The dating app industry grew out of the dating websites that were prominent in the early 2010s, with Match, Plenty of Fish and Zoosk leading the way with similarly designed services for mobile. This was flipped on its head with the introduction of Tinder, and the swipe left or right feature.
What Tinder and other mobile-first dating platforms realised is mobile vastly reduced the amount of info needed to make a match, while it also increased the amount of info and the quality of it available at a glance. Mobiles offered users ways to upload photos that better represented them, while GPS enhanced location-based matching.
Since Tinder became the lead dating app on the market in 2015, several challengers have either copied the app’s features or developed against it. Those developing against it include Bumble’s feature of letting women message first, and Hinge having prompts that connect daters instead of simply liking photos.
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Download nowThere are several critical KPIs that need to be tracked in the dating app industry. Users can be very fickle, deleting an app after a few hours and even giving up on subscriptions at a high rate.
So keeping a user engaged and paying can be very rewarding for dating apps, as the subscription cost tends to be much higher than the app store average. The way these apps are structured also makes moving a user onto a subscription quite a simple process, so having them use it for longer can be rewarding later on.
We have collected benchmarks on the dating app industry. Read on below to find out more.
Key Dating App Benchmarks
- The retention rate for dating apps was 3.3% in 2024, an increase on the previous year
- Less than five percent of monthly subs to dating apps are still active 12 months later
- The conversion rate for dating apps was 20% on Google Play and 18.2% on iOS
- The activation rate for dating apps was 25% on day one and 7% by day 30
- Renewals for weekly and monthly subs are around the same, at 69% for the second renewal and 77% for the third
- Active users spent 80 minutes per day on dating apps in 2024
Dating App Report 2025
Want to learn more about the dating app industry? In our Dating App report, we cover financials, usage, downloads, and demographics by app and industry, alongside market share, user acquisition, engagement, and benchmarks.
Dating App Retention Rate
The average retention rate for dating apps was 3.3% last year, an improvement on 2023 but still behind the 4.1% the category was clocking in 2021.
Dating app retention rate 2020 to 2024 (%)
Dating App Subscription Retention Rate
Subscribers to dating apps are extremely flimsy, with many reasons to cancel a subscription. Over 95% of those on a monthly subscription are inactive 12 months later, and even on an annual subscription over three-quarters of users are inactive.
Dating app sub retention rate by duration 2024 (%)
Dating App Conversion Rate
The conversion rate for dating apps, which is views on app listing to downloads, is also lower than the average. Install rate, which is impressions to downloads, was at 1.55% in 2024.
Dating app conversion rate by platform 2024 (%)
Dating App Activation Rate
The activation rate, which is the percentage of users that complete various onboarding processes, drops to 7% by day 30 on dating apps.
Dating app activation rate 2024 (%)
Dating App Renewal Rate
After the first renewal, weekly and monthly renewal rates are remarkably similar. Annual is a bit further behind, at 34% for first renewal to 64% for third.
Dating app renewal rate by duration 2024 (%)
Dating App Daily Usage
Daily usage of dating apps amongst active users was 80 minutes per day. This has been in decline since 2021.
