How to Build a Mobile App Like Tinder- Ultimate Guide on Basic and Advanced Features

Tinder is an online dating platform where you match with people by swiping right and it’s a location-based service. The app is mainly for people who are shy and hesitate to start a conversation.

It has changed the entire perspective of dating with its exemplary swipe facility and classic design making it the number 1 dating app. After its arrival, many dating app like tinder have jumped in to cash the audience.

Tinder has revolutionized dating from its launch in October of 2012, more than 50 million users and 1.6 billion swipes in a day becoming the top-grossing app on Appstore.

People have acknowledged the idea of meeting new people using Tinder. It has also convinced the people who were skeptical once of dating online.

Tinder has become the place to find the right partner. Whether you are looking for a casual or a  serious relationship.

Tinder with geographical proximity as the main feature allows the user to date or hook up effortlessly either for long or short term relations.

Anyone above 18 years of age can install Tinder and date online.

New features apart from swiping like Super Like Top Picks, etc. Making it simpler for the user to play with Tinder.

There are many other dating platforms yet Tinder has outshined and as the best engagement with having a 70% more user base than any other platform. No other dating app like Tinder has ever achieved such a level of engagement. 

Market loved Tinder, Do you also?

From the beginning itself in 2012, Tinder started to gain attention. The idea was unusual in the sense of its niche. It didn’t take time to reach its first milestone in January 2014 reaching 10+ million user base. 

During the IAC earnings call in February, It reported that Tinder saw a 100% growth of its user base within a year.

Tinder’s attractive and simple user interface made the application very popular among youngsters which made it a Unicorn. Yes, but don’t neglect the married people from the fan list. They are just following the youngsters and are just behind. So, while making an app like Tinder for married people, let’s not forget this.

Any person is just a swipe away. The App was initially launched for IOS devices but in 2013 the app went live for android too based on the freemium business model.

With the launch of Tinder Plus in 2015, the valuation of the company was above $1 billion. The Monopoly of tinder never got over, in 2016 100 million downloads were recorded and 10 billion matches in total. 26 million daily matches with 1.4 billion daily swipes and most captivating were 1.2 million paying customers.

Tinder Plus has additional features like- unlimited daily swipes, No advertisements, Reverse your swipe, 5 super likes per day, 1 boost a month, etc. Any dating app like tinder must have these features.

Recently in 2017, the App had recorded 50+ million users and Launch of Tinder Gold elevated its valuation. To make an app like Tinder you need to understand a way to unite people in the sense that the customers completely rely on your services.

Tinder Gold added premium features to Tinder Plus for paying customers like- People can see who liked their profile and in addition providing them New Top Picks every day to select from the best slot.

All these features are dedicated to engross the user deeper with the app. As the user will go through these features and communicate with his friends/ colleagues etc. The app will get more attention without putting in any extra effort.

Every business works on supply and demand. The best approach towards Tinder-like App development is to understand the demand of people and then integrating it with a business model to create a win-win situation.

Making the Tinder-Like App requires a lot of research and communication with the audience. Proper alignment and a directional approach to make a valuable product that can withstand the present market condition. 

Tinder with unique marketing strategies and campaigns successfully maintains its number one position.

App-like Tinder should be loved by everyone. They should never get bored using it. 

How Does Tinder Work?

• The user has two options as soon as he sees a profile to either swipe left or right. In addition in the basic version of the app, the user can super like the profile that is indicated by a blue star once in a day.  

• Location is used for better recommendation and efficient matches. The user has the option to adjust Distance and Range of Age according to their preferences and comfortability. 

• Right Swipes means to like a profile while Left Swipes means to reject a profile that is indicated by the word like and nope respectively.

• If a profile is matched, the user can start having a conversation with the other person.

• A user can have multiple matches as well.

• For making a profile user needs to enter a bio in about section and can add pictures up to 9 in total. Additional Information like Job Title, Company Name, School, City name can be added.

• Option to link Instagram with Tinder has allowed the users to directly navigate the viewer to more pictures. 

For accessing salient features and benefits of this dating app, the user has an option to buy a monthly subscription of Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold.

Tinder has proved why it is the best app for dating online with such easy to use options.

If you endeavor to make a dating app like tinder focus on adding unique features and easy interface.

Here are a few features that make Tinder a huge player. 

Basic Features to Build An App Like Tinder

Log in using Facebook-

Using a single click you can connect your Facebook and get your information just like an auto-fill to skip the dreary process of filling all the information and adding pictures. This feature saves a lot of time. 3 in 1 feature.

• Proper Login
• Facebook data extraction 
• User profile creation

Basic User profile

As your profile is linked with Facebook all the details like work, college, company, age, interests are imported automatically. The user can also see-

• The Age 
• The distance from his current location
• If there are any mutual friends
• If there any Mutual interests
• A tagline or a brief description in the about section

Geo location

Geographical proximity is the main feature of Tinder. It lets the user set his location preferences in miles or km. Location service has become a crucial part of every app to obtain the user’s constant data for better recommendations and user experience. For enabling geolocation, a permission request is sent to the user. Customer privacy is the most important thing. 

Basic Discovery settings

For finding the best partner according to your preference, Tinder allows the user to set his discovery settings and adjust his search by filters like age, sex, distance, and geographical parameters.

 In a basic version of Tinder, the user can set the limit to 10 miles only. 

Swipe Right or Swipe Left

Swipe is as simple as scrolling. It is ingenious in a way to make things much easier for the user. Thus, it is Tinder’s Unique Value Proposition. 

Through the swipe feature, you can like or reject the people on tinder based on your discovery, geographical preferences, common interests, and mutual friends.

Swipe right for ‘LIKE’ or left for ‘NO’.

If you think you can compete with Tinder with your app? 

Do make sure you brainstorm until you find an alternative to its swipe feature. 

A Match

This feature is the central attraction. For an app like tinder, two persons having the same interest would swipe right to each other making a match.

 After a match is made, both the persons can start a conversation. 

A person can have multiple matches. There is no limit for matches.

Private Chat

After successfully having a match, the user can start a conversation. There is a separate chat room on tinder. Mobile app development services usually include this feature in every app nowadays. 

Push notifications

Whenever there is a match or someone has messaged you. Tinder automatically sends a notification about the same. 

All the other apps like tinder also have this feature to alert the user and engage them with the app. It reduces the bounce rate.

Tinder’s Advanced (Paid) Features

Tinder’s advanced features have let it grow and boosted its revenue. Based on the freemium model. The user needs to pay for using these special features. There are Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold offering these features that ensure better retention and optimizes the performance of the app.Here it extends its audience for the married people also. So, if you are looking on how to make an app like Tinder for married people, pay your attention here. 

Ads-Free

Paid Customers are always “ads-free”. Any Mobile app development company ensures that they stop displaying ads to paying customers. To make an app like Tinder and to sustain you must plan a freemium model.

Boost

This special feature allows the user to jump up in the rank list, in contrast to the algorithm and show up to candidates more likely. 

Surely this feature has to be for the elites. 

Super like

When you Swipe Up or press the blue star button, you super like someone. This can be identified by a small blue star in front of the name.

 This increases the intensity of the match. As the user will be more interested in you. It will surely catch the user’s attention. 

In Tinder Gold and Plus you get 5 Super likes/ Day and for the basic free version you get 1 super like/ day

Likes you

To know if someone likes you before you match with them. This feature allows you to know if the other person is interested in you or not.  

If you know the user already likes you, you will go for a right swipe.

Rewind

This feature helps you to rewind your mistakes. By chance, you liked a profile that you never wanted to like. Clicking this button will undo your action immediately.

Location change (Passport)

Every time a user opens Tinder, Location is automatically detected and accordingly, the profiles are shown. But with the Passport feature in Tinder Plus, a user can shift location intentionally to while being in a different location. 

You can match a person in the US from India.

Unlimited right swipes

In the basic free version, the user gets a limited number of right swipes to perform while in premium versions the user can go for unlimited right swipes until there are no profiles left to swipe. 

Surely, you want to add this feature for free in an app like Tinder to get maximum users.

Smart photos

Smart Photos is really an advanced feature that uses Machine Learning to analyze photos.

The order of your photos is automatically adjusted according to the person swiping on the other end. 

Suppose a person sees your default picture but it is not fixed that some other person will see the same picture. The algorithm is an analysis of the swiping pattern. 

The conversion rate in a wider audience will increase.

Tinder says profile adjustment has led to a 12% increase in matches during testing.

Moments

The Moments, it was a feature that didn’t turn out to be well for Tinder as it was originally started for Snapchat. By using this feature the user could create and share photos using varieties of image filters and text of different colors. A moment can only last for 24 hours.

The main motto of this feature as explained by the Co-Founder of Tinder Sean Rad was to give a head start to conversations among the matches.

If any match liked your moment, they could simply go on and swipe right. Increasing the interest and probability of liking each other.

Elite Club Dating

Tinder-Select is originally for the elites only, as an invite-only feature. Where celebs tinder members could exclusively use tinder. 

It’s a bit different from the regular tinder. Though Tinder hasn’t revealed this feature but certainly if you are adding this feature in your tinder like an app, it would gain the attention of many people and increased popularity. So, for an app like tinder for married persons, this could be an attractive feature. 

Elite dating apps are really starting to cover a good market. 

Group chats and Group Swipes- Tinder Social

When you switch to the Social mode you can invite your friends, you can swipe and match with even groups nearby and you could even start group messaging.

It basically will be an app like tinder for friends if you add this feature.

Reading Recommended- How to Build App Like Uber?

How to create a Tinder-like App: Development Insights

Let’s start with the technology used for making an app like tinder for friends. The features are made by the hard work of the developers, the technology used is- JavaScript, Python, and HTML5 were the main programming languages used.

For hosting and testing the application, AWS is used.

Mongo DB and Redis are the main scalable databases used for Tinder. The open-source platform is Mapbox for designing custom maps. GoDaddy SSL Certificates for data and transactions safety.

Its incredible swipe feature has helped many to overcome claustrophobia and autophobia. Be happy or sad, both are our choices. 

If you want to make a tinder-like app you need to devote a good amount of time in the development. Even the basic version roughly takes more than 1000 hours.

If you approach any mobile app development agency, a project like tinder would roughly take –

• 2-3 backend developers
• 1-2 designer
• 2-3 Android developers
• 2-3 iOS developers
• 1-2 project manager
• 1-3 testers

Modifications in UI Design

Surely, to make an app like tinder you need to have the best UI design possible. You cannot compromise this. 

The card-like format of Tinder really makes it a standard application with attractive Call to Action buttons and a great color scheme.

Simple and unique designs capture the majority. If you are making a dating app like Tinder, make sure it’s classy and user-friendly. 

Option to Have Customized UX

An online dating platform is totally a place to romance online at the beginning. You judge the other person by the photos and the bio. 

All the decisions made by your subconscious mind Using advanced technologies like ML and AI. The data is processed and analyzed for better recommendations. Recently, features like Smart Photos have enhanced user experience like never before.

You would definitely think to integrate the latest technologies. 

With the help of these, your app can analyze the likes and nopes of a user and may reorder the pictures for increasing the engagement and probability of swiping right. 

Algorithms Are Different

Tinder Algorithm is said to be men biased but it’s not the truth as according to researchers the men are repressed. So, ensure that you have such a filtering mechanism in app like Tinder.

Women are prone to get a higher rank and they have more probability of finding a match. A feedback loop is created. Men are in short provided fewer matches. 

Thus increases the selectivity of the app.

You need to apply tinder’s algorithm to get more females in your tinder-like app.

Find your audience

The most important part is to define your audience and start working on them. Every human has a different taste of everything. For getting success for your app in this niche, it’s only by introducing unique features.

 For instance, you could go for an app like tinder for married people where you could match people who are bored with their relationship and want to explore more.

Also, a platform where the audience can share more details and every one is authentic. No fake profiles at all.

Try to have maximum features for free customers. To get more downloads easily.

User Safety Should Be the Main Concern

Currently, Tinder allows the user to enter either by log in to Facebook or by entering mobile number.

This has increased the security as an OTP is received for the confirmation of the user’s identity.

The user should get access to everything on the app as for an application like tinder you must keep the retention rate high. Retargeting users might also increase engagement time.

Knowing in Depth

To make a Tinder-like app, the most important things to keep in mind are- the design, the application that is for both the platforms mainly IOS and Android and an API. 

There is a bridge for connecting any user who is a web-based client to a server, called RESTful API. 

For working in a real-time situation it is really a great option to think including the same feature in addition it increases the data transfer. 

There are various small elements that you should be more focused on. For example, user management that includes notifications and chatting environment. 

The user should be very comfortable in using all the features, thus database frameworks, Mongo DB will be extremely useful. 

Twilio provides SMS notification services. Mapbox for mapping tools and geographical proximities and various other elements. 

To make an app like tinder with millions of downloads and users. 

You need to have a strong backend to manage all the swipes and matches. To make everything function properly, get a good team into it. 

More Into Development

The main work for the development of an app like Tinder is this stage, using programming languages like Swift, Java or Object C. 

Specifically, Tinder has made a high bar for other developers.

You need to keep in mind to make every swipe as smooth as spreading sauce on your sandwich. Try to attract your users as much as you can try.

There are mandatory features that you must include in your Tinder-like app like the Sign-up for signing in, displaying user profiles, the match-making mechanism with private messaging and also geolocation proximity for better user experience.

Though, we have already talked about these features earlier. 

Definitely, to stand out from the rest of the competitors, you must add completely different features that can be adopted easily by the user’s and they develop trust with your tinder-like application either for friends or married couples. 

There are many other apps like tinder which have gained a lot of attention with unique features.

Now, it’s time to estimate the cost of making a dating app like Tinder and what time it will take. Considering the app to be one with an average number of features, 1 Graphic Designer, 1 UX designer, 2 Programmers, and at least 1 Quality Analyst to debug the code. This is the minimum you need and on average it will take them around 200 hours to finish the work. Not to forget that the charges for freelancers are as high as $50 per hour. Multiplying that number to such rates is really a huge number. That’s why 90% of people prefer to hire a Mobile App development company for this humongous task.

The total cost with mobile apps consulting firm comes down to around $35k to $50k. Yes, it’s really economical. But you need to take care of one more thing. The company should have experience of building such apps. 

Are you looking to build an app like Tinder? Then, you are in perfect place. We are a Custom Mobile App Development company with 10+ years of Experience holding our legacy in the hands of our expert developers. In our enthralling journey, we have created numerous apps and the majority have been dating ones from the entrepreneurs and businessman from around the web.

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You will get accurate cost estimation and best support service with MavenCluster. Call us now at +91-9755555032 we are all available for your service. 

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