Unlike swipe-heavy apps geared toward casual encounters, Hinge positions itself as the app “designed to be deleted”—a tagline emphasizing its focus on helping users find lasting relationships. However, as dating trends and user behaviors evolve, so do the ways people interact on Hinge.
To find out more about Hinge’s user demographics, feature popularity, and other current stats and facts, we took a data-driven look at how the app is reshaping online dating. As part of our research, we analyzed the responses of 618,917 people in the US over a year to see what their sentiments were about this popular app. Here’s what we discovered:
Index
- What is Hinge?
- How many users does Hinge have?
- How much revenue is Hinge making annually?
- How much market share does Hinge have?
- 47.6% of respondents are looking for casual dating on Hinge
- See Who Likes You the most paid for feature by 65.6%
- 37.6% of Hinge users like the success stories best of all
- Time consumption the biggest dislike for 71.8% Hinge users
- Hinge most popular with over 65s
- Whopping 69.6% US Hinge users are female
- 20.4% of Hinge users in California
- Nearly 55 % of respondents earn between $40,000 to $80,000
- About the data
What is Hinge?
In 2011, Justin McLeod founded Hinge as a dating app encouraging genuine connections. He was inspired by his experience with the shallow interactions common on other dating apps at the time and wanted to do something about it.
Hinge differentiated itself by focusing on user profiles that went beyond simple swipes. Instead, it prompts users to answer questions and comment on photos, creating opportunities for more thoughtful interactions. In a way, it's similar to the original version of Facebook, but it’s undergone numerous updates to be far slicker and user-friendly.
Once profiles have been set up and interactions have taken place, the app then matches people based on their preferences to guarantee that all matches are stable. It does this by using the Nobel-prize-winning Gale Shapley algorithm that solves what is termed the “Stable Marriage Problem”.
In 2018/9, the Match Group acquired Hinge, and it has since become one of the major players in the dating app industry.
How Many Users Does Hinge Have?
In 2022, Hinge surpassed one million paying users. By the end of 2023, it had up to 1.3 million paying users, recording approximately 33% growth from 2022. However, when you add those using the app for free, there are currently 28 million users, with the majority based in the US.
How Much Revenue Is Hinge Making Annually?
Hinge has enjoyed good revenue growth in the last few years. The app generated $396 million in revenue in 2023, which was a 39% year-on-year increase. In 2024, so far, it has raked in sums of roughly $26.2 million a month just in in-app purchases, putting it in third place behind Tinder and Bumble.
Overall, 70% of the app’s revenue comes from the US, with the UK being its second biggest market, and the average Hinge user spends $123 annually.
How Much Market Share Does Hinge Have?
Rated the 3rd most popular app based on revenue, Hinge has an impressive market share in the US. The app has claimed 18.75%, but it is now the fastest-growing of the top three.
Large numbers of Gen Z and Millenials have been ditching Tinder and Bumble and moving over to Hinge in an attempt to seek deeper, more lasting connections. User downloads of the app jumped 14% in Q2 compared to last year, far surpassing its competitor's download rates.
What Type Of Relationship Do You Want From Hinge?
47.6% of respondents are looking for casual dating on Hinge
Our data shows that casual dating is what Hinge users in the US are looking for the most, and networking is what they want the least. We’ve broken down what the graph reveals below.
Although Hinge may want to help users find their last first date, nearly half of our respondents were looking for casual dating (47.6%) compared to those who were looking for a serious relationship (13.9%).
Those looking for a polyamory or open relationship were separated by only a point of a percentage at 12.3% and 12.2%, respectively, and occupied second and third place. With this style of relationship on the rise, it’s not surprising the engagement levels were high. Friendship scored medium engagement, with 5.1% of respondents citing this was what they wanted to find on the app, followed by adventure (4.2%) and romantic connection (2.4%).
Despite Hinge’s lasting-love approach, those who wanted long-term commitment only registered 1.1% engagement in our survey, coming in just ahead of those wanting companionship (0.8%) and those wanting to network (0.5%). Evidently, for our 618,000+ respondents, Hinge is more for hookups!
Which Features Of Hinge Are You Paying For?
See Who Likes You the most paid for feature by 65.6%
The use of paid-for features is one of Hinge’s many attractions. Here’s what features our 618,917 respondents are paying for:
With engagement levels reaching 65.6%, our respondents certainly want to see who likes them, and they’re more than willing to pay for the feature. In comparison, the other paid-for features attracted minimal engagement, with a whopping 57.1% difference between the most engaged and the second most. Only 8.5% of respondents pay for Hinge’s Matchmaker feature, which launched as a standalone app in 2017 and allows friends to play matchmaker by suggesting potential matches.
Profile Boost, which makes your profile visible to more users in your location for a period of one hour, followed closely in third place with 7.3%, while Conversation Starters came in fourth with 6.5%. Unlimited Likes were also a relatively popular paid for feature with 5.9%, but after that, engagement levels plummeted.
Paid for video prompts only garnered 2.5% engagement, followed by Hinge Preferred with its advanced filters at 1.9%. Barely attracting any engagement were Hinge events (0.9%), advanced filters (0.5%), and read receipts (0.4%), indicating that users may prioritize core matching features over these additional offerings.
What Do You Love Most About Dating On Hinge?
37.6% of Hinge users like the success stories best of all
Success stories are a favorite with our respondents. Here’s what else the data tells us about what Hinge users love about the app.
Everyone loves a success story, or in the case of our respondents, 37.6% love the success stories on Hinge best of all. Hinge is famous for celebrating its successes and recently released No Ordinary Love, an anthology of love stories about six real-life couples who met on the app.
Almost tying as favorites were profile customization and user engagement at 27.3% and 27.2%, respectively, highlighting how users enjoy the control and interaction the app offers. After this, engagement took a dive, with video prompts (3.2%), matching algorithm (2.3%), user interface (1.9%) and icebreaker prompts (0.6%) all racking up minimal engagement as the most liked feature of our surveyed users.
What Do You Hate Most About Dating On Hinge?
Time consumption the biggest dislike for 71.8% Hinge users
A resounding number of Hinge users dislike the same thing about the app. Let’s look at the attributes that are not a hit with our sample group:
Although dating apps intend to make finding a match easy, it seems Hinge doesn't win any awards with our respondents for the amount of time it takes to do so.
A whopping 71.8% cited the fact that dating on Hinge was time-consuming as what they hated most about using the app. Far behind as the second most-hated attribute was limited matches at 13.6%, followed by ghosting at 10.9%. With 60% of Americans admitting to being ghosted and 45% admitting to ghosting others, this negative attribute gets less engagement than you might expect. The least most hated attribute was inconsistent profiles at 3.7%.
Overall, it's interesting to note that what people hate the most about dating on Hinge isn’t really related to the app itself but more to the habits and behaviors of the users.
Demographics
Our data also analyzed the demographics of the sample group, and here’s how the respondents stacked up.
Age
Hinge most popular with over 65s
Our survey found that the highest number of Hinge users were aged over 65. Let’s take a closer look at the age/user split:
With 21.5% engagement levels from over 65s topping our list, love has no age limit. This contrasts with many other reports that state Hinge is most popular with Gen Z and Millenials and that those in the 65+ age group only make up 4.62% of the app's users. However, it correlates with Statista’s report that more than 20% of online dating users between the ages of 18 and 64 have used Hinge in the last year.
Gen X (age 45-54) with 19.8% engagement, and older Gen X/Baby Boomers (age 55 to 64), with 16.9% also put the older generation ahead, before the lower age groups got a look in. From age 44 downwards, app users decrease in numbers, with 34-44 at 15.6%, 25-34 at 14%, and under 25s at the lowest, with 12.1%.
Gender
Whopping 69.6% US Hinge users are female
The results show that well over 50% of users in the US are female, with men lagging far behind:
Our data was based on users in the US and showed that those identifying as female were by far the majority of Hinge users, at 69.6%. Those identifying as male came in nearly 40% behind, with engagement levels of 30.4%.
Globally, however, Hinge’s audience composition differs somewhat overall. In fact, it almost flips our results upside down, with males making up 58.19% of the audience and females 41.81%.
Region
20.4% of Hinge users in California
With just over 20% of Hinge users in the Golden State, this graph illustrates where in the US our respondents reside:
According to Tech Report’s research, the US has the most Hinge users globally and makes up 45.18% of all visitors. Our data focused on respondents in the US only, and of the states surveyed, California had the highest engagement, with 20.4%. Oregon followed at 15.8%, followed by Pennsylvania at 10.1%.
Dropping below 10% was Illinois with 8.5%, Connecticut with 5.8%, and Kentucky with 3.9%. Despite having the 4th highest population numbers, New York scored low with just 3.2%, followed by Idaho (2.7%), Texas (2.4%), and Massachusetts and Michigan tying with 2.2% each. Thereafter, all the remaining states had engagement levels of between 1.8 and 0.1%, with South Carolina and Maine being the only two states with zero engagement.
Interestingly, the bottom two states are relatively high up on the US marriage rates list, with Maine at number nine and South Carolina at 17. Yet, despite Hinge’s focus on making long-term matches, neither feature in our study.
Income
Nearly 55 % of respondents earn between $40,000 to $80,000
Based on our research, the vast majority of respondents earn within the same income bracket. We’ve broken down the income groups of Hinge users across the US.
Those earning the most ($500,000 to $1 million) and the least (under $40,000) had almost identical engagement levels at 6.8% and 6.1%, highlighting the fact that Hinge appeals broadly across income brackets, attracting users with diverse financial backgrounds.
There you have it—all the intriguing insights into Hinge user demographics, preferences, and behaviors. These findings offer a fresh perspective on how Americans interact with the app, what they’re looking for, and who’s using it. Overall, it’s clear that our respondents are challenging Hinge’s reputation as an app solely for serious relationships
About the data
The graph data in this article was sourced from an independent sample of 618,917 people from X, Quora, Reddit, TikTok and Threads. The responses are collected within a 90% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error.
“Engagement” estimates how many people in the USA are participating, and the results are based on what people describe online—questions were not posed to the people in the sample. The demographics are determined using many features, including name, location, and self-disclosed description and privacy is preserved using k-anonymity and differential privacy.