Tinder is one of the hottest dating apps around – in fact, it’s just one of the hottest apps around period. Despite this, Tinder doesn’t make any money. As we learned a couple of weeks ago after then-CEO Sean Rad hinted at a premium service – that’s all about to change.
Well, it looks like Tinder’s ready to launch its new paid tier – in a select few locations. TechCrunch reports that Tinder Plus is coming soon to select users in the UK, Brazil and Germany. Why not the US? It’s all about price testing, as Tinder has to figure out the price point that works – whether it be $0.99 or $20.
So, what will Tinder Plus do? Basically, it’ll be a paid tier that opens up new features – the first of which is an ‘undo’ button for when you swipe left but you meant to swipe right (or vice versa, I guess). The new Tinder will have a big yellow undo button that lets anyone who has already paid for the Plus service immediately go back and make the proper swipe, and offer anyone who has yet to buy the Plus service the ability to do so.
The other new feature coming to Tinder Plus is called ‘Passport’, and it basically lets people search for matches in other geographic areas. This is the big new feature that Rad hinted at a couple of weeks ago. With Passport, people planning on traveling can preemptively match with others in their destination so that they don’t have to spend one minute alone when they arrive, I guess.
TechCrunch points out a potential problem with this, and Rad responds:
Of course, the downside to the Passport feature is that regular users, paid or otherwise, who are using the app to search in their own vicinity may be served people who are actually in another location, and might not even have a trip planned anytime soon. This could dilute the app’s usefulness to some users.
“We don’t think it’ll be a big enough problem where it will hurt the experience to search locally,” said Rad. “Especially since a lot of users will be paying for the feature, and the voyeuristic quality probably isn’t enough of a value add as opposed to those who are actually traveling.”
Apparently, this was one of the most-requested features.
It’s likely that US Tinder users will see these features soon – but only after Tinder gives them a good test overseas. For now, you can only sit and wonder what might’ve been when you accidentally swipe left.
Image via Tinder, Facebook