Wondering how to create a dating app that stands out in 2025? You’re not alone. With over 441 million people worldwide using dating apps and the market expected to surpass $9.2 billion in revenue this year (Statista, 2025), the opportunity is massive, but so is the competition.
Whether you’re targeting a niche community or aiming for a mainstream platform, the key lies in blending user-centric features, smart AI matchmaking, and data privacy from the start.
Dating app development today isn’t just about swipes and likes. It’s about designing a space where people feel safe, seen, and genuinely connected. From real-time chat to video bios and gamified onboarding, modern users expect more.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the core steps of how to create a dating app, must-have features, dating app development cost, and latest trends to help you build a successful, scalable dating app that people love using.
Let’s dive into how to create a dating app like Tinder so you can take inspiration to plan the features of your dating app.
Is It Worth Building a Dating App Today?
Absolutely. If you’re exploring how to create a dating app in 2025, now is the perfect time. According to Statista, the global online dating services market is expected to reach $8.29 billion in 2025, with the US accounting for nearly $2.6 billion of that revenue.
With mainstream apps like Tinder facing backlash for prioritizing profits over genuine user experience, there’s a golden opportunity for dating coaches, startup founders, and niche communities to offer something better.
All you need is a dating app monetization strategy that aligns with user needs, like freemium models or value-added subscriptions, and a unique proposition that genuinely stands out. The market is growing fast, and there’s room for thoughtful apps built with trust, transparency, and real connection in mind.
A Comprehensive Guide on How to Create a Dating App
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to create a dating app:
- Conduct competitive research
- Plan features and monetization
- Choose tech stack
- Build an MVP
- Create wireframes and a prototype
- Development
- Testing and deployment
Conduct Competitive Research
Before entering into dating app development, you need to research user needs, features, and the dating app development cost. With hundreds of dating apps out there, understanding this highly saturated market helps you plan how to make a dating app that matches people’s preferences.
Plan Features & Monetization
Every dating app has some distinctive features that separate it from the pack. For instance, Tinder has this geofencing feature that allows users to set up a different location and match people in that area. On the other hand, Bumble has this unique feature where only women can initiate a conversation and send a match request.
You have to understand that simply replicating the business model of best-performing dating apps and offering a slightly lower price for your services won’t work today. Create a dating site with a unique selling proposition that intrigues users to switch to your dating platform.
Choose Tech Stack
The tech stack you will use to create a dating site depends on your target market. For instance, let’s say you want to make an app like Tinder for audiences in California, New York, Houston, Chicago, Miami, and Austin.
The tech stack depends mainly on whether you’re building a web3 dating app development solution, a traditional mobile app, or a hybrid approach. About 79% of adults aged 18–34, covering Gen Z and young millennials, use iPhones in 2025. Thus, it’s better to enter the market with a native iOS dating app and later build the Android version depending on the need.
There’s another possibility where you could choose cross-platform to build iOS and develop Android apps from a single platform. However, this approach is not ideal for creating a dating app due to features like geofencing, GPS tracking, etc. Moreover, if you’re considering web3 dating app development, you also need to factor in blockchain integrations and user wallet security.
Build an MVP
A Mobile app requires substantial capital investment, especially for dating and e-commerce apps. Thus, creating a minimum viable product (MVP) to test the waters before going all in at once is better.
MVP development is a method where only the core features and functionalities are developed to check if the app works perfectly and solves the problem it was supposed to.
This strategy is gaining popularity in the app development market. Working with a trustworthy dating mobile app development company can assist in streamlining the process and offer continuous support for long-term performance.
Create Prototypes & Wireframes
After the MVP development, the next step in how to start a dating app is to create a dating website wireframe and prototypes for the app design. The wireframes work as a rough visual guide for the front-end development team to create an interactive mockup of a mobile app.
The prototype includes everything from user interface design to app screens and simulated functions. The development team then uses this prototype to develop the app’s backend to add functionality to the design.
Swift programming language creates the front end of iOS apps, while Java or Kotlin is used for Android.
Development & Programming
The development phase is usually the most time-consuming phase, where the backend development team makes the app design responsive. The dating app development phase involves:
- creating and linking databases to their respective fields for storing and managing data,
- adding functionality to the app screens and buttons,
- building an API, and
- Creating servers.
Ideally, Swift or Objective-C is used for backend programming for iOS, while Kotlin or C# is used in Android.
Testing & Deployment
Once the software development is completed, the app goes through a series of automated and manual testing to check for bugs and errors. A dedicated team of software quality assurance (SQA) engineers is assigned to test the app multiple times for the end users before it is made publicly available.
Early access to the app is then given to several dating influencers and coaches for validation. After a series of tests and verifications, the app is uploaded to its respective stores.
- Ready to Create a Dating App
- At Tekrevol, we determine the best feature of your mobile app.
Popular Dating Apps & their USPs
Here’s a list of the ten most popular dating apps, along with the unique selling propositions that made them famous:
The Evil Economics of Tinder & the Need for New Dating Apps
What once started as a fun and exciting way to meet new people and swipe through the singles in your area has now turned into an evil business that puts money above everything else.
Tinder created a dating site to revolutionize online dating and help people find partners. However, two years later, things took a strange turn when the app started limiting what users could do.
And when people got frustrated and started questioning if there was something wrong with the app, Tinder Plus was introduced. It promised a profile boost and more matches for a monthly fee of $19.99, and guess what? It drove people crazy!
But soon after Tinder Plus was introduced, things began to return to the previous stage– fewer matches, less visibility, and less excitement.
And guess what? The company introduced Tinder Gold – an upgraded subscription model with added functionalities and more daily swipes for $29.99.
Soon after this release, Tinder Platinum was introduced for $39.99 with features like direct messaging and super swipe. This upgrade completely deviated from the principle of mutual consent for matching, which made Tinder famous in the first place.
Tinder has used a clever strategy to monetize loneliness. The secret desirability score ratings and age, and gender discrimination are often debated as inappropriate and must be changed. It’s no secret why Tinder has countless allegations and lawsuits against it.
Simply put, the less attractive you are, the more money you pay on Tinder.
Tinder vs. Bumble! The Importance of a USP
| Tinder | Bumble |
| Net worth $42 billion | Net worth $13 billion |
| 75 million users | 45 million users |
| 9:1 male to female ratio | 4:6 male to female ratio |
Bumble is an online dating mobile app founded by the famous American entrepreneur and Tinder’s co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Seeing her co-founders go evil, Whitney left Tinder and went on to start a revolutionary online dating app, which we know today as Bumble.
What is remarkable about Bumble is its empowering approach toward women and expansion beyond just a dating platform into a women-centric social network. Bumble operates on the same business model as Tinder, but with a slight exception – only women are allowed to initiate a conversation and send a match request on Bumble.
Suppose you have heard about Tinder horror stories. In that case, you might know about the countless sexual violence cases, not to mention the countless identity theft frauds and other severe scams leading to severe consequences. It might seem like gender discrimination, but actually, it is not.
Bumble focuses a lot on account verification and ID authentication, unlike Tinder, which was accused of deliberately adding thousands of fake profiles so that users would find something new every time they log in to the app.
With the unique selling proposition of being the most women-centric online dating platform, Bumble has become a huge success. In fact, it’s considered the best dating and social networking platform in the US.
While Tinder has a 9:1 male-to-female ratio, most of Bumble’s users are female, with a 4:6 male-to-female ratio. This huge gap is killing Tinder as thousands of paid subscribers are switching to Bumble daily.
The lesson for passionate entrepreneurs willing to dive into the online dating industry is to create something unique instead of simply replicating the popular ones. Do extensive market research, conduct surveys, and consult dating coaches to create a dating website that improves the online dating experience for millions of people around the globe.
How Much Does it Cost to Make a Dating App like Tinder?
Whether you want to launch your first MVP or scale into full dating mobile app development, knowing how to make a dating app and understanding the dating app development cost is key. The estimated cost to build the MVP for a dating app like Tinder ranges between $60,000 – $200,000 and even more.
Even with web3 dating app development, paying attention to user experience, swiping UX, and privacy impacts your overall dating app development cost, dating app monetization, and the success of how you create a dating app.
- Calculate the Cost of Your App
- Try our app development cost calculator to determine the estimated cost of your mobile app.
Wrapping Up…
This concludes our guide on how to start a dating app. Still interested in learning about the app development process in detail, read this comprehensive guide on building a mobile app.
Or if you’re ready to create a dating site or a dating mobile app development project today and connect with users in a modern, secure platform, fill out this form to book a free consultation with our development consultants.
