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Hinge dating app review: This dating app goes way beyond likes and swipes
Cully Wright/Hinge
Hinge is one of the most popular dating apps out there today. Advertised as “designed to be deleted,” Hinge aims to bring people together for serious dating experiences. With more than 20% of online dating users between the ages of 18 and 64 having used Hinge at least once between July of 2022 and June of 2023, Hinge is up there with other uber popular dating apps like Bumble in terms of popularity.
But does Hinge live up to its own hype when it comes to setting up serious relationships? And who’s even using this app, anyway? I signed up to get a feel for the average Hinge user experience. If you have questions about Hinge, read through my in-depth review below.
Our Hinge review at a glance
How does Hinge work?
Have you ever downloaded a mobile dating app or signed up for an account online through sites like the algorithm-based eHarmony, which first launched in 2000? If you have, you’re likely familiar with most of the mechanics of any modern day dating app.
Whether you’re on a website or an app on your phone, there are some universal features that come with the territory. You create a user profile, upload one or more pictures, fill out some details about what kind of connection you’re looking for, and start reviewing a virtual conga line of potential matches and other online dating users until you see someone you’re interested in.
Mobile dating apps like Hinge or Tinder, which is generally geared toward more casual dating, use a sort of “card” system: Potential matches pop up one at a time based on an algorithm with pictures and a brief bio, and then it’s up to you to swipe right or left — yay or nay — before moving on to the next user’s profile card.
Some apps tweak the formula. Hinge offers a more grounded experience that prioritizes serious relationships in a few key ways. When setting up your profile, you have access to a number of additional features that other dating apps lack, such as prompts and captions for photos, video and voice-based prompts, and unique conversation starters like custom polls.
Hinge
Another standout feature for Hinge users is how communication works. Instead of simply “liking” someone, which can feel impersonal, Hinge lets users like or comment on specific prompts or photos. This makes it easier to connect with someone earnestly over shared interests (or a really good pickup line).
Due to Hinge’s growing popularity, it’s also becoming increasingly easy for gay, lesbian, and nonbinary users to find like-minded or open-minded individuals. Since Hinge is more of a relationship-oriented app it can offer a refreshing alternative to more limited or casual apps for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
When you sign up for Hinge, you have a few options. Hinge is free to download and use, but there are also upgraded paid subscriptions that unlock even more features. If you want more than eight likes per day, Hinge+ offers unlimited likes, additional dating preferences, and the ability to sort users by things like location. The next and highest tier is HingeX, which gives you everything that comes with Hinge+ plus enhanced recommendations and “priority” likes that can help you stand out to other users.
Hinge+ costs $17 per week or $35 per month while HingeX costs $23 per week or $45 per month. Both subscriptions come with discounted prices of up to 75% or more if you pay for multiple months, however. Read more about the cost breakdown of each subscription below.
Our pros and cons
When I first downloaded Hinge, I went through the process of setting up a free account. I made use of every feature that’s available to free users and started swiping. After one week with a free account, I upgraded to HingeX for one week to see how world-changing the premium Hinge experience really is.
After a two-week trial run and a deep dive into Hinge as a dating app that tries to set itself apart from the competition as a hub for serious relationships, I can start this review with the pros and cons:
What I liked about Hinge:
- The ability to like or comment on specific photos or prompts with a free account. Many other dating apps restrict free users to simple likes with comments or opening lines locked behind a paywall.
- Dating preferences that let free users set deal breakers for things like maximum distance, age range, and religion — another feature that’s sometimes only available to paid users.
- An award-winning algorithm (Nobel-prize-winning Gale Shapley algorithm) is used to help users find potential matches.
- Hinge’s popularity and status as a relationship-oriented dating app makes this a great pick for anyone interested in something more long term, regardless of gender identity or sexual preference.
- Voice prompts, video prompts, and prompt polls give users plenty of room to express themselves.
- Hinge offers a range of dating preferences that make searching for the perfect match easy. This is especially true for Hinge+ and HingeX users, since they have even more preference options.
What I didn’t like about Hinge:
- Unless you pay for several months at a time, both premium subscriptions can be costly.
- Some features like weekly “roses” (“super likes” by another name) can feel a bit tacky.
- A number of potential matches are walled off as “standout profiles” and can only be reached with a rose, which can feel like a limiting factor for some users.
How much does Hinge cost?
So with different subscription models and discounted bundle prices, you’re likely looking for a straight answer to the question: how much does Hinge cost? While Hinge is free to use, here is the cost breakdown for anyone interested in accessing everything Hinge has to offer.
It’s worth noting that Hinge claims in its terms of use agreement that its pricing can vary based on a number of factors like occasional promotional rates and new features. All prices listed below are based on advertised prices at the time of publication.
Hinge+ prices and special features
- One week: $16.99
- One month: $34.99 (a 52% discount)
- Three months: $21.66 (a 70% discount)
- Six months: $16.99 per month (a 77% discount)
Hinge+ gives users some key upgrades including unlimited likes, expanded dating preferences (politics, education, family plans, etc.), and the ability to sort matches and incoming likes by who’s new or nearby. Hinge+ subscribers can also see everyone who likes them, which is a step up from free users, who can only see their most recent incoming like at any time.
HingeX prices and unlocked benefits
- One week: $22.99
- One month: $44.99 (a 54% discount)
- Three months: $29.99 (a 70% discount)
- Six months: $24.99 per month (a 75% discount)
In addition to everything that comes with Hinge+, HingeX users can enjoy even more features including enhanced match recommendations and priority likes that show up first for other users.
Is Hinge X worth it?
During my one week with a HingeX subscription, I could appreciate the added features that were unavailable when I first signed up for free. I personally never hit the daily limit for free likes, but eight is a small number to work with and may be frustrating for other users. The unlimited likes that came with a premium subscription, as well as the added preference filters, were a nice touch.
One of the biggest reasons to try out HingeX is the priority treatment that it rewards you when it comes to matching with other users. If a popular user gets multiple likes per day, your own like may go unseen at the bottom of the stack — unless you have a HingeX subscription. This puts your like at the top of their stack no matter what, which can improve your odds of getting a match.
Is that enough of a reason to sign up for HingeX? If you’re someone who’s serious about online dating, or you’re tired of getting nowhere fast with your free account, it absolutely can be. The biggest advantage to many for a premium Hinge account is access to unlimited daily likes, which you can get with Hinge+, so it really boils down to personal choice.
If you’re committed to paying for a multi-month HingeX subscription and Hinge+ just doesn’t cut it, then we recommend giving HingeX a try. But if you’re on the fence about those prices or paying for three to six months for a dating app that’s “designed to be deleted” anyway, the free model works just fine.
Who is Hinge for?
So who else is on Hinge? According to the app itself, Hinge is geared towards Gen Z users, with the average Hinge user aged at 25 years old. Millennials make up the second largest group. So if you’re looking for people between the ages of 18 and 27 or 28 and 43, Hinge can be a great app for meeting new people.
Hinge also has a growing LGBTQIA+ user base thanks to a number of inclusive features. A slew of new prompts and conversation starters were added to the app in 2022 that better center and highlight gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and trans users. Some of these newer icebreakers include:
- My favorite LGBTQIA+ book is…
- My chosen family is the best at…
- I wish I could tell the younger version of myself…
- Gender euphoria looks like…
In my experience with Hinge, I found these and many other prompts to be refreshing when compared to the cookie-cutter questions and prompts from other dating apps.
Hinge
Does Hinge get good reviews?
Customer reviews can be all over the place when it comes to dating apps, since every user’s experience is going to be different. Hinge currently has a low rating of 1.3 out of 5 stars on trustpilot, but many of those seem to be anecdotal. Otherwise, the biggest complaints I could find among frustrated users were related to poor or unresponsive customer service.
Other Hinge users praise the dating app for its effective matching algorithm, slew of interesting prompts, and matching system that goes beyond a simple, impersonal swipe for more meaningful connections.
While Hinge is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), it does currently hold a solid B rating.
Is Hinge better than Bumble?
Hinge is not the only dating app out there — far from it, actually. When there’s a sea of dating apps to compete with, how do you stand out? Here’s how Hinge compares to some of the biggest mobile dating apps on the scene today:
Hinge
- Bumble vs. Hinge: Bumble is one of the most popular dating apps available today. It has a larger user base, so you might find more nearby matches. Bumble also has a “women first” approach to matchmaking, where women and femmes send the first message, although it recently rolled out a new feature that lets anyone send the first message. Bumble is a great option for anyone interested in a serious relationship, but Hinge has a slight edge thanks to its impressive matchmaking algorithm and multitude of unique prompts.
- eHarmony vs. Hinge: eHarmony is a dating app for people who love to go into detail about themselves and what they’re looking for in a match. It includes an 80-question compatibility quiz that is used to find other suitable matches. eHarmony recently launched an update to expand inclusivity with new gender identities (agender, bigender, genderfluid, transgender, nonbinary, and more) and other features, but Hinge wins out with a bigger user base of gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and trans users.
- Tinder vs. Hinge: Tinder is another super popular dating app. Despite features like an exhaustive list of personal interests and prompts to help liven up accounts, Tinder still comes across as a casual dating app to many. It has its pros: Setting up an account is super easy and swiping on potential matches has become a core feature for many other dating apps. But if you’re looking for more authentic connections and serious relationships, Hinge is the app for you.
Our final verdict on the dating app that’s “designed to be deleted”
After spending a few weeks with the dating app, I can absolutely recommend signing up for a free account to start. Setup is quick and painless, and the various prompts can make talking about yourself pretty fun. Hinge offers a great experience for its free users, with the one downside being a daily limit of just eight likes.
A premium HingeX subscription can be worth it if you’re serious about online dating, but I only recommend it if you’re ready to commit to three or more months at a time (for that sweet, sweet discount). If you’re interested in Hinge but on the fence about a paid subscription, consider upgrading to Hinge+ for a week before committing one way or another.
At the end of the day, I found the hype behind Hinge is justified. The app’s award-winning algorithm and many conversation starters make for an inviting and rewarding experience for users of all gender identities and with a range of dating preferences.
Even though some features feel like they go against the app’s core mission of being an app you eventually delete — such as pricing models that reward long-term subscriptions or potential “standout” matches that require a rose to reach out to — I still highly recommend the dating app for people looking for a serious relationship.
An unmade bed
A library book 12 years overdue
The next day’s outfit
Notes to her future self
Click on the door to enter
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How do you make a portrait of a child who isn’t there? Photographer Lou Bopp found a way, but it wasn’t easy.
In early 2018, I was deplaning after an 18-hour flight when Steve Hartman called. He had an idea: to photograph the still-intact bedrooms of kids who had been killed in school shootings.
It’s a headful. And six years later, I still don’t have an “elevator pitch” for the project — but then, I don’t often talk about this project. It is by far the most difficult I have ever worked on.
When Steve, my friend of about 25 years, asked me if I would like to be involved, I said yes without hesitation — even though I didn’t think we would get any families to agree. There is no way that I would have said no to partnering with him on this.
Emotionally, I was not sure how I would get through it. Within a few months I was on my way to Parkland, Florida. Alone. I’m not sure that I realized that I would be on my own.
But here I was. An on-location commercial photographer who focuses on people and pets to create compelling, honest, textural and connective moments for large brands, per my LinkedIn professional profile, on a project where there is no one to take photos of — for the most brutal of reasons.
How do you make a portrait of a child who is not there?
In each of these children’s rooms — the most sacred of places for these families — there was the sense that the child had just been there, and was coming right back. It was as if they’d just left their room like that when they went to school in the morning and were returning in the afternoon.
I wanted to capture that essence.
Most kids’ bedrooms are their very own special places, and these were no different. I looked everywhere, without touching anything. I photographed inside trash cans, under beds, behind desks. Their personalities shone through in the smallest of details — hair ties on a doorknob, a toothpaste tube left uncapped, a ripped ticket for a school event — allowing me to uncover glimpses as to who they were.
But there was an emotional challenge in addition to that creative one. Over the course of more than six years, we visited with many families around the country. The parents I spoke with seemed grateful that I was there. But each time I received a call or text from Steve about a new family, my heart sank.
It meant another family had lost a child.
I find it unfathomable that children being killed at school is even an issue. It makes no sense. It’s impossible to process. The night prior to each one of the family visits, I didn’t sleep. And I knew I wouldn’t going into the project. It’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is nerves. And empathy. And sorrow. And fear.
In my notes from early on in the project, back in 2018, writing in seat 6H on the flight back from Nairobi, I reflected on the emotional task ahead.
“This is going to be one of the most difficult things ever, emotionally, for me, and not just work related. As I read my research documents, I get visibly emotional,” I wrote, noting my gratitude that the dark cabin prevented the other passengers from seeing me.
The prospect brought my own fears to the fore, both for myself — “I can’t help thinking about Rose,” my daughter, “and what if. I’ve lost sleep over envisioning the what-ifs well before Parkland” — and about and for meeting the families in the project: “When I read about April & Phillip and Lori’s plight, I somehow, for some reason put myself in their emotional position even though that is impossible, I have no idea, it’s beyond comprehension, I do not know what they feel. I do not know what I am going to say to them, I’m scared beyond belief. And alone.”
But just days later, I was photographing the first assignment for the project: Alyssa Alhadeff’s room. She was just 14 years old when she walked out of that room to head to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I was shaky meeting the family friend who greeted me at the house. Her daughter was Alyssa’s best friend, and a photo of the two girls was on the table.
According to my notes, “The room was a beautiful teenager’s messy room. My emotions were kept in check the way that they usually are; By hiding behind the camera. I removed my shoes before entering. My heart was pounding and it reverberated through my body and soul, I felt like I was in one of the most sacred and special places on Earth. I was so careful not to touch anything.”
I left feeling ready to explode in sadness and anger.
Later that day, I photographed Carmen Schentrup’s room. Her younger sister had survived the Parkland shooting, but 16-year-old Carmen was killed in her AP Psychology class. Meeting her parents, April and Phillip, was what I was most scared of.
“I feel so much pain and compassion for them and I don’t want to say the wrong thing, drop cliches etc.,” I wrote at the time. “I spoke to Steve for guidance. He said, just be you. That’s all I can do. Just be me. He was right, those three words helped carry me through this entire project. Just be me.”
April let me in, and I worked quickly, only meeting Phillip as I was leaving. “The conversation felt like we all three were just trying to hold it together. I cannot imagine what they are going through, my heart hurts for them. This was / is such a painful project, and reconciling it will be impossible.
“I think about how anything can happen at any time to any of us. Literally. You never know,” I wrote.
After only about 16 hours on the ground in Florida, I was done with the first portion. I felt the project was a must, but I also dreaded the next call from Steve about the next family. I didn’t know when that call would come — many years later, or the very next day, possibly never.
But last month, we — and the documentary crew that filmed us working — completed this project. While I haven’t seen it yet, I know Steve’s piece won’t be a typical Steve Hartman segment. How could it be? I know he struggled too, and we both have spent a lot of time processing this.
I remember one August evening, I was devastated as I left the home of one of the families. Within minutes, I passed an ice cream shop crowded with other families — seemingly carefree, full of joy and laughter. The juxtaposition, mere minutes apart, cracked my soul.
I hope some way, somehow, this project can facilitate change — the only possible positive outcome for this I could comprehend. After the news cycle ends, these families will still be living with an incomprehensible nightmare.
CBS News
Standing on the threshold of grief, documenting the bedrooms of kids killed in school shootings
I never wanted to be this kind of reporter, knocking on the door of someone who lost a child in a school shooting. And yet there I stood, knocking, nonetheless.
I found myself here, standing on the threshold of grief across the country, after years of pent-up frustration. By 2018, America’s school shooting epidemic had taken a toll on me. There were so many that the news coverage felt like a treadmill. It seemed to me the country had grown numb and lost its empathy for the victims and the families. I wanted to do something.
For help, I reached out to Lou Bopp, one of the best still photographers in the country. But he said he had never faced a challenge quite like this: “to take a portrait of a person who’s not there.”
On March 27, 2023, Chad and Jada Scruggs lost their daughter, Hallie, in the Covenant School shooting in Nashville. She was 9 years old, the youngest of four, and their only daughter.
Looking back at photos of Hallie, Chad recalled how she loved sports and had “more stitches than any of her brothers.”
“It was just a lot of fun having a daughter,” Jada said.
“We had a chance to have her for 9 and a half years, and that was far better than not having her at all,” Chad said.
But their goodbye isn’t quite complete. They’re still living with her bedroom.
Over the past six years, eight families from five school shootings invited us into these sacred spaces, allowing Americans to see what it’s like to live with an empty child’s bedroom.
We traveled to Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, including 9-year-old Jackie Cazares.
Jackie’s parents Javier and Gloria say people are always telling them that they can’t imagine what they’re going through. But they say we need to imagine, and that’s why they invited us in.
“It just makes everything more real for the public, for the world,” Gloria said. “Her room completely just speaks of who she was.”
In Jackie’s room, we saw the chocolate she saved for a day that never came, evidence of the dream vacation she never got to take, and the pajamas she never wore again.
It struck us how many of the rooms remained virtually untouched, years after the shooting.
Frank and Nancy Blackwell lost their 14-year-old son Dominic in the Saugus High School tragedy near Los Angeles. That was 2019, but inside his room, it felt like it was yesterday.
“We just decided to keep everything as it was from when he last went to school that day,” Frank said. “He didn’t prepare his room to be photographed. He didn’t put away his stuffed animals because he was worried about who might see it. He woke up, he got dressed, and he left to go to school. And he thought he was coming back. And we all expected him to come back.”
So many rooms wait for a child that will never return.
Charlotte Bacon was murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, six weeks after Halloween. Her room holds the last library book the 6-year-old checked out, now 12 years overdue.
Luke Hoyer, 15, was killed in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine’s Day in 2018. When we visited his home, his bed was just as he left it.
Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, was also killed in the Parkland shooting. The whirlwind that was her room had fallen still.
Carmen Schentrup was yet another Parkland victim. The watch she got for her 16th birthday still ticks, but the motivational sayings that filled her room resonate no more.
The decision to either keep a room as it was or pack it up and repurpose it tortures many parents.
Bryan and Cindy Muhlberger lost their 15-year-old daughter, Gracie, in the Saugus shooting. They told us they often talk about what to do with her room.
“Because when I do go in there, I feel her presence,” Cindy told us.
Bryan wondered, “And so when that time comes that the room is not there, does she go away?”
I didn’t realize what an albatross the rooms are for some families.
“I will just say I have a pretty confusing relationship with [Hallie’s] room now,” Chad said. It’s extremely painful, but there’s a lot of moments where you want to be sad — because the sadness is a part of connecting with her.”
Hallie’s room also brings them smiles, too, Chad and Jada told us as they showed us a kitty cat hoodie that Hallie wore all the time.
The rooms really are a rainbow of emotion, all at once tender as a lullaby and shocking as a crime scene. Clues gather dust, leading us past all the places these kids had been up until that very moment when everything stopped so suddenly that there wasn’t even time to close the lid on the toothpaste tube.
In the end, we took more than 10,000 photographs. These parents hope that at least one of these pictures will stick with you, that you will forever carry a piece of their pain and use that heartache to stem the tide of all these empty rooms.
Photographing the rooms of kids killed in school shootings
How do you make a portrait of a child who isn’t there? Photographer Lou Bopp found a way, but it wasn’t easy.
A clever wolf repeatedly snuck into a Minnesota ranch. Biologists with the Voyageurs Wolf Project figured out its MO.
Photographing the rooms of kids killed in school shootings
How do you make a portrait of a child who isn’t there? Photographer Lou Bopp found a way, but it wasn’t easy.