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How dating websites make money

Ever wondered how dating websites like Tinder make money? Read on to know more.

How dating websites make money

Wednesday July 04, 2018,

5 min Read

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Online dating is quite common and many people find their rightful partner through these channels. Now, how these channels survive? They survive based on many factors. There are different methods or ways to generate income via a dating site. It will only happen when there is activity on the dating site, there are many people participating on the dating site.

Without any people, none would join since they wouldn’t have anyone to match their profile or talk to at the very least. People are the main resource needed here to start with the income. This is a prime factor for all dating website. I’ll provide a proven method of making money for dating websites which will certainly enlighten about the unknown sources of income in this business.

A successful revenue model

When it comes to generating revenue, there are several methods. You need not have to always depend on one source of income but, your overall income would include a minimum of 2 to 3 sources. How to make those smart changes on your site? Or develop the site in such a way that it attracts consumers and hence revenue in return. Some of the major factors to consider will be discussed, please check it out to see if you are able to apply any of these factors to your revenue model for your arrangement finder site.

Memberships – Free and Paid

You need to set up the site in such a way that free membership user account has limited access while paid membership account has complete access to all features. This fee is usually optional, monthly – quarterly – half yearly and year subscriptions to the site are available in most of these types of sites. Paid membership allows for the growth of the website but a slow one. Some of the common promises made by sites would for paid users are the select pool of potential matches with quality and serious dating profiles. If this doesn’t suffice, there are monetization methods used by free-to-use sites, choose the one which suits your situation well.

Freemium

Different niche sites of this category provide full access to their product for free. These sites have the low barrier to entry, which encourages the large number of sign-ups. It certainly provides a boost to build a consumer database but revenue generation would be zero. So affiliate networks, user gift exchange, charging for premium content and offering VIP memberships. This certainly helps even free-to-use sites to earn too.

Ads and Affiliate Networks

One of the oldest tricks in the book is being introduced here. Choosing affiliate networks is a monetization trick as a part of overall strategy. Most of these sites prefer CPA (Cost Per Action), this includes both dating and its affiliate networks too. However, CPC (Cost Per Click) cannot be taken out of the picture since it can work too. Affiliates networks would be supporting your site which could be something as small as a florist to something as expensive as a jeweler. Flowers can be ordered and sent to the other person with just a click. To celebrate their relationship or may ask the big question, a ring from the jeweler is required, you find it on the site to help your users while generating revenue at the same time. It is important to work with these affiliates to ensure maximum revenue generation not only from consumer membership but, even from the affiliates too.

Virtual Gifting

A perfect profile match allows one user to send a gift to the other. This is hottest and tending style in these type of sites. It is also based on the type of user membership and the level of gift they can send. Here, you have the option to charge minimum prices for greeting cards, virtual flowers, gift cards, candy, party vouchers which can use to redeem for physical products and more. By charging for these types of digital gifts, your effort is minimum here while you can gain maximum revenue. Gift-giving a new trend and many sites are supporting it in order to attract more consumers. Something as simple as a ‘Thank You’ card for an online dating is also a revenue generator.

Add-on and premium content access

A free-to-use site can also provide additional features for a small fee. Some of the extra tools that are much needed while trying to match profiles or communicate with the other person with a minimal charge. One of the prime examples of such add-on feature would be ‘Boost’. This helps increase the number of searches that match your profile or even gain important information about the matching profile via a small fee. An advice here is to ensure that the site can save consumer payment information so that they don’t need to enter it for even micropayment.

VIP Memberships

VIP, as we all know, has much special access or permission. In order to get this membership, the user has to pay more than a regular paid membership due to the exclusive access provided. VIP memberships are all based on recurring subscription and the users who opt for it are well aware of it. So, VIP should have something extra compared to other membership types to justify its cost. Since it is a recurring billed subscription to the user, you need to carefully decide on the features provided for this membership and the access without restriction except for a few parts is necessary here

Live events

Hosting dating events can also be a huge revenue generator as long as you are in control of everything without any hassle. Virtual users would meet their meet their match in the real world which also provides a sense of authenticity about us to the consumers. Speed dating, charity events, and dating mixers are the common terms used to describe these events.

Conclusion

A solid revenue system is crucial to your site’s growth financially however, conversations do matter. Converting potential users into paid members should be your prime focus. I hope this information is helpful to you.

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