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Tinder CEO Reveals The App Uses Secret Ratings

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Tinder CEO Reveals The App Uses Secret Ratings

Trending News: Your Secret Tinder Rating Determines How Hot Your Matches Are

Why Is This Important?

Because Tinder isn't the free for all it appears to be.

Long Story Short

In an interview with Fast Company, Tinder CEO Sean Rad revealed that the app uses a complicated algorithm to rate the desirability of its users. The result is theoretically more compatible matches.

Long Story

Have you ever opened Tinder, started swiping around and thought "damn, where are all the hotties at?" If so, it may not be because (or at least not just because) you choose to live under a bridge: Tinder CEO Sean Rad revealed in an interview with Fast Company that Tinder uses a secret algorithm to rate the desirability of its users. While the company believes it results in more even, compatible matches, the reality is that if you're constantly getting matched with a bunch of "2/10 would not bangs," it means you're no prize yourself.

The company, however, is quick to deny that the rating (called an "elo score") is a simple product of how many people swipe right on you, or even how attractive your profile is.

"It’s not just how many people swipe right on you," Rad told Fast Company. "It’s very complicated. It took us two and a half months just to build the algorithm because a lot of factors go into it."

"Every swipe is in a way casting a vote: I find this person more desirable than this person, whatever motivated you to swipe right. It might be because of attractiveness, or it might be because they had a really good profile," said data analyst Chris Dumler.

The algorithm is most effective when it takes into account not how many people swipe right on you, but how many people swipe right who you've also swiped right on. Rad, an avowed gamer, likens it to the popular MMORPG "World of Warcraft" — the better you perform against an opponent with a higher experience level, the higher your level rises in return. On Tinder, it means that if the hot babe you (obviously) swiped right on also swipes right on you, you must be quite the stud.

Tinder has campaigned for some time now to create more meaningful matches in an attempt to fight its image as an entertainment/hookup app. Anecdotally, no one I've talked to takes it seriously, having moved on to seemingly more sophisticated apps like Hinge and Bumble. In the end, it's probably best that the scores remain secret. It's actually impressive if Tinder can succeed in making matches that are likely to result in mutual right-swiping, but that doesn't mean the users want to know it was because they're both on the low end of average.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Should the scores be available to the users?

Disrupt Your Feed

Ah, but what will my score be once I update my profile photo with my cool new haircut?

Drop This Fact

According to data from rival dating app Hinge, men who end up in relationships are more selective, swiping right less often on average.

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