What Version of Tinder Should You Buy in 2021? Plus vs. Gold vs. Platinum Review

Oh, the good old days. Back in Tinder’s early days, you could consistently get results without spending a dime. But, as Tinder has become more popular, they’ve focused on monetizing the platform. Increasingly, we’ve found you have to spend money to get more Tinder matches as a man.

In late 2020, Tinder announced yet another new premium tier, to add even more confusion to its offering: Tinder Platinum. On top of this, Tinder is not known to be particularly transparent around their pricing. We’ve seen them offer variable pricing based on age and potentially other factors.

Many of our community members have been asking us to review Tinder Platinum, like we’ve done with our Tinder Gold review.

In this article, we’re going to give you a complete look at all the premium versions of Tinder, including all the features they offer. Then, we’ll give you an in-depth look at whether or not we recommend buying Tinder Platinum.

What are the Premium Tinder Tiers?

Tinder now offers three premium versions, each one costing more money than the next.

Tinder Plus

The lowest non-free version of Tinder is Plus. The free version has a swipe limit (which, once again, Tinder is not transparent about), while Tinder Plus has no such limit. Plus also comes with Rewind, 5 Super Likes per day, 1 Boost per month, Passport so you can change your swipe location, and no ads.

Tinder Gold

Tinder Gold has long been PWF’s “Gold standard” choice for Tinder. If you are serious about TInder, we’ve recommended investing in it. In addition to all the Plus features, you also get to see who has Liked you and a list of “Top Picks”. 

Tinder Platinum

Tinder Platinum includes everything in Plus and Gold, plus a few powerful features:

• Attaching a message to a Super Like – Somewhat Useful
• Having your Like prioritized over others in girls’ swipe decks – Jury is Still Out
• See the Likes you’ve sent in the last 7 days – Barely Useful

Overall, we think some of these features are very useful.

How Much Does Tinder Platinum Cost vs. Other Tiers?

This is where things start to get murkier. Tinder isn’t super clear about what its various versions cost. In the past, they’ve gotten criticized for charging older users more money than younger ones. They do not publish pricing, and so it’s hard to say for sure what you’ll pay for Tinder Platinum.

However, in general, Tinder Plus starts at around $9.99 per month, Tinder Gold starts at around $29.99 per month, and Tinder Platinum starts at around $39.99 per month.

Is Tinder Platinum Worth It?

This is the real question. The reason we’ve waited to give you our recommendation is that we wanted to gather data from multiple different users and types of users. Ultimately, the question boils down to two areas:

1. Do we find that the additional features are worth the increase in price?
2. Do we find that users get more, less, or the same amount of matches with Platinum vs. other tiers?

With regard to the additional features:

• We do believe that being able to attach a message to a super like can increase your chances of matching (assuming it’s a good Tinder opener). But, unless you buy a lot of super likes, you only get 5 free per day. We’re not sure that this feature will increase your match rate so dramatically across 5 super likes per day to pay off.
• We think there could be a LOT of value in having your likes prioritized over others in girls’ swipe decks. Since even average girls match with a high percent of guys they swipe right on, girls don’t need to swipe much each day to get enough guys to keep them busy. So if you are higher in their deck, it should in theory grow your matches. But again, testing is required to know how much priority you get and whether that translates into more matches.
• We don’t really see a lot of value in seeing your recent likes, since there’s nothing you can do after you’ve sent it to influence whether they end up matching with you.

Ok. The list of features looks decent, but without knowing the actual impact on results (match rate), we can’t make a recommendation.

So, we had a number of PWF members buy Tinder Platinum, use it consistently for 30 days, and track the actual data behind their matches before and after Platinum. Here’s what we found!

Tinder Platinum vs. Free

We actually saw a dramatic increase in matches by moving up to Platinum from the free version. This isn’t totally surprising, because in theory Tinder should make it more rewarding to pay them money (so you keep paying them money).

But the results were pretty dramatic for some of our members!

For example, one member on the free version would get a new like around once a week. When he upgraded to Platinum, he went from a new like weekly to more than one new like per DAY. He saw a more than 10x increase in the number of likes!

And he reported that the quality of his matches was much higher. He found that the girls he was matching with, and the girls who he could see liked him due to having Platinum, were consistently more attractive than he was getting before.

Finally, we have found that the ability to send a message with every super like results in a noticeably higher match rate. Add in the fact that you do get 5 free super likes per day, or 35 per week, and this is a valuable upgrade over the free version.

Pretty obviously, there is a real gain to be had by upgrading from free to Tinder Platinum. But, this was hardly surprising to us. It’s why we recommend Tinder Gold for most of our community members. So how does Platinum stack up to Gold?

Tinder Platinum vs. Gold

So time to settle the real debate: is Tinder Gold still supreme, or does Tinder Platinum take the throne?

Again, it’s hard to judge the value of the additional features in Tinder Platinum. So, we will focus the rest of this analysis on results. Specifically, are guys getting more matches from Tinder Platinum? And are the matches the same or higher quality?

We surveyed our PWF Mastermind members, and theme was the same: Yes, the results from Tinder Platinum are noticeably better. Here are some real quotes from our members:

• “Definitely increased [matches] and quality”
• “I have tinder platinum and have found the number & quality of my matches have both increased very nicely”
• “Can’t say increase or decrease in number of matches, but I can say im matching higher quality women”
• “An increase in matches for sure. The quality in women has gone up as well”
• “I just feel like you get matches quicker honestly”

It’s worth nothing, there were a few detractors to these opinions. A handful of guys did claim to notice a drop off in matches, though some of them also noted they had some things in their bios or pics that were suboptimal. Overwhelmingly though, the opinions around Platinum were positive.

In short: Tinder Platinum is officially PWF recommended for most guys (even over Gold).

Should You Buy Tinder Platinum?

Ok, so with that all out of the way, let’s get to the real question. Should you personally buy Tinder Platinum?

In general, we believe that if you’re serious about online dating, it’s worth spending money on the premium version of Tinder. You can see where we reviewed Platinum vs. Free, that there are major benefits to having a premium version of Tinder. $40 a month is basically the cost of one decent takeout meal you’re probably buying each month – and it’s well worth it in the context of getting laid more often.

But what are some reasons you might not want to buy Tinder Platinum?

First of all, you can think of Platinum – like any premium versions – as essentially a multiplier on your results. If you have terrible Tinder pictures or a lame Tinder bio, you’re starting from a base of essentially 0 or very low results. As you know, 0 multiplied by any factor is still 0, and a very small number multiplied by any factor is still a very small number. So in general, before you should invest in a paid version of Tinder, you should make sure your pics and bio are on point.

Second, Tinder is not the totally dominant force it once was. We still think it’s probably the best overall online dating app, but other apps like Hinge and Bumble have also emerged as big players, especially in certain regions. If you find that Hinge or Bumble do better in your area, or with your archetype of girl, then you might want to consider a lower investment like Tinder Gold or even simply Plus.

Third, we’ve heard some datapoints that could make you think twice if you think you might downgrade from Platinum later. Specifically, we’ve heard that it can be hard to downgrade from Platinum back to Gold or lower. And also, we have seen some data that makes us suspect that downgrading from Platinum will result in you getting penalized in the algorithm. Again, if you think you might not stick with Platinum, these might be cause for you to reconsider.

But for most guys in most areas, we think that buying Tinder Platinum is the best choice. So yes, you’ve read it here first. Tinder Platinum has earned our seal of approval and is now what we recommend for most members of our community!