Let us start by giving you our subjective opinion on different types of dating apps. Be careful because this is our opinion, purely based on our combined personal experiences. Disclaimer: we are in no way, shape, or form affiliated with any of the dating companies listed here.
"Quality" Apps
Some apps like to focus on quality over quantity, which sounds great in theory but not in practice, not for dating apps, and not for Guillotine Dating. One of the core principles of Guillotine dating is to widen your dating poolas much as possible, in order to increase your chances of finding what you’re looking for. Quality is great, but in our case, quality comes from personally weeding out the ones who aren’t a good match for you, based on the conversations you have. Hence, what we need from an app is quantity/volume. We can’t let an app decide on the 5 people we get to swipe on this week (I’m exaggerating, but I hope you get the point). The League, Meetmindful, Coffee Meets Bagel are a handful of apps that limit your daily matches or swipes.
Niche Apps
Some apps purposefully attract a specific type of people, based on their interest. For example, Meetmindful is an app for spiritually minded people; there are also dating apps for farmers, millionaires, entrepreneurs, you name it. The idea of letting an app congregate like minded people for you is very attractive, but it just doesn’t work as well as you’d think. There is an off chance that you will meet the right person because they happen to also pick the same app as you; and for that reason, maybe you can sign up for a handful of these niche apps, but please don’t rely on them 100%. It’s best to also sign up for the more generic and popular apps.
Paid Apps
We would like to caution you against paid apps, unless you’re paying to support the industry or company. I would like to bust this myth: "people who are willing to afford to pay for a dating app are more serious."
This is true but also wrong. Those who are willing to pay are serious about their dating purpose, but it doesn’t mean they have the same dating purpose as you. Your perfect match could be a paid member of app X, but they could also be a free member of app Y. I know plenty of reasonable people who refuse to pay for a dating app, so willingness to pay doesn't mean much.
If you want to pay to support the industry or the company, I am 100% behind it, but don’t look down on free features and free apps. Recently, our friend Alfred was excited to share that they finally started on their online dating journey and paid for OkCupid!
"Oh no!" we responded "Bad idea!"
Paying for OkCupid is the worst thing you can do to your self esteem regarding online dating and here is why: when you pay, the app lets you see all of the people you don’t like, but that like you. I don’t know about you but when I see such list, all I can think of is “If these are the only people who like me, I will never ever find someone who matches my criteria.” The bottom line is that if you don’t like them, them liking you is irrelevant. Don’t do this to yourselves, it’s best to ignore that paid list and just focus on mutual likes and matches, this way you can focus on people you like that also like you back!
Please note: the last time we verified this and wrote this article was in January 2022, their payment structure might have changed by now.
End of venting
There you have our venting on dating apps. We also have a thing against apps with bad UI’s but if that doesn’t bother you, we will leave it alone. Lol! We can, however, offer you a list of our favorite dating apps. As a reminder, we are not affiliated with any of these companies, we just want to share the tools we’ve used on our dating journey. So here’s the list:
- Happn: We love the concept, it matches people based on proximity and path crossing. It’s fun because you can match with people on a highway, at a party, or in your neighborhood.
- OkCupid: Fun fact: Steven and Alice met on OkCupid as free users. This app also has a search feature! So you can search for keywords you care about (if any). Also, we absolutely love the questions on this app because it uses the answers to calculate your compatibility percentage. This number is then displayed on each profile as you swipe. We recommend only answering questions that are important to you. This way, as you swipe or match with people, you can quickly check their answers against yours to find out if they fit your dating profile.
- Hinge: This one is perfect if you’re light hearted. This app has a beautiful UI and everyone’s profile looks clean and amazing. Each profile comes with 3 conversation prompts you can respond to. People on there tend to be less intense and more casual. Based on your dating purpose, this might be just what you need.
- Tinder: Who hasn’t heard about tinder?
- Bumble: This app stands out because women have to send the first message. We have a friend who met his wife on Bumble!
Don't forget to also arm yourself with the right questions to ask while dating.
