Wall Street feels swipe fatigue as Match Group shares tumble, signaling an opening for new dating startups

• Stocks for the parent companies of Tinder and Bumble wavered this week after the companies reported earnings.
• Tinder cautioned investors it expected another drop in paying users in the fourth quarter.

Singles aren't the only ones feeling the ache from dating app fatigue — Wall Street is too.

Match Group shares dropped more than 18% on Thursday after the company said paying users on its largest app, Tinder, fell 4% to 9.9 million in the third quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. The company projected another year-over-year decline in paying users in the fourth quarter, as well. Hinge was a highlight, with third-quarter revenue growing 36% year-over-year — although the app has not yet reached the scale of sibling app Tinder.

Bumble Inc., meanwhile, said Wednesday it saw 10% growth in paying users on its signature app in the most recent quarter, to 2.9 million. But average spending per user dropped 10%. Bumble users can pay for different subscription tiers ranging from $59.99 to $79.99 per month, which allows them to extend time on matches and filter through their swipes.

Bumble, Inc. revenue overall was relatively flat — dropping 0.7% to $274 million year-over-year. Its shares are down 45% year-to-date. Match shares are down more than 16% in the same period.

Deflating investor energy around dating apps mirrors a national outcry of "swipe fatigue," following a decade of the apps' meteoric rise. A national survey by Forbes Health in July reported that 78% of respondents, across all generations, sometimes felt "emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted" by dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble.

The major dating apps are fighting to prove their continuing relevance, especially with hungry startup founders waiting in the wings to disrupt the $5 billion industry, according to research firm Business of Apps.

"I want to scare the shit out of Hinge and Bumble — all of them," influencer Serena Kerrigan, who started her own dating service on Instagram, told Business Insider in August. "I want to really disrupt the space."

Dating apps scramble to stay on top

Dating app leaders are pivoting to tackle swipe fatigue and encourage more meaningful user experiences through limits on matches and changes to who can start conversations.

Bumble, for example, was built on the premise of letting women make the first move in a match. Only women could send the first message in a conversation. In April, the company announced a new feature called "Opening Moves" that lets men message first in response to a pre-selected question from the woman in the match.

Similarly, Hinge announced in September that it would limit users' simultaneous match conversations to reduce unanswered messages. The company said it helped "daters shift their mindset from quantity to quality of matches" and encouraged users to follow through with their matches. On Match Group's earnings call, the company signaled that this new feature was already helping increase response rates on the app.

The apps are also trying to expand beyond dating.

Earlier this year, Bumble acquired Geneva, a group chat app for niche communities like book clubs, for $17 million. Bumble founder and chair Whitney Wolfe Herd said during Bloomberg's Technology Summit in May that the platform "will not be a dating app in a few years" and instead one for broader "human connection."

Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones said in an earnings release that the company is executing "plans to reimagine Bumble App to enable the next generation of online-to-real-world connections."

To that end, the company has a lineup of product releases prepared for 2025, a Bumble spokesperson said.

As users grow frustrated with dating app fees and algorithms, new startup founders are entering the space. Some are building new styles of finding love like Fourplay's double date experience, prioritizing date-planning in the app like First Round's on Me, or testing ways to turn an AI chatbot into a matchmaker like Sitch. Others are ditching the app experience altogether too with businesses focused on IRL events that get people off their phones and meeting people face-to-face.

If dating giants like Match and Bumble continue to report slow growth and see shaky stocks for quarters to come, some of these smaller startups might stand a chance to break through and compete.