component that its filing does not split out. Growth rates stated by the companies are used in prose where available; where Axis recalculated from reported figures, the CSV method_note column shows the arithmetic.
About This Dataset
The dataset behind this page (dating-app-statistics.csv, 104 rows) is the fact table: every number in this article has a row with its value, unit, as-of date, source organization, source document, URL and retrieval date. Axis-calculated rows are flagged axis_calculated = yes with the formula in method_note.
- License: CC BY 4.0. Free to reuse with attribution.
- Required attribution: “Axis Intelligence Research, Dating App Statistics 2026.”
- Updates: relevance-driven. The page and the DPSI are recalculated when Match Group, Bumble or Grindr file Q3 2026 results (expected early November 2026), or when Pew publishes a new online-dating survey.
- Mirrors: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub (Axis Intelligence Research).
Cite This Report
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Rivera, A. (2026). Dating app statistics 2026: Fewer payers, higher prices, and the Dating Payer Squeeze Index. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/dating-app-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Alex Rivera. “Dating App Statistics 2026: Fewer Payers, Higher Prices, and the Dating Payer Squeeze Index.” Axis Intelligence, 24 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/dating-app-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research and Alex Rivera. “Dating App Statistics 2026: Fewer Payers, Higher Prices, and the Dating Payer Squeeze Index.” Axis Intelligence, September 24, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/dating-app-statistics/.
FAQ: Dating App Numbers Investors, Journalists and Daters Ask About
Is Tinder still the biggest dating app in 2026?
Yes, by paying users. Tinder had 8.5 million payers in Q2 2026, more than Hinge, Bumble App and Grindr combined (5.48 million), per Match Group, Bumble and Grindr filings. It also has the lowest revenue per payer in Match Group’s portfolio, at $17.90 a month.
Is Hinge overtaking Tinder?
Not in size, but in growth and value per user. Hinge grew revenue 22% in Q2 2026 while Tinder’s fell 1%, and a Hinge payer generated $33.11 a month versus $17.90 on Tinder, according to Axis Intelligence Research. Tinder’s payer base is still more than four times larger.
Why is Bumble losing paying users?
Bumble App paying users fell 16.9% to 2.08 million in Q2 2026 while the company rebuilt its platform and matching algorithms, per its Form 8-K. Revenue per Bumble App payer still rose to $27.55.
What percentage of dating app users pay?
Grindr is the only listed operator disclosing both figures: 1.4 million average paying users against 15 million average monthly actives, a 9.3% paid conversion rate in Q2 2026, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation from Grindr’s shareholder letter.
How much do people spend on dating apps per month?
Across Match Group, Bumble and Grindr, the average paying user generated $21.78 a month in Q2 2026, up from $20.63 a year earlier, according to Axis Intelligence Research. Per app, it ranges from $11.21 (Badoo) to $33.11 (Hinge).
What is the Dating Payer Squeeze Index?
The Dating Payer Squeeze Index (DPSI) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric that subtracts the change in dating-app payers from the change in revenue per payer. Its Q2 2026 baseline reading is 12.2 points: prices up 5.6%, payers down 6.6%.
Are dating apps still profitable if users are falling?
Yes. Adjusted EBITDA margins in Q2 2026 were 39% at Match Group, 42% at Grindr and 34.6% at Bumble, per company filings. Match Group’s net income rose 36% on revenue that fell 1%.
What share of Americans have used a dating app?
Thirty percent of U.S. adults, rising to 53% of those aged 18–29 and 51% of lesbian, gay or bisexual adults, per Pew Research Center’s most recent survey (fielded July 2022).
Is online dating getting better or worse for users?
Users are split. In Pew’s latest survey, 53% of online daters rated their experience positively and 46% negatively; 58% of women users called the apps safe versus 76% of men.