How Does Hinge Work?

Hinge is one of the most popular dating apps.

And with its many featues, it’s also one of the most confusing.

What Is Hinge?

Hinge is a dating app that goes a step above other popular dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid.

Hinge boasts a slogan that it’s an app “designed to be deleted,” meaning that it focuses on helping you find a long-term relationship rather than fostering casual dating.

What Hinge Does Best

Hinge is one of the best dating apps around, especially when it comes to finding someone you’re truly compatible with.

Hinge does a fantastic job at enabling users to have meaningful conversations to determine whether it’s worth meeting in person for a date.

And Hinge has it all, catering to all types of relationships: from casual flings, to long-term relationships, to life partnerships.

Read: 6 Best Tips for Getting More Hinge Dates

Signing Up for Hinge

To sign up on Hinge, you’ll need a mobile phone number or a Facebook account.

Hinge is available on both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

Creating a Hinge Profile

Once you have the Hinge app, you’ll need to create a profile that includes six photos of yourself and three prompts.

These photos and prompts work together to create a full profile that showcases your looks, personality, values, and interests.

Each photo on Hinge is cropped at a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Read: 12 Best Hinge Profile Pictures: Tips for Photos to Use on Hinge

Each prompt answer has a maximum character limit of 150 characters.

Hinge’s prompts are an alternative to the traditional dating profile bio. They’re designed to help showcase your personality and give potential matches a better understanding of who you are in engaging ways that prioritize quality over quantity of information.

In your profile, you’ll also specify what type of relationship you’re looking for, such as a short-term relationship, long-term relationship, or life partnership.

Read: How to Write Good Hinge Prompt Answers: 12 Tips & Examples

For Professional Hinge Profile Help:

To have a professional Hinge expert select your best six photos for you, upload your photos to our dating photo analyzer and we’ll do the work for you.

To have a professional Hinge profile writer select your best photos and write your prompts for you, check out our dating profile writing service and select the Hinge app icon to get started.

How Matching Works on Hinge

On Hinge, a “match” is formed when two users send a “like” to each other.

That means that when two users express mutual interest in one another’s profiles, they form a new match and can start chatting.

Curating Compatible Matches

Hinge is great at helping users find compatible connections by focusing on shared interests and values.

Hinge’s algorithm works by curating personalized matches for you, presenting you with a seemingly infinite deck of profiles of other users who align with your dating preferences.

The way you create your profile, answer your prompts, and swipe on other users all give the Hinge app data about you.

Read: 40 Funny Hinge Prompt Answers (for Guys & Women)

Hinge then uses your data to better understand what type of match you’re looking for and what type of user is likely to be most compatible with you.

That’s how Hinge’s algorithm optimizes your experience to pair you up with compatible other users.

Liking and Commenting on Hinge

When swiping through potential matches on Hinge, you can either like or reject other users that appear in your feed.

The way likes work on Hinge is in many ways similar to other dating apps. However, Hinge is unique in how it allows users to attach a comment onto a specific part of someone’s profile when sending a like.

For example, you can select one prompt within another user’s profile and send them a like that is tagged onto that prompt.

This lets the other user know that this prompt of theirs is what you’re especially compelled by in seeking to match with them.

When you send someone a like on Hinge, you can also write a short message to them, which is how Hinge encourages more engaging conversations between matches off the bat.

Read: The 39 Best Hinge Openers to Start Conversation

Starting Conversations on Hinge

Once you have liked another user on Hinge and they have liked you back, you’ll be notified that you two have formed a new match.

You can now message each other through the Hinge app messaging system.

Hinge encourages you to start a conversation by responding to the part of your profile, or their profile, that led to the match initially.

Here’s an example of what that means: if another user sends you a like and they tag that like onto a photo in your profile that is of you hiking, you can now effortlessly start a conversation with them about hiking.

This approach helps foster more meaningful and authentic interactions between matches.

Read: How to Have Better Hinge Conversations: 12 Tips

Messaging and Video Calls

After matching and starting conversation, you can continue the conversation through Hinge’s built-in messaging system so there’s no need to get a match’s number immediately and text them.

As you get to know each other through messaging, you can take things up a notch with a video call if it feels right.

Hinge has a video call feature that allows you to have virtual video dates with a match through its app. This way, you can safely communicate and build your relationship before deciding to meet in person or before exchanging phone numbers.

Unique Features of Hinge

Hinge’s Most Compatible Feature

One of the key features of Hinge is its “Most Compatible” match feature.

Hinge generates and refreshes each user’s most compatible match on a daily basis, so every day, you’ll see a new user pop up at the top of your feed who’s tagged as your “most compatible” of the day.

Here’s how Hinge most compatible works:

Using an algorithm, Hinge assesses your profile and dating preferences and then uses that information to identify another user who could potentially be a good match for you. The aim of Hinge here is to find you a match who you’re likely to hit it off with and have a higher chance of entering a relationship with.

Hinge’s most compatible feature is an excellent perk of the app and is worth taking advantage of.

Standouts

Another interesting feature in Hinge is Standouts.

Standouts are a collection of profiles that the app’s algorithm believes you’ll find highly attractive and compatible. Standouts tend to be other users who are deemed by the app to be high-value users, whom a lot of other users have expressed interest in and sent likes to.

Roses

In addition to Standouts, Hinge also has a feature called Roses.

Hinge roses are a special type of “super like” that you can send to someone in your Standouts section or in your normal feed of profiles.

Sending a Rose on Hinge signals that you’re particularly interested in a potential match and see them as standing out from the crowd in your eyes.

When you send someone a Rose, they will see your profile at the top of their “likes” queue, helping you stand out amongst other users who have send this person a like.

Read: The Hinge Rose: What to Know About Sending a Rose on Hinge

We Met

Hinge’s “We Met” feature is designed to gather feedback after you’ve gone on a date with a match.

A few days after exchanging contact information with a match, Hinge will often ask you how the date went.

This feature allows Hinge to learn more about your preferences and improve your future matches, with the goal of suggesting new users to you with whom you’ll have the highest chance of a successful first date.

The feedback you give to Hinge through this “we met” feature remains private and is not shared with the other person, so don’t worry about them finding out what you say.

Hinge Boosts

If you find yourself struggling to get any likes or matches on Hinge, then it might be because not enough other users are seeing your profile.

That’s where using boosts on Hinge can really help you out.

Boosts on Hinge are a premium feature that increase your visibility and show your profile to more other users. Essentially, when you use a boost, Hinge places your profile at the top of other users’ profile decks so they see you right when they open the app.

Boosts can go a long way toward helping you get more likes and matches on Hinge.

Read: How Many Likes Do You Get on Hinge?

Using boosts can also provide valuable insights into how your profile performs on Hinge and how to improve it. You can boost your profile, see how many likes you get, and then change up a few photos or prompts in your profile and boost again and see if that got you more likes. This can help you refine your profile photos and prompts over time.

How Hinge’s Algorithm Works

One of the best features of Hinge is its Nobel prize-winning algorithm.

Hinge’s algorithm plays a key role in providing you with potential matches based on your preferences and previous activity using the app.

Hinge’s unique algorithm collects your answers to your profile prompts, tracks how you swipe left or right on other users, notes how other users respond to you, and takes into account which matches you end up going on dates with and how well you report back that those dates went.

This intricate data-driven process helps Hinge figure out your dating style and allows it to suggest potential matches who share your interests, values, experiences, or just general dating style and preference. The algorithm does a lot to figure out compatibility.

Read: Cracking Hinge’s Algorithm to Boost Your Profile Visibility

Making the Most of the Algorithm

To make the algorithm has all the data it needs to work better in favor, make sure to interact with the app regularly and swipe on other users.

When you send likes on Hinge or pass on users, that helps the algorithm learn about you and update its method of suggesting you new users. It improves the quality of the matches it provides you and makes it more likely that you’ll find someone you’re genuinely interested who’s also interested in you back.

Your profile preferences on Hinge impact this algorithm matching process as well.

Put some thought into what preferences you select on Hinge to help the algorithm find more suitable users for you. Keep in mind that Hinge focuses on quality rather than quantity when it comes to matches, so take your time and be thoughtful in your behaviors on the app.

By taking these steps, you can make the most of Hinge’s powerful algorithm and matching process, ultimately increasing your chances of finding a meaningful connection with another user.

Read: Why the First Message on Hinge Matters So Much

Hinge Upgrades and Premium Plans

Hinge has premium subscription plans that gives you access to a range of extra features that can give you more power in finding the right match for you.

These include Hinge+ and HingeX.

When you subscribe to a premium plan, you gain access to set advanced preferences and dealbreakers in your profile settings. This allows you to specify more nuanced characteristics of what type of people you’d like to meet on Hinge. You can filter your potential matches based on not just gender, age, and distance but also things like religion and political preference.

Another big benefit of upgrading to a Hinge premium plan is that you can send unlimited likes.

The free version of Hinge only lets you send a limited number of likes a day. However, as a Hinge subscriber, you can send as many likes as you want, which can improve your chances of connecting with other users and forming new matches.

Want Help Creating a Great Hinge Profile?

We at The Match Lab have spent years studying the science of how to write good Hinge prompts and how to select the right photos to use in a Hinge profile.

After years of research, we have developed a dating photo analyzer that uses an algorithm to select any person’s best photos for Hinge, or any other dating app. Just upload some photos of yourself, and our algorithm will reveal which photos you should be using in your Hinge profile and the ideal order they should go in.

We also offer professional dating profile writing services. Our professional Hinge profile writer can write your Hinge prompts for you and help your profile shine.

Get started now, or learn more about us on our website, so you can start getting more likes and better matches on Hinge.

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