Hinge Review

From its inception, Hinge has wanted to distinguish itself from Tinder and be “the relationship app”. There is no swiping. The app is designed to give you information about people and match you as quickly as possible so you can go out on a date and connect in person. Hinge is “designed to be deleted”. It's not designed for endless simple photo matching but for meeting people and falling in love, so you can get off of the dating app. Users like what Hinge brings to online dating. Every week users on Hinge arrange over 200,000 dates (which works out to 1 every 3 seconds). Thanks to how this matchmaking works that Hinge provides, 3 out of every 4 of these dates, turns into a second date.

Hinge some great features to help users get a better idea of their matches before liking or passing. Instead of swiping left or right on someone based on a couple of photos, users are asked to “like” particular parts of a match’s profile (which include both images and little notes about themselves) to encourage more consideration and help users strike up a conversation. It’s a good way to get users to pay attention to their matches beyond some photos.

There are a couple of ways to get started with Hinge (and verify your profile in the process). Users are no longer required to logon with Facebook, instead they can choose Facebook or their mobile numbers for verification. Logging in with Facebook definitely makes things easier, as you can upload information and photos automatically instead of manually entering everything. (Hinge used to block you from uploading photos yourself, and instead pulled them from Facebook.) However, while your Hinge account doesn’t appear in your Facebook profile, it does utilize your social network circles by connecting you with Facebook friends of friends, which can be awkward depending on your privacy needs.

Hinge previously required certain information (like first and last name), but now you can opt out of adding your last name, religious and political preferences, and other information you might not want to share right away with potential matches.

Users can also opt out of receiving notifications, though it does encourage you to opt-in to notifications as you go through the profile set-up process, so be prepared to answer this question more than once if you choose “no.”

One drawback is that you have to manually go into preferences to change age ranges (my matches automatically ranged from one year younger to fifteen years older), maximum distance (the default was 100 miles), height, ethnicity, and religion. Also, you are asked to upgrade if you want to see certain preferences, like whether or not your matches are open to children, their education, politics, or drinking, smoking and drug habits.

The matching process for Hinge gets better as you use the app. It sends you profiles based on what you’ve previously liked, so the more you use it, the better your matches (in theory). When viewing profiles you can click the heart button on a photo or on their prompt to show that you like it, or you can and add a comment to start a conversation with that person. This is private and only you and that person can view these likes and comments.

Once a conversation is started, you can continue to chat with that person within the app.

The app is easy to download and is free for new members to try out. Users can stay with the free option or purchase a preferred membership for $4.99-$9.99 per month, depending on the subscription plan. When you want to cancel your subscription, make sure to turn off the auto-renewal feature in the settings to avoid getting billed for the next cycle. It is easy to cancel through the app settings.

Positives of Hinge

These are the best parts of Hinge.

• Can open a new account with either Facebook or your phone number to verify
• Can pull info and photos from Facebook (regardless of how you logged in), or you can manually enter yourself
• Last name inclusion is optional (and only shared with matches)
• Can include your Instagram feed in your profile (and also pull photos from Instagram)
• Hinge offers great prompts (written and polls) for adding personality to a profile, like “We’ll get along if…” and “I did this before it was cool…”
• No more swiping – you have to go through someone’s profile and “like” elements of it to start conversations
• Free users get 10 likes per day
• Ready for Virtual Dates with "Date From Home" feature (more on it below)

Negatives of Hinge

These are the parts of Hinge which needs improvement.

• You have to include certain profile information such as your employer and occupation, with other information you can opt out
• Have to pay for a premium service to find out certain preferences, like if matches are open to having children, or if they drink or do drugs
• Preferences are set automatically, so have to go into settings and adjust them yourself (age, distance, height preferences, etc.)
• Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off

Editors Bottom Line

What should you take away from this review of Hinge? Our expert explains:

The online dating app "Hinge" is for serious daters only. Free members can like 10 other members per day. Get a Most Compatible match, and up to 15 regular matches daily based on your preferences.

We give Hinge, a 4 out of 5 Stars! 😃

Awards

A list of up to the last 5 awards for the Current year and/or Past that Hinge has been the recipient of, in the Dating Sites Reviews Choice awards.

Hinge Profiles & Sign Up Process

The Hinge dating app is available on iTunes and Google Play. Once you have installed the app and launched it you will be required to create an account. For this you will be asked for your phone number or access to your Facebook account. If you selected Facebook (most members do), information is automatically pulled and added to the different parts of the Hinge Profile. With any missing information (or if you create an account with your phone number) you then have to manually add it. Please note, if you plan on signing up through Facebook, Hinge now requires that you have at least 60 Facebook friends as a way to confirm your account is real. When you sign up to Hinge it asks for the following information:

• My Vitals
  • First and Last Name (not required)
  • Your gender and the gender you are looking for (male, female, or non-binary gender)
  • Location (based on your neighbourhood)
  • Kids, Family Plan (not required)
  • Pets, Astrological Sign (not required)
• My Virtues
  • Workplace and Job Title
  • Education (not required) and Highest Level Attained
  • Religious Beliefs, Hometown, Politics (Liberal, Conservative, etc...)
• My Vices
  • Drinking, Smoking, Marijuana, Drugs
• My Photos
  • Choose from your gallery or connect to Instagram or Facebook
  • 6 photos or videos are required
• My Answers
  • Select a prompt and write your answer. 3 are required
  • Examples include: Best Halloween Costume, A Life Goal of Mine, The key to my heart is

With most profile attributes you can select "Prefer not to say" and with many you can select if it is visible or not to other members on your profile. Instead of writing out your answers to some profile questions you can also leave a Voice Prompt (an audio clip).

Hinge also allows you to specify your dating intentions if you wish on your profile. The feature allows users to select a dating goal from a list in a menu. Some options include “life partner,” “long-term,” “open to short-term,” “short term, open to long-term,” “short term,” and “figuring out my dating goals.”. For more information see: Hinge Introduces New Feature “Dating Intentions”

When you combine dating intentions with a relationship type you can get extra specific about the relationship you are looking for in a partner. Relationship Type allows you to specify if you are in the midst of figuring things out or if you want to be monogamous, or not. For more information see: Hinge Launches New Relationship Type Feature

All new members get a free account which allows access to almost all the features of Hinge. This includes viewing and receiving matches, and communicating with those matches through the app.

Selfie Verification

Selfie Verification is a process that allows you to verify your profile using a selfie video and the photos you have uploaded to your profile. It uses a combination of machine learning and human oversight that will compare facial geometries from the video selfie to the photos. Once the process is completed (usually within 24 hours) the selfie video and underlying facial recognition information will be deleted.

After successful verification, you’ll get a new badge on your profile to show people that you’re really you. You will also be able to see whether other Hinge profiles are verified or not. This allows you to make more informed decisions about who you want to interact with.

Selfie Verification is not required to be a member of Hinge. For more information see: Hinge Rolls Out Selfie Video Verification

Hinge Costs

Hinge has been all over the map with pricing for its app. When the app relaunched in 2016, users were told they had to buy an $8 monthly subscription to use the service. After some controversy, they allowed longtime users access to a free version. Now it seems Hinge offers all users both a scaled-back free version, and a “Hinge+” membership which costs between $16 - $30 per month, depending on what type of subscription you purchase. Early in 2023 Hinge released a top-tier membership called HingeX for $50 a month.

• Prices last confirmed October 02, 2023. Please check Hinge for most recent pricing. All prices in USD unless specified otherwise. Prices may differ based on location, time of purchase, or access point (this can include device used and/or if accessed from a website or app)
• Free Hinge Membership includes:
  • Filters for gender, location, age, distance, height, ethnicity, and religion
  • Users can send 10 daily likes to send to potential matches. (“Likes” can be given for each part of one person’s profile)
  • Get 1 Rose every Sunday that you can use to send to another member
  • The same pool of potential matches as Preferred membership
• Hinge+ Membership (was called Hinge Preferred) includes:
  • Basic Hinge filters plus additional advanced filters for whether someone has children, whether someone wants children, politics, drinking, smoking, marijuana, and drug use
  • Users can send unlimited likes to potential matches
  • Access to the Hinge Experts to help you create a better profile and navigate you through the experience
  • Cost (in USD)
    • On a per month basis $29.99
    • 3 months at $21.66 per month for a total of $64.99
    • 6 months at $16.66 per month for a total of $99.99
• HingeX Membership includes:
  • Everything from the Hinge+ Membership plus
  • Likes will be seen before all other likes
  • More exposure and better recommendations for potential matches
  • Profiles are constantly boosted to attract more matches
  • This membership may not be available in all Regions
  • For more info see: Hinge Debuts New $50 Subscription Service
  • Cost (in USD)
    • On a per month basis $49.99

Hinge also offers Roses for purchase. Users get 1 free Rose every Sunday. You can find the Rose button next to the Like button when viewing someones profile.

• Roses
  • Use Roses for:
    • See the section below for more detailed explanation of this feature
    • Roses are a premium version of a Like and allows the sender to stand out amongst the other users
  • Costs (in USD):
    • 1 Rose for $3.99
    • 3 Roses for $9.99 ($3.33 each)
    • 12 Roses for $29.99 ($2.49 each)

Hinge also offers Boost that you can purchase separately. When Boost is enabled your profile is visible to more users for a certain period of time.

• Boost
  • Use Boost to:
    • Make your profile visible to more users for a specific period of time
    • Other users cannot tell when your profile is currently using Boost
  • Costs (in USD):
    • Boost for 1 hour costs $9.99
    • Super Boost for 24 hours costs $19.99

Hinge Viewing & Communication Features

• Users can “like” and comment on parts of profiles (Hinge found that users who do this are 3x more likely to strike up a conversation.)
• Users can also send a Rose which is like a Super Like and helps your profile standout compared to other users who only sent a regular Like
• Preferred membership – unlimited liking capabilities; free membership up to 10 likes per day
• 6 photos or videos required to activate your profile
• Users notified when you “like” them
• App uses Facebook circles of friends for matching; however the app also curates your matches when you sign up without using your Facebook profile
• Can only set certain preferences for free version; more preferences allowed for Preferred members (such as whether or not you want kids, drinking or drug use)
• Users can hide matches in their matches section (without deleting them)
• Prompts
  • Designed to help users create an engaging profile. There are written prompts, and prompt polls
  • These are considered conversation starters which are setup in the profile that specifically address topics like mental health awareness (called Self-Care), Dating, Aspirations, etc. where users provide responses which populate their profiles
  • Example prompts include “We’ll get along if…”, “My last journal entry was about…”, “A boundary of mine is...”, etc.
  • For each prompt topic (like Self-care) users can choose up to three to talk about from a total of 15 Hinge provides
  • For more information see: Hinge Launches New Feature to Focus on Self-Care and Hinge Launches New Features to Attract Young Daters
• Chat (Messaging)
  • Once you are matched with a user (you have agreed to be matched and the other person has as well) you can chat with them and send them text messages. This works similar to texting on your phone but is handled directly in the Hinge app
  • From within chat, if the other person is online you can also start a voice or video call
  • Audio messages can also be left in the chat for your match. For more information see: Hinge Adds Audio and More LGBTQ Features to Its App
• Video Chat
  • Hinge launched its video chat feature in 2020 in response to the pandemic.
  • As of Sept 2023, Hinge removed the feature citing lack of use by users. For more information see: Hinge Removes its Audio and Video Calling Feature
• Your Turn
  • Is the blue badge/counter on the Matches tab which is a sum of conversations where it is your turn to respond
  • This feature reminds users to respond to messages and has shown to decrease ghosting by 25%. For more information see: Hinge Takes On Ghosting With ‘Your Turn’ Feature
  • If you’re not interested in messaging with someone anymore, you can simply remove them

Searching and Matching

With the Hinge app you cannot search for matches. Instead Hinge sends you up to 15 matches daily (on average about 5 per day) in a feed. You can specify your matches falling within certain criteria though included age range, distance from you, and religion. With potential matches sent to you – you can see:

• Photos/Videos
• Age
• Height
• Current city
• How often he/she drinks (often, sometimes, never)
• Workplace/ Position
• Education
• Hometown

A feature called Standouts organizes matches in users’ feeds so that those who seem most compatible show up first in the queue, but more notably it offers topics that interest both of you to spark better (and stickier) conversations. This feed will refresh daily so that new prompts will appear based on previous likes and comments from each user’s chat history. Over time you will get a more curated matching experience thanks to your participation and Hinges matching AI algorithm.

Along with regular matches you also get 1 Most Compatible match per day:

• Most Compatible
  • Uses machine learning to generate better matches for its users. Employs the Nobel prize-winning Gale-Shapley algorithm to find the most likely matches
  • The matching will get smarter about your preferences over time, so that the more you use the app and the more you actively like and pass on other users’ profiles, the better your matches
  • Hinge will recommend one most compatible match everyday (you and your match will both receive the same recommendation of each other on the same day). You will have 24 hours to message each other before the match expires
  • The Most Compatible match will appear at the top of your Discover page each day
  • For more information see: Hinge Using AI to Give You Better Matches

If you and a match have expressed interest in each other and started communicating, and once you have exchanged your contact details, Hinge will a few days later ask if you have had a date with the match and how it went. This feature called "We Met" is designed to supply the Hinge matching algorithm with further information to help refine and improve your matches.

• We Met
  • Allow two matched members to privately confirm if they actually went on a first date and share how the date went
  • The information is kept confidential and is used only to suggest better matches in the future
  • For more information see: Dating App Hinge Launches Feedback Feature “We Met”

Other Hinge Information

The rebrand of Hinge allows daters the ability to see more than just a couple of pictures before deciding whether or not they’re interested. The profiles are easy to navigate, with the photos, prompts and basic stats adding enough information to get a good idea of the person while not getting bogged down in details. Also, the ability to like a specific photo or comment is a great addition, so users have a specific point to start a conversation. If you want the ability to use Hinge in a more unlimited fashion, or receive more details up front, then you’ll have to pay the monthly fee for the Preferred service. The free account provides a perfect option to see what Hinge is about before committing.

In 2018 Hinge was purchased by Match Group which is a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

For more detailed information on this dating service you can check out our Hinge Facts and Statistics page. Information can also be found in our topic for Hinge news articles.

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