Best Dating Sites
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Bumble was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd with the help of Badoo CEO Andrey Andreev and former Tinder employees Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick. The app made a splash in the online dating scene by positioning women as the first movers. This approach gives women 100% control over their networking, friendship, or dating journey.
You can access Bumble for free on Google Play (where it has 4 stars), the Apple App Store (where it has 4.2 stars), and of course, through its website. The platform has been downloaded more than 100 million times, so it is no surprise that Bumble earns an estimated $500 million to $1 billion in revenue each year.
Below, we break down the features and costs of Bumble for you to consider before you make your final decision.
Yes, Bumble Has a Free Membership With No Obligations
You can sign up for Bumble using your phone number, Apple ID, or Facebook account. If you use Facebook, the platform will pull personal information, such as your name, age, college, and job. If you want to personalize your account, you can add up to six photos from Facebook or your phone.
Once your profile is ready, you can swipe through other member profiles, make matches, and send messages, all for free. The app’s most distinguishing feature is that women must send the first message to men. For same-sex connections, either party can send a message first.
If you accidentally swipe left to dislike a profile, just shake your phone to unlock the Backtrack feature. You can do this three times for free, and Bumble will reenable it after three hours.
When you match with someone (Bumble calls it Bees), the woman has 24 hours to message the man; if she doesn’t, the connection goes away forever. If you need more time, the Extend feature comes into play, as it gives you an additional 24 hours to connect with your match. A busy man can also use the Extend feature to gain additional time to decide whether he wants to reply to a message.
Each member gets only one Extend per day, so use it wisely. If you want more Extends per day, you must become a paid member.
How Much Does Bumble Boost Cost?
Bumble has two types of premium packages: Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium. Bumble Boost is an entry-level subscription feature that can enhance the experience of connecting with new people. Bumble Premium is the platform’s elite package; it offers all the same features as Bumble Boost, along with additional features.
Here is what Bumble Boost includes:
- Backtrack — a feature that helps you reconnect with a match if you accidentally swipe left on a dating profile.
- Ability to extend time on your current matches.
- Unlimited swipes.
- One Spotlight per week — a premium feature that moves your profile to the top of the stack so that more people see it instantly. This feature expires and renews weekly, so make sure to use it!
- Five SuperSwipes per week — a premium feature that lets you tell a potential match that you’re very interested in. These five SuperSwipes also expire and renew every week.
As for cost, Bumble Boost is $8.99 for one week, $16.99 for one month, $39.99 for three months paid upfront, or $54.99 for six months paid upfront.
If you sign up for Bumble Premium, you get all the features in Bumble Boost as well as additional features:
- Access to unlimited Advanced filters. You can set a filter specific to your match preference. You can also set unique filters for each Bumble mode: date, BFF, and Bizz.
- Access to your Beeline to see admirers. Your Beeline consists of people who’ve swiped right on you but whom you haven’t swiped on yet.
- Travel mode (mobile only).
- Rematch with users who have expired.
- Incognito Mode (mobile only). With this feature, you can hide your profile from others on the app, so no one will see it unless you swipe right on them. This mode ensures that your matches only include people you’re most interested in.
Bumble Premium costs $19.99 for a week, $39.99 for a month, $76.99 for a 3-month commitment, or a one-time fee of $299.99 for a lifetime subscription.
Best Free Alternatives to Bumble
Bumble isn’t the only online matchmaker in town that’s free for singles. Our dating experts highly recommend these four popular dating apps that offer free communication, at least for single women. Here’s a breakdown of the best free alternatives to Bumble.
Relationships: Hookups, Casual Dates, Affairs
Match System: Search by age, location, appearance, and more
Our Experts Say: “With its massive user base and advanced privacy features, Ashley Madison is the #1 site for discreet hookups, dates, or relationships…” Full Review »
Browse Free: View Photos Now
| User Base | Gender Ratio | Popularity (Visits/Mo.) |
Today’s Deal
|
| All Singles & Attached* |
71%*
29%*
|
65 Million* | Start Now for FREE |
Since launching in 2002, Ashley Madison has gained a reputation as a platform that helps married couples find discreet encounters. It offers an Affair Guarantee — which promises that if you don’t find a match within three months of signing up, you will get a refund. That’s one reason why Ashley Madison has attracted more than 80 million people to join the site to explore their naughty desires.
You can use Ashley Madison to find a partner for a hookup, a casual date, or a long-term affair. To find matches, just set your preferences, including age, online status, location, encounter type, appearance, and ethnicity. Once you set your parameters, the algorithm displays profiles that align with it. The biggest drawback to Ashley Madison is that it has an unbalanced gender ratio of 71% men to 29% women — who are allowed to join for free.
2. Match
Relationships: Friends, Dates, and Relationships
Match System: Browse by zip, age, appearance, more
Our Experts Say: “Match has facilitated the most dates and relationships of any dating site, and its large audience and high success rate make it our top review…” Full Review »
Browse Free: View Photos Now
| User Base | Gender Ratio | Popularity (Visits/Mo.) |
Today’s Deal
|
| All Singles* |
49%*
51%*
|
39.7 Million* | Try Match FREE |
Match was founded in 1995 and has been helping singles find dates for decades. Whether you’re looking for a serious relationship or a casual hookup, you can use Match for free from your preferred device. When you’re ready to access premium tools and features, you can sign up for a one-month, three-month, or 12-month subscription.
Match’s success in finding partners comes from its personality-driven algorithm, and the platform recommends a list of Daily Matches according to your preferences. People seem to enjoy Match’s non-swiping approach as the popular dating platform has more than 30 million members and 13.5 million monthly visitors. Match has fostered 517,000 relationships and 92,000 marriages, and many users share their stories to inspire others.
3. OkCupid
Launched in 2004, OkCupid was founded by a Harvard math major who wanted to quantify human relationships by asking a range of personal, funny, and unusual questions, including “Are you afraid of death?” OkCupid currently has more than 4,000 questions in its personality test, but you don’t need to answer all of them.
To get started, our dating experts recommend answering between 12 and 50 questions. Not all questions may be relevant to you, and you can always skip questions if you’d rather not publicize your answer.
The best thing about OkCupid is its pledge to remain a free dating service. If you’re short of money, this online dating platform is your alternative for connecting with new people. However, cheap prices can come with some trade-offs in the quality of matches. The most common complaints we hear about OkCupid are about fake users and matching with single people who are far away.
4. Facebook Dating
While Facebook Dating is a new player in the online dating scene, it’s already available in 20 countries, including the US, Mexico, Canada, and Brazil. You can only access the Facebook Dating app if you have a Facebook account.
Another good thing about Facebook Dating is that the platform ensures your privacy by operating outside of the general Facebook platform. That means your Facebook friends will not notice your activity in the dating app.
However, those benefits haven’t led to big numbers for Facebook Dating, and it falls short in online activity and popularity. Online dating is a numbers game, and Facebook Dating doesn’t have enough numbers to make it a go-to app for singles — yet.
Does Bumble Have a Free Trial?
Yes, Bumble has a free trial for 14 days. The trial gives you a chance to try the platform’s premium features for free. When the 14-day trial is over, Bumble will automatically charge your card for the subscription.
If you enjoy Bumble and want to move forward, you don’t have to do anything. But if you often forget to cancel subscriptions, setting a reminder in your Google Calendar or on your mobile device can help you avoid that frustration.
A Bumble Profile Could Be Worth a Try
Bumble is the dating app that puts women in charge. Its matchmaking system protects single women from being bombarded by unsolicited messages from men. Receiving dozens of “What’s up, cutie?” messages each day can quickly become annoying.
Straight single men also benefit from the Bumble approach because they receive messages only from women who want to connect with them.
If you love the Bumble approach, feel free to give it a try. You can start for free and upgrade whenever you want to try the premium features. Who knows? You may only need a free membership to connect with an interesting person on the Bumble app. That’s a gamble worth taking!
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