Tinder has been downloaded more than 500 million times from Google Play alone, according to its UK store listing. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish among others, counted 13.25 million paying users across its entire portfolio in the second quarter of 2026, down 6% on a year earlier, according to its Q2 results filed with the SEC.
Downloads are not users, but the gap is telling: most people who install a dating app never become subscribers. The apps know it, which is why the real question is not whether a dating app is free (nearly all of them are) but where exactly the free version runs out.
This guide answers that for nine apps whose free tiers we consider good enough to date on. For the full field, paid and free, see our main best dating apps ranking.
Best free dating apps at a glance: our quick picks
- Best free app overall: Hinge. Every like can carry a comment, and free members can match and message without limit.
- Completely free, no paywall: Facebook Dating. Meta says there is nothing to pay for.
- Biggest free pool: Tinder. Half a billion Google Play downloads and counting.
- Best free safety tools: Bumble. Photo and ID verification, explicit-image blurring and scam detection, at no cost.
- Best free option for queer men: Grindr. Chat and photo sharing are free; you pay for fewer ads and more profiles.
- Best free option for queer women: HER. Core features, communities included, are free “forever”, the company says.
Free dating apps compared: limits, scores and paid upgrades
Ratings below are from Google Play in the UK, checked on 19 October 2026, so that every app is measured on the same store. Prices are the lowest relevant in-app purchase on the UK App Store on the same date; Apple does not say which duration each price covers, so treat them as starting points rather than a menu.
| App | Best for | Our score | Store rating (Google Play UK, 19 Oct 2026) | Free version | Paid from (UK) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hinge | Conversation-led dating | 9.3 | 3.7 (485k reviews) | Yes, daily like limit | £12.99 (Hinge+) |
| Bumble | Safety tools | 9.0 | 3.8 (1.58m reviews) | Yes | £2.49 (Boost) |
| Tinder | Biggest pool | 8.8 | 3.9 (9.19m reviews) | Yes, daily like limit | £3.99 (Plus) |
| OkCupid | Values-led matching | 8.4 | 3.3 (688k reviews) | Yes, daily like limit | £5.99 (Premium) |
| Grindr | Queer men nearby | 8.2 | 4.1 (1.68m reviews) | Yes, with ads | £9.99 (XTRA) |
| HER | Sapphic dating | 8.1 | 3.3 (74.5k reviews) | Yes, with ads | £13.99 (Premium) |
| Plenty of Fish | Free messaging | 7.9 | 3.3 (1.68m reviews) | Yes, with ads | £19.99 a week |
| Facebook Dating | No paywall | 7.6 | Part of the Facebook app | Entirely free | No paid tier |
| Badoo | Chat before matching | 7.4 | 3.8 (6.65m reviews) | Yes | £4.49 (Premium) |
Hinge: the best free dating app for actual conversations
Hinge’s free version is the one we would hand to a friend who refuses to pay for dating. According to the Hinge help centre, free members can match and message, send “a select number of likes per day”, get one Undo Skip a week and receive one free Rose a week, which does not roll over. Crucially, every like can be attached to a specific photo or Prompt answer, with a comment. That design does more for match quality than any paid feature.
The squeeze is deliberate and easy to spot. Free members “can only see one incoming like at a time”, so if a dozen people have liked you, you meet them one by one. Hinge+ removes that bottleneck, along with the daily like cap, and adds filters for height, education and politics. HingeX layers on Priority Likes and an always-on boost.
Hinge does not publish a daily like number, and in the UK its App Store listing showed Hinge+ items at £12.99 and £14.99 on 19 October 2026. Its owner reported 13% growth in global monthly users in the second quarter of 2026, and revenue up 22%, in the same Match Group filing. On Google Play in the UK it holds 3.7 from 485,000 reviews.
What’s free: matching, unlimited messaging, a daily allowance of commented likes, one Rose a week. What’s paywalled: seeing all your likes at once, unlimited likes, detailed filters. More in our Hinge review.
Bumble without Premium: free matching and serious safety tools
Bumble’s help centre insists the app “works great even without” paid features, and the evidence supports it. Free members can match and message, and in August 2026 Bumble dropped the rule that women had to message first, so either person can now open the conversation. Matches now get 72 hours to reply rather than the old 24, according to the company’s announcement.
What makes Bumble’s free tier stand out is that its safety features are not upsold. Its safety page lists photo verification, ID verification, in-app voice and video calls, Snooze mode, a Private Detector that blurs potentially explicit images, and a Deception Detector that flags likely scams. All are available without a subscription.
The paywall begins with likes. The first perk listed for Bumble Boost, the entry tier, is unlimited likes, alongside a weekly Spotlight and five SuperSwipes, according to Bumble’s paid features guide. Premium adds the list of people who already like you, advanced filters, Incognito and Travel Mode. On the UK App Store, Boost items ran from £2.49 to £10.99 and Premium from £13.99 to £16.99 on 19 October 2026.
Bumble is rated 3.8 from 1.58 million reviews on Google Play in the UK. Paying users fell 16.9% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, according to Bumble Inc.’s results, which is one more reason to start free. See our Bumble review.
Tinder for free: the biggest pool, with likes rationed
Nobody needs to pay to use Tinder. You can swipe, match and message for nothing; the cost of the free version is that you meet the limit on likes sooner than you might like, and you see adverts. Tinder’s help centre describes Tinder Plus as offering “unlimited daily Likes”, which tells you the free allowance is capped, though the company does not publish the number.
What you get in return is scale. Tinder’s Google Play listing in the UK shows more than 500 million downloads and a 3.9 rating from 9.19 million reviews. Free profiles can carry Relationship Goals, and since March 2026 every new sign-up in the UK has had to complete a Face Check video selfie, which compares your face with your photos, Tech Times reported.
The upgrade ladder is the most familiar in the business. Plus adds unlimited likes, Rewinds, Passport, no adverts and Incognito. Gold adds weekly Super Likes, a monthly Boost and, most usefully, a view of who has already liked you. Platinum prioritises your likes. On the UK App Store on 19 October 2026, Tinder Plus was listed at £3.99 and Gold items from £7.49 to £14.99, without durations stated.
Our Tinder review covers the 2026 changes in detail.
OkCupid’s free tier: unlimited messaging once you match
OkCupid is blunt about it. “OkCupid is completely free to use,” says its paid features overview. Free members can send and receive Likes and Intros, view matches and, once matched, “message back and forth without limit”. They also get one free SuperLike a week, which can carry a message.
The real free feature is the questionnaire. OkCupid’s help centre says it holds about 500 match questions, and every answer feeds the match percentage shown on profiles. A patient free user who answers widely gets the same compatibility maths as a paying one.
The limits are a daily cap on Likes and, more irritatingly, no view of who has already liked you. That window, the Interest tab, belongs to Premium, which also lets you read people’s answers to questions you have not answered yourself and adds three SuperLikes a week. Premium Plus goes further with Priority Likes, read receipts and 15 weekly SuperLikes. On the UK App Store, OkCupid Premium items ranged from £5.99 to £44.99 on 19 October 2026.
OkCupid holds 3.3 from 688,000 reviews on Google Play in the UK. It suits people who would rather be judged on their opinions than their cheekbones. Read our OkCupid review.
Grindr free: chat and photo sharing, paid for by adverts
Grindr is one of the most generous free apps in this guide, provided you can tolerate advertising. Its Q2 2026 shareholder letter cites 15 million average monthly active users and 1.4 million average paying users, which means the large majority use it without a subscription.
The free toolkit, as set out on its UK App Store listing, covers seeing people around you, chatting, sharing private photos and albums, interest tags, search filters, favourites, blocking and reporting. There is no matching step: you see a grid sorted by distance and message whoever you like.
What you lose is breadth and calm. The free grid is capped and comes with third-party ads. XTRA removes those ads, shows up to 600 profiles and adds more detailed filters; Unlimited adds incognito browsing, the full Viewed Me list and the ability to unsend messages and photos. On the UK App Store, XTRA was listed from £9.99 and Unlimited from £24.99 on 19 October 2026.
UK users must now pass an age check, by video selfie or video selfie plus photo ID, under the Online Safety Act. Grindr scores 4.1 from 1.68 million reviews on Google Play in the UK, the best rating in this guide. Our Grindr review covers its privacy record too.
HER: free sapphic dating, with communities included
HER’s homepage promises that core features “will remain free. Like, forever.” According to weareher.com, the free version covers viewing profiles, chatting, adding friends, viewing events and joining communities, of which it claims more than 35. On a smaller app, that gives you a reason to open it when nobody new is nearby.
The company describes itself as the world’s largest dating app for lesbian, bisexual and queer women, and claims more than 15 million members, a company figure we cannot verify independently. It has belonged to Match Group since May 2025.
HER Premium, according to the homepage, adds an ad-free experience, Incognito, rewinds, unlimited swipes, a filter by sexuality, real-time online status and a view of who has liked or viewed you. In a smaller pool, that last feature is arguably worth more than on a mass-market app. On the UK App Store, HER Premium was listed at £13.99 on 19 October 2026.
HER has 3.3 from 74,500 reviews on Google Play in the UK, noticeably cooler than its iPhone reception. Our HER review has the full picture.
Plenty of Fish: free messaging on a veteran app
Plenty of Fish is one of the elder statesmen of the business, and it still lets free members do the essential things. Its membership page lists free search filters (including gender, location, age, distance and religion), liking in Meet Me, and seeing and messaging your Mutual Matches. You can also send First Contacts to people you have not matched with, as long as you have a profile photo, until your allowance for the day runs out.
The paywall is a three-step ladder. POF Plus adds extended profile details such as whether someone has or wants children, unlimited likes, early access to new members, up to 16 photos and no adverts. POF Premium adds a single view of everyone who likes you and read receipts. POF Prestige adds unlimited First Contacts, priority likes and messages that are seen first.
Upgrading is not cheap. The UK App Store listed a one-week subscription at £19.99 and a one-month subscription at £29.99 on 19 October 2026. The good news is that POF’s safety tools are free, including Face Check, a video selfie that the Face Check FAQ says checks for liveness and compares your face with other accounts to catch impersonation.
POF has passed 50 million Google Play downloads and holds 3.3 from 1.68 million reviews there. In Britain, Ofcom counted 0.4 million visitors in May 2025. Our Plenty of Fish review goes deeper.
Facebook Dating: the big dating service with no paywall at all
Every other app here has a subscription waiting. Facebook Dating does not. Meta describes it as “a free dating experience within the Facebook app” and says users will not have to pay for product features, according to its September 2025 announcement.
It arrived in the UK and 31 other European markets in October 2020, Engadget reported. You create a separate dating profile inside the Facebook app; your profile and matches stay out of News Feed, and friends are not suggested unless you have both added each other to Secret Crush, a list of up to nine Facebook friends or Instagram followers you fancy. If they add you too, you match. If not, they never know.
Meta’s newer features are rolling out unevenly. A chat-based dating assistant that refines searches and suggests matches is arriving gradually in the US and Canada, and Meet Cute pairs you with a weekly surprise match that you can opt out of. Meta says hundreds of thousands of 18 to 29-year-olds in the US and Canada create profiles every month, and that young-adult matches were up 10% year on year.
Why only 7.6? Meta publishes no UK user numbers, says far less in public about verification than Bumble or Hinge, keeps its newest matching tools to North America, and requires a Facebook account. For value, though, nothing else comes close.
Badoo: free chat before you match
Badoo, owned by Bumble Inc., takes a looser approach than most. Its homepage invites you to “chat before you match”, and its UK Google Play listing promises free chat with singles nearby through features such as Encounters and People Nearby. The company says it has been bringing people together since 2006.
It is big. Badoo has passed 100 million Google Play downloads and has 3.8 from 6.65 million reviews there; on the UK App Store it fares better, at 4.5 from about 40,000 ratings. Ofcom counted 0.5 million UK visitors in May 2025, ahead of Plenty of Fish.
Badoo Premium, according to its UK App Store listing, adds a view of who has liked you, unlimited advanced filters, unlimited likes, Invisible Mode, the ability to undo a left swipe and having your messages read first. Badoo says the price “varies by country”. On the UK store, Premium items were listed at £4.49 and £6.99, with seven days at £9.99, and credits sold separately.
The score reflects what Badoo does not tell you. Its homepage speaks of technology to combat fake and scam accounts but sets out less about verification than its sister app Bumble. Bumble Inc.’s Badoo and other paying users fell 15.4% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, to about 1.08 million.
How we ranked these no-cost dating apps
For this list we scored each app with our usual weights (match quality 35%, features 25%, safety and verification 25%, value 15%), then asked one extra question: can you realistically meet someone without paying? Apps whose free versions block messaging, or show only blurred profiles, did not make the cut. The ten apps we have fully reviewed keep the scores they hold across the site. Facebook Dating and Badoo were scored on the same criteria from the verified information above. Our How we review page explains the method in full.
How to date well on a free app
Free tiers ration attention, so spend it carefully. A few practical points, drawn from how these apps say their systems work:
- Use your likes as if they cost money. Hinge, Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid all cap free likes. A commented like on Hinge or an Intro on OkCupid does more work than ten idle swipes.
- Be active little and often. Plenty of Fish says recent activity boosts how often you are shown, and that subscriptions and boosts help profiles stand out. Regular short sessions are the free member’s counterweight.
- Verify your photos. Selfie verification is free on Bumble, Hinge, Tinder and Plenty of Fish, and a verified badge gives a stranger a reason to trust you.
- If you do pay, pay briefly. Buy the shortest plan, note the renewal date and cancel through the store you paid with.
Fatigue is real, too: our research on dating app fatigue tracks why so many people are using these apps less.
Staying safe on free dating apps
Paying for an app does not make it safer, and the best safety tools on this list are free. Use in-app video calls before meeting, keep conversations on the app until you trust someone, and treat any request for money, cryptocurrency or gift cards as a red flag.
Romance fraud is not a small problem. Victims in the UK lost more than £102 million last year across 10,784 reports, a 29% rise on 2024, according to City of London Police. The force advises being wary of anyone who professes strong feelings quickly or keeps avoiding a live video call.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, report fraud to Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud on 4 December 2025, at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040. In Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101. If you have already sent money, contact your bank immediately. Our romance scam statistics page lists reporting routes in other countries.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a completely free dating app?
Facebook Dating is the main one. Meta says it is free and that there are no paid features to buy. Every other app in this guide has a working free tier but sells upgrades.
Can you message for free on Hinge, Bumble and Tinder?
Yes. All three let free members match and message without paying. The limits fall on how many likes you can send each day and whether you can see who has already liked you.
Which free dating app has the most users?
Tinder has the largest download count, with more than 500 million on Google Play. In the UK, Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 report found Tinder and Hinge level at 1.5 million visitors each in May 2025.
What is the best free dating app for LGBTQ+ people?
Grindr for gay, bi, trans and queer men, and HER for lesbian, bi and queer women and non-binary people. OkCupid’s free tier also offers 22 gender and 20 orientation options.
Is it worth paying for a dating app?
Sometimes, briefly. Seeing who already likes you is the most useful paid feature on most apps. Start free, and if you upgrade, choose a short plan and set a reminder to cancel.