See our UPDATE below.
After a disastrous launch of their beta app, and then trying to charge money for it, CEO, Justin McLeod has been sending out emails almost every other day trying to apologize to their users. Their latest one finally admits that their money grab plan has failed, and are allowing former users to have the new Hinge for free.
Hi,
Let’s face the facts. Dating apps have become a game that do more to keep us single than to help us find relationships. We realized this at Hinge, and so we spent the last nine months building a new service from the ground up which would ditch swiping, matching, timers and games and replace them with a way to help people meaningfully connect.
The new Hinge has far exceeded our expectations. Members are having 4x as many conversations and a connection is 9x more likely to result in a date. It costs $7 per month to join the community, but as a former user I’d like you to have the new Hinge for free. We owe you one great relationship after-all.
This link will give you a free (forever) membership.
Regardless of your previous experience with Hinge and other dating apps, I hope that if you’re over the games and ready to find something real, you’ll consider starting a new relationship with us.
Regards,
Justin McLeod
CEO & Founder of Hinge
Only time will tell how long their new users will still have to pay. Or they finally add features in that would warrant users to pay for a sub-par experience.
Additionally, if you read through their app reviews, overwhelmingly users miss the older more thought out version of the app than the current version.
UPDATE: Turns out, even though the email was written in a way to imply that you were getting the $7 version of the membership for free, Hinge has actually introduced a “Free” basic membership level and will be converting you into that after 3 months.
Details on their “basic plan” are, “At the end of your 3-month upgrade trial, you’ll automatically transition to a free Basic Membership where discovery is limited to 10 people per day.”.
Founding members are users who sign-up within the first couple months after launch. They'll receive BASIC membership for free.
— Hinge (@hinge) November 8, 2016
