Tinder is leaning into dating apps’ reputation for superficiality with the launch of a new feature that lets paid subscribers add their height preferences to their profiles.
After a Reddit user posted a photo of the new height setting in the Tinder app, a company spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the discovery setting has been launched as a global test.
Tinder Gold and Premium subscribers in the test group will have access to the feature, but not free users, we’re told. In addition, the setting will indicate a preference, rather than functioning as a “hard filter,” the company says. That means it won’t actually block or exclude profiles but instead inform recommendations.
“We’re always listening to what matters most to our Tinder users — and testing the paid height preference is a great example of how we’re building with urgency, clarity, and focus,” said Phil Price Fry, VP Comms at Tinder, in an emailed statement. “This is part of a broader effort to help people connect more intentionally on Tinder. Our new product principles guide every decision, and this one speaks directly to a few: prioritizing user outcomes, moving fast, and learning quickly. Not every test becomes a permanent feature, but every test helps us learn how we can deliver smarter, more relevant experiences and push the category forward.”
While typically dating apps let users filter for people by more traditional concerns, like someone’s age or whether they want a long-term relationship or kids, the height setting is likely to cause more controversy and concern.
Since the rise of online dating, a focus on someone’s physicality — like their looks or size — has become a primary factor in determining who’s worth a match. Tinder helped accelerate this trend thanks to its user interface, which puts a heavy emphasis on looking through people’s photos. Other Tinder users often quickly react to those photos with left or right swipes to indicate interest.
In addition to exposing people’s preferences for the conventionally attractive, dating apps’ popularity led to a culture where a bias toward taller men became the norm. It’s not uncommon to come across profiles where women state they’re only looking for matches who are at least 6 feet tall, for instance — even if in real life they’d be more flexible about this requirement.
Tinder has even poked fun at this trend in previous years, like when it made an April Fools’ Day announcement that it would introduce a “height verification” feature in its app. (Many men didn’t find this particular joke funny.) The height bias has also been the subject of other parodies, like when designer Soren Iverson imagined a version of Tinder that let men override users’ height requirements for a fee.
The company may hope that the addition of a height setting could encourage more women to use and pay for the app, which tends to be more heavily dominated by men both in the U.S. and internationally.
The test’s launch follows Tinder parent Match’s recent earnings, which revealed a 5% fall in paying users. Paid subscribers across Match’s dating apps fell to 14.2 million in the first quarter, down from 14.9 million users a year ago. The company is in the middle of another CEO transition, with Match CEO Spencer Rascoff set to run Tinder too later this summer.
