How to Create a Dating App: Features, Monetizing and Useful Tips

Dating apps will always be popular among users and can provide good profits. Tinder is a good example in this respect — its popularity has not declined for many years running.

It may seem that the dating market is overcrowded, and there is no place for newbies here. That is actually not the case, as much depends on what market you are looking to — the general one or some specific segment of the target audience. Currently, we can call niche projects the most promising ones. Users long for new emotions, and they want to use apps that are interesting specifically to them.

This subject promises good prospects for business and startups. Some figures confirming this idea are as follows:

• 60% of people aged 18 to 30 used a dating website or app at least once;
• almost 80% of users for this type of apps are millennials;
• the dating app market is estimated at about $3 billion;
• the global dating market is growing at 7 to 9% annually;
• about half of all Internet users are not married, meaning they belong to a potential target audience.

In this article, we will consider some important peculiarities of mobile dating app development. We hope it will come in handy for you in case you decide to create a similar product.

What Features a Dating App Should Include

The list of available features can be very large, but it is always important to start with the most necessary ones. This approach (creating an MVP) will allow you to start faster and get feedback from real users. Based on this principle, we can highlight the following functions, which we can call basic for a product in such a niche.

• The registration/authorization mechanism. This feature can be implemented either through common email or using Facebook, as well as any other social network. Do not forget to take care of security measures, as it is one of the most serious problems nowadays. Your users should know that their personal data is fully protected.
• User profile. It should contain a user photo and personal data. Users can provide it by themselves when they fill out their profile, or the necessary data can be collected based on social media (Facebook authorization). It goes without saying that users have to be able to edit their profile or to delete it.
• Messaging. You can implement this function in various ways. Chats should be available for any user or just for certain individual users. You can also set the expiration period or provide users with the possibility to communicate without any restrictions.
• Search for other users. Elaborate a convenient search routine to allow users to look for other people. Users should be able to customize various search criteria (including age, gender, and interests), based on which, they can find the most suitable partner.
• Geolocation. This feature allows searching for partners, depending on their location, as well as on new user appearance in the location radius specified.
• Push notifications. They will provide users with quickly updated data, for example, about a new message from a friend. You can allow users to customize push notification categories they want to get, for example, messages in the internal chat and responses to an application form.
• Admin panel. A functional admin panel makes it easy to manage all app users and features.
• The recommendation algorithm. It is not a necessary option, but if you manage to implement it well, it can become a real killer feature. The app can show recommendations based on personal qualities, similar interests, and behavioral patterns.

[by Surja Sen Das Raj, Dribble]

How to Monetize a Dating App

The possibilities to monetize an app in this area are divided into four main categories: paid subscription, freemium, advertising, and premium accounts.

• Paid subscription. The fee can be regular, for example, paid every month, or a one-time subscription. Some companies offer discounts if users pay a one-time fee for a longer period. One-time fees allowing customers to use the service with no time restrictions are less common.
• Freemium. This approach allows using basic functions for free and additional ones for a certain fee. The main objectives of using the freemium model are to spread the product and increase user loyalty. There are many schemes for monetizing dating apps within this business model: starting from paid virtual gifts to other users and finishing with partner search radius expansion.
• Advertising. An app or website owner shows ads to users and earns money on clicks, views, or transactions (affiliate programs).
• Premium model. Sometimes, the basic service functions are accessible to users only after they join the club. The Tinder app is an example of the paid account monetization model. For instance, a user has swiped someone they like to the left (you swipe the account you like to the right in this app). Only users who are Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold subscribers can fix the error.

Some developers mix several of the above-mentioned models which can be combined at different stages of user-app interaction.

Some Tips to Help You Create a Successful Product in This Niche

Functionality is important, but that is not the only thing that makes the product successful. Here are a few more tips that will increase your chances of success if you adhere to them.

1. Simplify. Even when users intend to find a partner for a serious relationship, they, for the most part, are looking for a dating app with a simple, user-friendly, and convenient interface.
2. Resort to gamification. Nowadays, gaming and entertainment components in a dating app or website are important for users. The most obvious example in this regard is Tinder or Badoo with their left-and-right swiping techniques.
3. Be different and win your niche. Niche dating services today are rapidly conquering the market, and if the developers do not offer their users something unusual or unique, the users leave.
4. Pay attention to marketing. Even if a market has little competition, it will be very difficult for a new app to “skyrocket” without sufficient marketing effort, leave alone a highly competitive niche.

Mobile dating app development is a promising market tending to be always relevant. However, although the competition is high here, players who use unconventional approaches or have managed to find a peculiar segment of the target audience will always have a room here.

The Lvivity team has had plenty of experience developing successful mobile products, and if you desire to make such a project a reality, you can always use our services.