Offering VIP plans is usually how dating apps make money after becoming recognizable on the market
The paid membership promises that the service will get revenue from every signed-up userpared to freemium apps, it gives lower user base growth, yet the audience is ‘more serious about dating.
VIP Membership
You can combine both freemium or paid subscription models with a VIP membership. For a higher fee, a user can purchase a VIP status. Usually, VIP features have two directions:
- Boosting a user profile with various promotion tools
- Extending the system functionality with extra capabilities
Sometimes VIP plans imply more precise match generation, additional analytics upon the users activity, more options for privacy and anonymity. It all depends on the nature of the app. For instance, Tinder has released its VIP plans one by one since 2015. Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold, Tinder Platinum appeared in 2015, 2017, and 2020, respectively. It also helps product owners capitalize on technological updates and newly developed features, offering them at an additional price.
Building a well-thought revenue model can be challenging, as it requires in-depth research and business analysis. KeyUA in finding the most suitable monetization approach based on your dating app idea.
Revenue Channels Beyond Subscriptions
Subscriptions are not the only monetization way for a dating app product. Multiple additional revenue sources help monetize even free users. Here are the most popular approaches used today.
Advertising
Online dating users are a target audience for multiple industries. Therefore, a dating app is a great ad space for numerous companies to promote their product and services. For example, restaurants, flower delivery services, jewelry stores, travel agencies, and many others benefit from high ad conversions from dating apps.
Dating apps earn money on ad views, clicks, or transactions depending on the offered ad models. There can be different types of advertisements, including banner ads, texts, context ads, video ads, surveys, etc. Most applications give users ad-free access on premium subscriptions, making ads visible only among free users.
Affiliate Marketing
It is similar to standard display advertising. As a dating app or website owner, you partner with affiliate networks instead of a specific product or service company. As an affiliate marketer, you need to create a compelling dating platform and attract a solid, consistent user base to sell ads. After this, you can join various affiliate networks to show their ads on your spaces. Basically, you earn from moving your app traffic to advertised websites or apps through the affiliate network.
In-App Purchases
You can provide some extra-paid options for users. Let them buy smileys, advanced formatting options for text messages, the ability to place gifs instead datingranking.net/local-hookup/new-orleans/ of plain images, etc. Many dating apps give the ability to buy some premium options for one-time use. For example, Bumble lets free members buy an option to extend a match for 24 hours once a day, while Bumble Boost subscribers can extend the match multiple times.
Virtual Gifting
People like sending gifts to encourage their matches and express their feelings. You can charge for sending greeting cards, virtual flowers, candies, gift cards, and other virtual presents. This option is comparatively easy and cheap to implement while being a stable revenue generator within a dating app.
Offline Promotion
While it is not the best option now due to the pandemic, offline dating events could generate more earnings in the future. Arranging a party for app users is excellent for promoting your brand among target customers and increasing interest in your dating product. For example, the Tinder team used to arrange student parties in colleges and universities. Students had to install the application and perform other actions like finding a promo code to enter a party. Tinder increased its user base from 5k to 15k after a series of such parties at the very beginning. And it had a long-term effect, as word of mouth is highly effective in attracting more customers.