Tinder thinks it knows what people who use a free dating app are willing to pay for. It's begun a test of Tinder Plus, a premium version of the app with features that will cost money to gain access to. The new version of the app will offer an undo button so that if you accidentally swipe left and reject someone you can retrieve them for approval. It will also offer a new Passport feature so that you can look for people who aren't necessarily nearby.
Tinder co-founder (and recently demoted CEO) Sean Rad said that an undo option has long been top priority for an extra feature and that it's what people have asked for more than anything else. The feature will appear for all users, but you'll have to pay up to actually get to use it, or Passport, which lets you pick where to look for matches, which Rad said will be a boon to frequent travelers. Travelers looking for very short relationships presumably, but you never know what kind of connections might occur, which is part of Tinder's appeal according to Rad.
The foray into paid features, which is getting tested in several countries but not the U.S. at the moment, will be closely watched by more than just Tinder users eager to undo accidental swipes and see who's on Tinder in other cities. You can bet that tech companies with their own free apps and plenty of venture capital groups will be keeping a close eye on the experiment as it could serve as a blueprint for turning their own free software into revenue producers without or in addition to adding advertising. Tinder's crazy level of engagement by users give it a boost in that sense, but if Tinder Plus is a success you can expect investors in other free apps to feel at least a little more confident about their investments.
Wanting to figure out a good price for the new features, which will directly impact their success, is part of why Tinder is not launching in the U.S. yet. According to Rad, price tests will vary from $.99 to $19.99 with some points in between as the company works out what people will pay for the new options. Whether people will swipe right on the new features remains to be judged.
