Best Black Dating Apps

Online Dating

11 Best Black Dating Apps (2024)

Hayley Matthews

Written by: Hayley Matthews

Hayley Matthews

Hayley has over 10 years of experience overseeing content strategy, social media engagement, and article opportunities. She has also written hundreds of informational and entertaining blog posts. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Bustle, Cosmo, the Huffington Post, AskMen, and Entrepreneur. When she's not writing about dating news, relationship advice, or her fantasy love affair with Leonardo DiCaprio, she enjoys listening to The Beatles, watching Harry Potter reruns, and drinking IPAs.

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Edited by: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of journalism experience to ensure DatingAdvice articles have been edited for overall clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Gwinnett Daily News, and The Gainesville Sun covering lifestyle topics.

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There are more Black dating apps for single men and women now than ever before, but the problem is picking the right one for your needs. To help you find the affordable (and worthwhile) options, here are our experts’ best dating apps for singles who identify as Black, African American, biracial, multiracial, or a person of color. We chose these platforms based on the following criteria:

  • Their popularity in terms of users and traffic
  • Their set of features and customer service

All of the following Black dating and interracial dating sites are also completely free to join, so you can choose more than one to be your wingman as you date within the Black community.

BEST
OF

The largest dating site and app in the industry, Match is a fantastic choice for single Black men and single Black women because of its sheer size (over 30 million active users!). Not only that, but it doesn’t cost a single penny to do things like download the iOS or Android app, fill out your dating profile, search using lifestyle and ethnicity filters, save your favorite members, and send flirty virtual Winks. An online dater can also message singles in their Top Picks list for free, and use the online dating service to meet their perfect match.

What’s Free: Sign up, create profile, browse singles, send likes, and limited messaging

BEST
OF

Elite Singles is a high-quality dating app that can help a Black professional form meaningful connections with a potential partner. The dating website and app allow free members to set dating preferences based on race and ethnicity as well as education, income, and appearance. This makes it easy to narrow the dating scene down to the most viable potential matches. Over 82% of Elite Singles members have graduated college, and over 90% are looking for a serious relationship, so you know you’ll be in good company. Elite Singles is easy on your wallet because it offers free registration and browsing — but viewing photos and sending messages is a subscriber-only privilege.

What’s Free: Create a dating profile, search by racial preference, and send virtual flirts

Not only is BlackPeopleMeet.com one of the best Black dating apps because it’s free but also because it’s one of the most trusted and popular, with 4 out of 5 stars on Google Play. No matter if you’re filling out your profile, using the “Are You Interested?” feature to meet Black singles, or rating your Daily Matches, you won’t ever need your wallet. The BlackPeopleMeet app and site connect thousands of African American singles in the dating scene, so it’s worth getting a free membership to explore potential matches.

What’s Free: Download the app, create a profile, add photos, and use search filters

Christian Mingle is a faith-driven dating app that came onto the dating scene in the early 2000s and has inspired countless Christian relationships and marriages since. Black singles can join Christian Mingle for free and use its targeted search features to find a partner in love and faith. The match algorithm uses detailed profile information to identify compatible matches on the dating platform. If you’re specifically interested in dating a Black person in the Christian community, you can use the search filters for age, location, and ethnicity to find desirable candidates near you.

What’s Free: Download the app, create a profile, add photos, and use search filters

Real Black Love is an award-winning Black dating app that cares more about quality than quantity, offering commitment-minded singles a safe space where they know they’ll meet Black folks who are like-minded. It’s free to do things like sign up, make a profile, search other profiles, and send one email a week to a match. The free Real Black Love account also allows you to send unlimited virtual winks! “With so many hookup apps to download, African-Americans seeking relationships finally have a better option at their fingertips,” said Founder and CEO Joseph Dixon.

What’s Free: Sign-up, dating profile creation, and certain types of communication

URL: http://realblacklove.com/

6

Tinder

BEST
OF

We’ve all heard of the app Tinder, the dating app that made location-based matching and swiping famous. But what Tinder is also known for is adding quality to the free online dating experience, made proof by the 26 million matches and 1.4 billion swipes they’re responsible for every day. And thanks to its integration with Facebook, it only takes a couple of minutes to get started and find Black singles near you. When you download the app Tinder, you are essentially increasing your access to a potential match in the Black community. This mainstream app has the largest and most diverse following of online daters in the world, and it can help Black folks explore interracial dating or Black dating opportunities.

What’s Free: Download, swipe on profiles, and message your mutual matches

URL: https://www.tinder.com

7

OkCupid

BEST
OF

OkCupid was free when it launched in 2004, and that remains true to this day. Besides that aspect, it’s welcoming, progressive attitude has also landed it among the go-to Black gay dating apps out there. I like to lovingly call OkCupid the math nerds of the dating industry because of their one-of-a-kind matching algorithm and passion for sharing stats and figures, and it’s that metric-based thinking that makes the app so reliable for finding exactly what you want. Singles in the Black community can download or join OkCupid for free and start searching for a man or woman who could wind up being a perfect match.

What’s Free: Register, fill out info, view profiles, and chat with matches

URL: https://www.okcupid.com/

8

Grindr

BEST
OF

A leading gay dating app, Grindr is a fantastic choice not just for homosexual Black singles but also those who want a great online dating experience without the cost. With its GPS-based matching, Grindr is able to set you up with compatible guys in your neck of the woods, and that can be for hooking up, dating, serious relationships, or anything else you’re looking for. Skin tone doesn’t matter much to gay men on this dating app. All they need to know is that you’re single, nearby, and up for a chat.

What’s Free: Free to get started, fill out a dating profile & search for matches

URL: http://www.grindr.com/

9

BLK

BEST
OF

BLK was created with Black professional singles in mind. A majority of members are looking for a serious relationship, and the app even uses a social media signup process to ensure the authenticity of every person. BLK says “slide, connect, and see where it takes you…” and they’re there to help you with numerous free services, including easy profile creation via social media platforms. The BLK app offers a personalized list of profiles to swipe and search through, and you can upgrade your account to show up higher on people’s list and send over 100 likes per month. The BLK app is about as good as it gets in terms of Black dating, and it can create a potential match within seconds of joining.

What’s Free: Signing up, creating a dating profile, create matches, send messages to matches

URL: https://www.blk-app.com/

10

Black Cupid

BEST
OF

Black Cupid is a Black dating site that matches you with compatible singles for free. It’s where Black people meet one another online. If you and a person you’re interested in both swipe right on each other, you can start messaging. The Black dating app also takes your location into consideration, and moderators police all profile content to make sure no funny business takes place. Black Cupid is a fun free app and dating website that supports Black Americans in the search for love.

What’s Free: Free to make a Black Cupid account, search singles, and review matches

URL: https://www.blackcupid.com/

11

Bae Chat

BEST
OF

An acronym for “Before Anyone Else,” Bae Chat is available for iOS and Android and is one of the best free Black dating apps around. Made by Black people for Black people, Bae is known as the place “where people of color meet, chat, and date,” so you can focus less on the pressure of finding a potential partner for life and more on just getting out there and starting a conversation with a potential match. The geo-location features on Bae Chat are completely free, and you can chat with your bae matches (or even send photos, videos, or virtual gifts) any time you like.

What’s Free: 100% free to download & send unlimited chats after matching

URL: Download on Google Play

FAQs: What’s the Best Dating Site for Black Women?

Black women may have some reservations about trying online dating because they’ve heard horror stories about harassment, stalking, catfishing, racial slurs, and other bad behavior on popular dating sites and apps, so it’s important for a Black woman to choose a Black dating site that will have their back through thick and thin.

That sounds like Match to us. This online dating service is the O.G. — it’s the first ever dating site to launch, and it remains one of the most popular online dating brands ever. Match is available in 50 countries and 12 languages, and it’s inclusive atmosphere leaves no one out.

★★★★★
4.9/5.0

Relationships: Friends, Dates, and Relationships

Match System: Browse by zip, age, appearance, more

Our Experts Say: “About 1.2 million black and biracial daters visit Match every month, which means it has the largest African-American audience in online dating...” Full Review »

Browse Free: View Photos Now

Match is one of those mainstream dating apps that has shaped the modern dating experience by pioneering tools, including the ability to report a fake profile and block users, and offering personality-driven match filters to help singles meet someone who’s their type.

Black women looking for love can depend on Match to highlight local date options that meet their dating criteria and have real relationship potential.

Match is more than a Black dating site — it’s an all-purpose dating site platform search and swiping tools that dig deep to find the perfect match and rid the community of any scammers or fake profiles that could potentially hamper a Black person’s dating experience.

Does Tinder Match Folks Based on Race?

No, the app Tinder does not overtly match users based on race or ethnicity. Tinder offers match filters for location, distance, age, and gender identity in the Discovery Settings, and these are the primary factors the app uses to pair up compatible singles.

However, Tinder does allow users to identify as a Black, Asian, Hispanic, or white person in their dating profile, and that information can inform the matchmaking process in subtle ways.

The app Tinder may start off by providing date options of all different racial backgrounds until it can identify patterns in your liking history. Photos can play a role in this as well. We’d hazard to guess that the Tinder algorithm is savvy enough to notice if you seem drawn to men with dreadlocks or women with nut-brown skin tone.

The more you use the app, the more Tinder will learn about your dating habits and desires, and that can include any racial preference you may have in the dating scene.

Is eharmony a Good Dating Site?

Yes, eharmony is a very good dating site. In fact, it’s one of the longest running and most trustworthy dating platforms in the dating scene. So why didn’t it come up in our list of top Black dating apps? Because it’s by no means free and works best for relationship-minded singles in their 40s or older.

It is free to join eharmony and take its in-depth personality test, which powers its compatibility ratings and match recommendations. However, viewing profile photos and sending unlimited messages is only available to paid subscribers of the site and app.

★★★★★
4.5/5.0
eharmony

Available on: iOS, Android

  • Relationships: Long-Term Relationships, Marriages
  • Match System: Get daily match suggestions
  • About the App: Responsible for 4% of marriages in the U.S., eharmony is among our top picks for relationship-minded heterosexual singles. To become a member, add the app to your phone (iOS or Android) and then take its 29 Dimensions® of Compatibility Matching Quiz. It's absolutely free to do both these things — as well as receive matches and communicate during other special events.
  • Browse Free: View Profiles Now

We’d recommend trying eharmony if you’re a Black person who has had enough of the swiping scene and are willing to pay up for a Black dating site with better quality matches and smarter features that are guaranteed to work. A Black man or woman seeking a real relationship or marriage may find exactly what they need on eharmony, and it doesn’t hurt to create a free profile first to see what it’s all about.

A Black Dating App Can Take the Dating Experience Up a Notch

As you can see, Black dating apps come in all shapes and sizes, and some are more free than others. Every online dating service mentioned on this list have enough free features to get Black professionals browsing and matching with attractive singles, and they’re all free to download on your smartphone or mobile device.

What with racial discrimination, ghosting, and rejection, dating can be hard enough for Black men and women, and we firmly believe that singles shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the bank to find a date or a potential partner. With a free dating site or app in hand, Black folks can explore local date options and meet a person who understands their life experiences, personal struggles, family values, relationship goals, and all that jazz.

The best Black dating apps on this list have earned their reputation as the best of the best, and any of them could be a good partner on your dating journey. Have fun!

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