Grindr trials premium $500 per month plan to become 'AI-first' app

Grindr just soft-launched EDGE, a super-premium plan priced at $349.99–$499.99 a month, promising an “AI-first” experience with conversation recaps, daily profile picks, and compatibility tips. It won’t replace Unlimited, and it’s being tested in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. But online, the mood is less “innovate” and more “are you kidding?” One viral jab: “$500 a month? At that point just hire a matchmaker and a therapist.” Another cut deep: “You can spend as much money as you want… but if you’re chopped, you’re chopped.”

The community is split between eye-rolls and existential dread. Skeptics say an app about human connection shouldn’t go “AI-first,” while snarkers mocked Grindr’s branded gAI as a flex and asked what the pricey bot actually does beyond summarizing chats. Some dreamt up alternatives: an app that blind-books your dates and learns from your yes/no after; others called for an open, privacy-first dating platform with no data harvesting. A few tried to see the upside—recaps might help anxious texters—but the dominant vibe is that AI matchmaking won’t fix the real problem: chemistry.

Grindr says EDGE will make things “faster, smarter, more personalized” in its blog post. The comments say: faster, smarter, or not, $500 is wild.