Is Tinder Gold worth it?
If Plus isn’t enough for you Tinder has a second paid tier called Tinder Gold, which offers all of the features of Tinder Plus, and two big additions: Likes You and Top Picks.
Likes You does what it sounds like – it lets you see who’s already swiped right on you, so you can make sure to pay special attention to the profiles of people who you know like you before you commit to swiping in return. You can see a full list of every profile that’s liked you so that you can browse through and swipe either way on them while knowing they’re interested in you.
Top Picks is a more recent Gold feature, which shows you a daily selection of profiles selected specifically for you by the Tinder algorithm. You’ll see a few picks each day (but they disappear after 24 hours), with each including a highlight drawn from their profile – things like ‘Doctor’ or ‘Adventurer’.
Beyond those two big features, Gold also offers a few more granular controls to who you see, and who sees you. You can use the default algorithm to pick profiles or ask the app to prioritise accounts who’ve been active recently. In turn, you can also restrict your profile so that it doesn’t show your age or distance, and even restrict it so that only people you’ve already Liked see your profile in the first place.
As for pricing for Gold, expect to pay an extra ?3.49/$4.99 per month on top of Tinder Plus, with discounts for longer commitments – and again, variations depending on age.
Is Tinder Platinum worth it?
As you’d expect this includes everything you get with Tinder Gold, but also throws in another two features: Priority Likes and Message Before Match.
Priority Likes essentially guarantee that your Like will be seen before non-Platinum subscribers, essentially pushing you to the top of the stack for any potential matches, meaning your profile is more likely to be seen.
Message Before Match is a bigger change for Tinder, and allows you to attach a short message – up to 140 characters – to your Super Likes https://besthookupwebsites.org/gay-hookup/. Not that you can still send Super Likes without a message, and that this only allows you to send the one message, not bombard someone with chat-up lines before they even Like you back.
Safety features
In 2020 Tinder added several new safety and security features to the app to help users feel comfortable using the app without risk.
First up, accounts can now have their photos verified, with a blue tick appearing next to the user’s name if they have been. Verification is optional, and sees users asked to recreate a series of poses in new photos to prove who they are, with ‘human-assisted AI’ then checking that those photos match the photos on the user’s profile.
It won’t solve the problem of users who’ve changed a bit since their photos, but it should help reduce the risk of catfishing on the service.
More advanced ID verification is also rolling out worldwide, following a trial in Japan. This will involve checking people’s photos and details against government ID, for an extra level of reassurance that they are who they claim to be.
Tinder says that ID verification will remain optional for now – acknowledging that for some marginalised communities verification may be a genuine safety risk – except for countries and regions that require it.
Depending on what country you’re in – it’s only in ‘select markets’ – Tinder has also added a feature that will try to detect offensive messages. If you’ve received a message flagged by the system, it will ask you if the message bothered you, and if so will report the user.