Tinder is adding premium features to its dating app, including the ability to reconsider rejected profiles, but the dating firm has made to controversial decision to charge users over 28 more than its younger users.
In the UK, people over the age of 28 years old face paying nearly four times the price of their younger counterparts. In the US, the over-30s have to pay double the basic rate.
UK users face a £3.99 monthly fee for the service if they are aged between 18 and 27, and £14.99 a month if they are aged 28 and above.
In the US, the corresponding figures are $9.99 (£6.50) and $19.99 (£13).
Tinder added that members in emerging economies would be charged an average of $2.99 a month for the premium features.
Until now, there were no charges to use the app.
Tinder works by letting users swipe through a stream of images of single people located around them – a left swipe blocks the user, while a right one shows interest. If two people swipe right on each other they are matched and can then chat.
More than one billion profiles are swiped every day, with millions of matches made. The company is valued at around $1bn (£620m).
In a statement, Tinder said: “We’ve priced Tinder Plus based on a combination of factors, including what we’ve learned through our testing, and we’ve found that these price points were adopted very well by certain age demographics,” said a spokeswoman.
Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example.
“Tinder is no different; during our testing we’ve learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained and need a lower price to pull the trigger.”