Honest Hinge App Review: From Someone Who’s Actually Used It

This is an honest Hinge app review – from A Guy who’s actually used it. Quick summary at the bottom.

My Hinge App Story

I first used hinge roughly 2 years ago. And at that time, it was branded as “the relationship app” (may still be) and the general vibe was that people on Hinge were more serious about forming connections than Tinder.

In my experience, that branding has been true. People I’ve met on Hinge have been more willing (and emotionally ready) to engage in deeper connections and form stronger relationships. If I wasn’t afraid of commitment, the Hinge App would probably be my #1 favorite app when it comes to dating.

That being said, I’ve also had many hookups on Hinge that never really turned into anything. But even so, one strange thing I did notice was that the average level of “niceness” from each person I met was overall, higher than Tinder.

Hinge App’s Niceness Game Is… Furious?

This is completely anecdotal – meaning I probably dreamt about all of this and am now telling you it’s real – but the average level of “nice” in the people that I met from the Hinge app was usually higher than people from Tinder.

For example, On Tinder, I tended to match with a lot of party girls, fierce liberals, and trannies. And trust me, I love all three. Even when they yelled at me for being a white male.

But with Hinge, I was getting fed more homebody, wifey, settle-down-and-have-3-kids-within-the-coming-years type girls who just wanted to find a stable guy to settle down with.

It’s like Hinge knew what was best for me, while Tinder just enabled my fantasies.

And because of that, Hinge gets one point. Towards something.

Hinge App Can Make You A Conversation-Starting Ninja (Even If You Have The Personality Of Dish Soap)

The greatest Pro (in my opinion) of Hinge is the sheer diversity of options you have when it comes to starting conversations and building rapport through similarities quicker than any other app.

From liking specific pictures to responding to specific parts of someone’s bio, Hinge – by far – gives you the most freedom for customizing and tailoring your first interaction. And this, in my opinion, is the best thing about it from a functional perspective. And something that separates itself from both Tinder And Bumble.

Here are just some examples of how you can slide into someone’s Hinge DM’s and make them fall in love with you forever:

The 3 Main Ways You Can Begin A Hinge App Interaction

Responding To Someone’s Bio Prompt

Responding to someone’s bio prompts is a great way to get a conversation started on the Hinge App.

One thing I really like about this is that there will be multiple bio prompts on someone’s profile, so you can actively pick and choose which one you like best, and respond to it.

This is massively powerful because Instead of just picking a random topic and forging a conversation through the jungle of awkward “I don’t really know what to say here” village, you and the person you are interacting with actually start the conversation off with something you have in common. And this make it much easier to catch a flow and get to know each other quickly.

Liking Someone’s Specific Picture

Liking someone’s picture is another way you can begin a conversation with them. And once you like someone’s photo, they will be given the option to “invite” you to a conversation.

For some reason, every time I see a girl has “invited” me to start a conversation with her, it makes me feel like a male peacock strutting his feathers and seeing the peahen’s eye catch a sparkle. All too suddenly, my chest begins to puff out – and then I give a face only describable by imagining the “Oh, I guess this is what we’re doing then” face and the “I knew I was the Sh**” face had a baby. One full of nonchalant ungracefulness.

One thing I really like about the liking the picture feature is, again, it gives you something to talk about and reveals a little something about the other person. Why did they choose that one picture? Nobody knows. But it can be a great conversation started to find out – and you can learn a lot about a person quickly by learning why they like what they like.

Liking Someone’s Answer To A Prompt

If you thought you could only respond to people’s prompts or like each one of their individual pictures, you were wrong.

You can also simply like someone’s prompt – letting you know plain and simply that you fw them as much as they fw whatever it is they already fw. In the above case, cuddling and pho during cuffing SZN.

This is also where strategy comes into play when creating your bio as well. Because of the diversity of how a conversation can be initiated, I have found it helpful to put a wide range of interests I have that may also be appealing to the type of girls I want to attract. And depending on what they respond to, I instantly get a sense of what type of girl this is by what type of picture she reacted to.

Using Hinge App Prompts To Let Your Personality Shine Through

One of the things I really like about the Hinge App is how many photo prompts they have. You can actually caption your photos, unlike other apps.

The reason this is so great – in my opinion – is because the creativity this gives you for humor is massive. And if you’re anyone who considers themselves funny, or likes making jokes at all, you will seriously thrive on this app.

Women Initiate Fairly Often

Another thing I noticed about the Hinge App was how often women tend to reach out compared to Tinder.

More than half of the time, I was receiving liked photos or responses from girls that I did not yet match with. This would let me review what they said / liked and then decide if I wanted to either respond to their action or send them a message right away.

I think part of the reason women feel okay with reaching out so much on the Hinge app, is again, the sheer number of ways they can. And instead of sending an aggressive opener – something a lot of women don’t really like doing – they can simply flash their feathers like the male peacock, and have the guy say “cool feathers” and slide into her dms. Hinge makes beginning interactions really easy.

Limited Number Of Matches For Free Version

For the free version of the app, you’re only going to get 10 matches. This is significantly less than the other popular dating apps. With all dating apps, numbers is a factor in dating success. And with only 10 matches allowed for the free version, it is going to be difficult to get back into the dating game quickly unless you upgrade to the paid version, which has unlimited likes. The only reason to upgrade to the paid version would be to get unlimited likes.

Is This That Big Of A Deal?

Sort of. Hinge is definitely trying to create a “quality over quantity” type vibe with their free version. Even though you only get 10 likes per day, I don’t think this is a huge negative because of the sheer number of ways you can start a conversation and connect with someone through one of the many different aspects of their profile.

Being limited to 10 likes a day is obviously worse than having unlimited likes, but on Hinge, the potential for the initial interaction to go well is much higher than other dating apps. So it isn’t the end of the world. Go outside and meet people, lol.

Quality Of Matches:

Hinge’s quality of matches is extremely inconsistent, but generally finds itself on the lower end.

There will be times where you will get multiple attractive people in a row, and then days where you will not find anyone you think is attractive. Multiple days of “dry spells” seem to be very common on hinge, and paired with the 10 matches per day on the free version, I have tended to use other dating apps more often than the Hinge app itself.

Hinge Preferred: Is It Worth It?

Here is my honest opinion on whether or not I think the paid version of the app is worth it.

So… Is it worth it?

It depends.

Price

The price for the preferred version of the Hinge App isn’t terrible compared to other paid versions. But what exactly are you getting?

Unlimited Likes: By far the biggest advantage to buying the preferred version of the Hinge App is getting access to unlimited likes. In my opinion, this is the only reason to upgrade to the paid version because it allows you to get a high number of matches quickly. Upgrading to the preferred version of the Hinge App will give you some additional benefits as well, but they aren’t too impressive.

See Who Liked You: As a premium user, you can also see all the users at once who have already “liked” your profile. Without upgrading, you can only view the profiles one at a time, making a “like” or “skip” decision as you go through them.

Just like other apps, you get the see who liked you feature. this feature allows you to see who already liked you and then going through those options and matching with some of them. Although this feature *Sounds* nice, you will only get the bottom of the barrel in terms of matches in there. So in my opinion, not worth it.

Advanced Preferences: The Hinge App advanced preferences feature allows you to create additional match filters so you can filter out people beforehand. I don’t recommend using this because the reality is that people will have the same profile feature word like “religious, but their two definitions are completely different from one another. Meaning, you don’t know who someone is until you meet with them, so I would recommend keeping an open mind and not filtering too strongly based off of your perception of what the filters mean. In my opinion, this feature is also not worth it.

Hinge Experts: This allows you to get help from people on which conversation starters are the best or which pictures are the most statistically friendly. I would avoid this at all costs because of the sheer lack of skill most people have when it comes to dating and understanding attraction. Not worth it.

TL;DR Quick Summary

Overall, Hinge is a solid dating app. They’ve tried to take the “quality over quantity” route, and in some aspects, they have done it well.

Pros:

Profile customization (allows you to display your personality)

Ease of starting new conversations

More user interaction (matches on the Hinge App usually respond and keep convo going more than on other apps)

Cons:

Limited to 10 matches per day on the free version (unlimited with paid version)

Summary: I am in no way affiliated with the Hinge App. This is just my raw opnion.

Hinge went the “quality over quantity” route and they did it well. I would highly recommend at least trying the free version of Hinge and comparing it to the other apps. If you’re new to a city and need a lot of matches quickly, I would recommend the paid version only for the ability to have unlimited matches. The other features aren’t worth it. I have met attractive, mentally healthy people off of Hinge and have had a couple relationships. Overall solid app.

That is all I have for this article. If you need additional help, feel free to email me at grant@stepbystepdating.com or check out this free training.