High-quality profiles lead to high-quality matches and chats, which lead to high-quality relationships
Hinge profiles also turn browsing into a more active experience. You don’t just like a profile. You like a specific thing about a profile. Maybe it’s a picture. Maybe it’s an answer to a question. You’re then encouraged to write a little comment to send alongside that like, hopefully something more personal than just a boring “hey” you’d see elsewhere. If your pick likes you back, you then start messaging. Paid users can already see who likes them, and they can craft that first response accordingly. By giving your potential date a more detailed clue about why you like them, you’re more likely to have a better conversation out of the gate, improving your odds for a stronger, more lasting connection. You love to see it.
Arguably the one downside to this more thoughtful method is that Hinge, in general, requires a slower pace than its mobile rivals. You can instantly say no, but when saying yes, you’re forced to at least consider sending a comment before moving on. There’s no fast, mindless, shallow swiping. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s good or bad. I won’t judge.
Premium Extras
Maybe Hinge’s more methodical pace is there to keep free users from noticing the limitations placed on free xSocial accounts. The free experience isn’t as ungenerous as that of, say, eharmony, which blurs photos until you pay up. However, with maybe only a dozen free likes a day, you’ll run up against a wall much faster compared with Tinder, which give you more than 100 likes per day, depending on your situation.
If you want to use Hinge seriously, you need to be a paid Preferred Member. Subscriptions start at $ for one month, $ for three months, and $ for six months. Along with unlimited likes, with a paid subscription you can see everyone who likes you. Free users only see likes if they’re mutual. You also get advanced preference options to filter matches based on education, family plans, politics, and vices.
Social Distancing With Hinge
We’re all much more reluctant to leave our homes following the darkest days of the COVID-19 epidemic, and dating apps have been forced to respond. The responses have been different depending on the app, even for apps owned by the same company. When chatting in Hinge, you can use the “Dating From Home” menu to secretly tell the app you’re up for a video chat with your match. Thanks to a recent update, you can now start video calls within the Hinge app itself, instead of using another video conferencing service. Hinge displays onscreen prompts (icebreakers, conversation starters) to help keep the flow going. You can even create audio prompts and notes by recording your voice.
For more apps with video chat, check out Hinge’s siblings Tinder, Match, and Plenty of Fish, as well as competing apps Bumble, Clover, and eharmony. Facebook Dating doesn’t have built-in video chat, but Facebook users can use Messenger or Tuned, an experimental app made for quarantined couples.
Open the Door
Hinge is a dating app that’s easy to recommend. The “designed to be deleted” marketing speaks to a larger, savvy, youthful influencer vibe that’s also present in its beautiful, excellent, in-depth profiles. It can really could help you find The One on your phone. That said, Hinge’s free accounts, and its overall slower pace, combine to keep Match and Tinder as our Editors’ Choice picks for dating apps. Still, Hinge is a lovely alternative if you’ve burned out on those services and are looking for something vibrant and new.
Hinge profiles have a variety and stellar sense of presentation that make them appealing to browse. The classy, mostly monochrome design is dense with information, yet stays readable and not too cluttered. As you go seamlessly from personal summaries to photos paired with prompts to videos to answers for personality questions, you can feel the people on the other end taking advantage of these tools to truly express themselves. Feeling like you’re getting to know the real person online before meeting them is one of the best tricks a dating app can hope to pull off.