Is Tinder Gold Worth the extra moolah? How does it compare to Tinder's other premium tiers? This article will will show you what you're getting and help you determine if Tinder Gold will actually make a difference for love life.
What Does Tinder Gold Offer?
Tinder offers three tiers of its subscription services: Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold, and Tinder Platinum.
Tinder Gold, being the second tier in terms of price, includes everything that Tinder Plus offers and adds a few more features to make your swiping a better ride.
What Tinder Plus Already Offers:
Unlimited Likes
When not paying for any plan, Tinder limits you to a certain number of right-swipes per 12-hour period. The precise number varies, since it depends on the app's assessment of factors such as age and location, but it can be as few as 25 per 12 hours.
With Tinder Gold, you can swipe right as much as you want without hitting that limit. This can be useful if you live in a very populous area and want to see all that your city has to offer.
Rewind
The Rewind button lets you undo your last swipe, whatever the direction was, giving you another shot at a potential match (or allowing your to un-swipe someone you aren't interested after all).
No Ads
Tinder Gold gives you an ad-free experience. It might not seem like a big deal, but it does make the app feel smoother and less cluttered.
Rewind
Swiped left on someone by mistake? The Rewind feature acts as an "undo" for your last swipe, whatever the direction was, giving you another shot at a potential match. You can use this feature an unlimited number of times, but you can't go backwards more than one layer deep.
Passport
Normally Tinder will simply use your actual location determined by your phone. But Tinder Gold's "Passport" feature allows you to set your search location so that you can swipe anywhere in the world.
Go Incognito
Going Incognito with Tinder Gold makes you invisible to everyone else who might normally see you, with the exception of those you've already swiped right on. It's a good way to feel cozier and less exposed.
Features That Gold Has But Plus Doesn't:
See Who Likes You
With Tinder Gold, you can see other users who have already swiped right on you before you do anything at all. This means you can potentially save time, picking out matches who already like you instead of having to swipe through the chaff until you find them.
This feature is quite handy. A side effect is that you can see how popular your profile is in a controlled way, without having to feel it out based on a swipes-per-match basis.
New Top Picks Every Day
Every day, Tinder Gold provides you with a curated list of potential matches that Tinder’s algorithm believes are highly compatible with you.
This is, frankly, not a very useful or interesting feature. Tinder is a superficial app, meaning that the algorithm has very little to go on. Sometimes the top picks seem to be basically random.
Bonus Super Likes
Super Likes are very useful on Tinder: they put you at the top of the stack for potential matches, tipping the scales in your favor.
Normally you buy Super Likes as its own purchase, but Tinder Gold grants you five Super Likes per week as part of the subscripton. It's a nice little bonus.
1 Free Boost a Month
Boosts upgrade your visibility on Tinder for a 30 minute period, increasing your chances of gettign swiped on. Boosts, like Super Likes, are normally bought on their own.
Tinder Gold Get one free Boost each month. This is a pittance; one Boost per month is so small that it's not even worth considering.
The Cost of Tinder Gold
The cost of Tinder Gold varies based on your age and location. Generally, it’s cheaper for users under 30, costing around $14.99 per month, while those over 30 might pay closer to $29.99 per month. There are also options to pay for six months or a year upfront, which can reduce the monthly cost.
Is Tinder Gold Worth It?
The Good
Tinder Gold could be worth it for a few reasons.
- See Who Likes You: This feature alone can save you a lot of time and frustration by showing you who’s already interested. If you get enough likes this way, you barely even need to swipe at all, and everoyne comes to you.
- More Super Likes: Super Likes really do work on Tinder, and getting a few free Super Likes per week can go far to help you meet someone special.
- Unlimited Likes: Having a daily limit for swiping can be stifling to the motivated user, and Tinder Gold removes that limit.
The Bad
A lot of additional features may not justify the cost.
- Limited Incremental Value: If you don’t swipe a lot or don’t need to see who likes you, the value added by Gold might be minimal.
- Boost: Boosts are already not very cost-effective on their own, since they only last for a half hour. But own free boost per month? That is useless to the point of seeming like an insult.
- Top Picks: You will never, ever find this feature useful.
The Bottom Line
If you're going to spend money on Tinder, go for Tinder Platinum. It offers all the features of Plus and Gold, plus some powerful extras like the ability to message before matching and prioritized likes, making it a better value overall.
Read our full review of Tinder Platinum.
For those considering an intermediate option, Tinder Gold is a decent upgrade from Plus. It includes some nice features from Plus and adds a few more perks but falls short compared to Platinum. Read our full review of Tinder Plus.
If you're spending on Tinder anyway, Tinder Platinum is the smarter choice. It gives you everything Gold does and more, and the more that it gives isn't replicable elsewhere with other purchases on the app.