HER Dating App Review: The Queer Women's App That Got Bought by Big Dating

What Is the HER Dating App? (And Who's It Actually For?)

HER is a dating app built specifically for queer women, non-binary folks, and trans people. Cis men are explicitly not welcome. If you're a straight dude who stumbled onto HER hoping for a two-for-one deal, close the app and go think about what you did.

The app was founded in 2013 by Robyn Exton, a British queer entrepreneur who quit her day job because she was tired of the existing dating apps treating queer women as an afterthought. Originally called "Dattch" (a name that sounds like something you'd sneeze out), it rebranded to HER in 2015 and took off.

Today it sits at 14 million+ registered users across 125+ countries. That sounds massive. And it is, on paper. The reality is more like 350,000 weekly active users, which puts things in perspective. For context, Bumble has around 45 million monthly active users. So HER is punching above its weight for a niche app, but it's still a niche app.

Then came May 2025. Match Group, the conglomerate that owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and roughly half the dating apps on the planet, acquired HER. Robyn Exton stayed on and said all the right things: "We are not a niche. We are not an afterthought." Which is exactly what you say when a corporation writes you a very large check. More on this later.

On the App Store, HER holds a 4.4/5 rating with over 60,500 ratings and an Editors' Choice badge. Google Play is less impressed at 3.7/5. The gap probably tells you something about the iOS vs Android experience.

How HER Actually Works (Spoiler: It's Not Just Another Swipe Fest)

Here's where HER gets interesting. And yes, I realize I'm a straight man writing 3,000 words about a queer women's dating app. I contain multitudes. Anyway.

It's not just Tinder with a rainbow filter. It's part dating app, part social network, and that hybrid approach is either its greatest strength or its identity crisis, depending on who you ask.

Profile Setup

Setting up your HER profile feels like filling out the world's most inclusive census form. You get 20+ sexuality options, 21+ gender identity options, pronouns, and "pride pins" you can stick on your profile. If you've ever felt boxed in by an app that gives you three gender options and calls it progressive, HER will feel like a breath of fresh air.

The Matching

The matching interface uses a heart/X system instead of traditional swiping. It's functionally the same thing, but HER desperately wants you to know it's different. You heart someone, they heart you back, you match. Revolutionary? No. But it works.

The Feed

This is where HER separates itself. The Feed is basically a social media timeline baked into a dating app. Users post thoughts, questions, memes, rants about their exes. You can comment, like, and interact. It's like if Instagram and Tinder had a baby and that baby was very, very gay.

Community Chat Rooms

HER has 30+ community chat rooms organized by interest and identity. Queer Women of Color, Mindfulness, Astrology, Gaming. Whatever your thing is, there's probably a room for it. These rooms are genuinely great for people who want community first and dating second. No other dating app for women does anything like this.

Events

HER organizes real-life LGBTQ+ events. Cocktail parties, concerts, meetups. These vary wildly by city (more on the geography problem later), but the concept is solid. Meeting people in person through an app that already filtered for your orientation is a pretty good deal.

The "Add Friend" Feature

You can add people as friends for platonic connections. Because sometimes you don't want to date someone but you do want a hiking buddy who won't ask why you have a rainbow bumper sticker.

What HER Doesn't Have

No web version. Mobile only, iOS and Android. And here's the kicker: registration requires Facebook or Instagram. No email-only signup. For an app serving a community where plenty of users are closeted or live in places where being outed could be dangerous, requiring a social media link is a baffling choice. But we'll get to that.

HER Pricing: What's Free and What'll Cost You

Let's talk money. HER's free tier is more generous than most dating apps, which is a refreshing change from the "pay us $40/month to see who liked you" model that Hinge and Bumble are running.

Free Tier

• Basic matching (heart/X interface)
• Messaging (you can actually talk to your matches without paying. Wild concept, I know.)
• Community chat rooms
• Events
• The Feed

Premium

• $14.99/month on a monthly plan
• Around $10/month for 6 months
• About $7.50/month on an annual plan

What Premium Unlocks

• Discover page: See everyone who's liked you. The ego boost feature.
• Unlimited likes: Because apparently the free tier has limits (it does).
• Incognito mode: Browse without being seen. For the lurkers.
• Read receipts: So you can confirm they're ignoring you on purpose.
• No ads: Self-explanatory.
• Location change: Swipe in other cities before you visit.
• Profile rewind: Undo your last swipe.

Is Premium Worth It?

Honestly? It depends on where you live. If you're in New York, LA, London, or any major city with a solid queer population, the Discover page and unlimited likes are genuinely useful. If you're in a town of 15,000 people, you're paying $15/month to see the same three profiles in a fancier wrapper.

Compared to the competition: Tinder Plus costs around $9.99/month, Hinge+ runs about $34.99/month, and Bumble Premium will set you back roughly $39.99/month. HER's premium is reasonably priced. Not cheap, but not highway robbery either.

The Match Group Acquisition (The Elephant in the Room)

Let's address the thing everyone's been talking about since May 2025.

Match Group bought HER. Match Group, the company that turned Tinder into a dopamine slot machine, hollowed out OkCupid until it was unrecognizable, and has a documented track record of acquiring dating apps and slowly squeezing them for profit. That Match Group.

Robyn Exton's public stance has been optimistic. She's staying on. She says the acquisition will bring resources and scale. And maybe she's right. Maybe Match Group will be a good steward of a queer community app. And maybe I'll win a Pulitzer for writing dating app reviews.

The community reaction on Reddit was about what you'd expect. "Delete your data" threads. Calls to switch to alternatives. People mourning the app before it even changed. And honestly? Their concerns aren't unreasonable.

The Legitimate Worries

Data privacy: HER's user base includes people who are closeted, people in countries where being LGBTQ+ is criminalized, and people who simply don't want their orientation shared with a corporation that also owns Tinder. Match Group now has access to all of that data. That's not nothing.

Paywall creep: Match Group's playbook with every acquisition is the same. Buy the app, keep it free-ish for a while, then slowly lock more features behind a paywall until the free version is barely functional. They did it with OkCupid. They did it with Plenty of Fish. There's no reason to think HER is immune.

Feature degradation: When Match Group acquired OkCupid, they stripped out the detailed compatibility questions that made it unique and turned it into another swipe app. HER's community features are what make it special. If those get gutted, there's no reason to use HER over any mainstream app with a "women seeking women" filter.

What's Actually Changed (As of March 2026)

Honestly? Not much visible yet. The app looks and feels the same. No major features have been removed. No dramatic price hikes. But it's only been ten months. Match Group plays the long game. I watched them gut OkCupid in slow motion over three years. Ask any OkCupid user how their app looked two years after acquisition versus five years after.

The tension is real. HER needs Match Group's money and infrastructure to compete. Match Group needs HER to access a demographic they've historically ignored. Whether that relationship stays mutually beneficial or turns parasitic is the question nobody can answer yet.

The Bot Problem (Yeah, We're Going There)

Every dating app has bots and scammers. HER is no exception, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

Fake profiles and romance scams are a real issue on the platform. HER has selfie verification (you take a photo matching a specific pose to prove you're real), but it's not foolproof. Scammers adapt. They always do.

There's also the persistent problem of cis men creating profiles on HER despite being explicitly excluded. Some do it out of curiosity, some do it because they think they're being clever, and some do it because they're genuinely terrible people. HER's moderation catches some of them, but users regularly report profiles that are obviously not queer women.

And then there's the uglier issue that lives inside the community itself. Transphobia. Profiles that say "no trans" or "cis women only." HER markets itself as inclusive of trans women and non-binary people, but the user base doesn't always reflect that. The app can set policies. It can't force its users to not be bigots.

Protect Yourself

• Use the selfie verification feature yourself and look for it on others
• Don't share personal info (address, workplace) before meeting
• Video chat before meeting in person
• Report suspicious profiles. HER's moderation team does act on reports.
• Trust your gut. If something feels off, it probably is.

HER vs. The Competition (For Queer Women Specifically)

If you're a queer woman looking for a dating app, your options are more limited than you'd think. Let's break them down.

HER vs. Tinder/Bumble/Hinge

Mainstream apps all have options for queer users. You can set your preferences. You can match with women. But the design, the culture, and the algorithm are all built around heterosexual dating. Our SwipeStats data from 7,000+ dating profiles shows the average match rate on mainstream apps sits around 1-2% for most users. The average male right-swipe rate is 53%, while the average female is 34%. Queer women on mainstream apps often report seeing fewer potential matches and running into the "is she actually gay or just set her preferences wrong" problem constantly.

HER solves the orientation question by default. Everyone on HER is queer. That alone is worth something.

HER vs. Taimi

Taimi covers the broader LGBTQIA+ spectrum and has been ranked higher by some relationship therapists. One therapist actually ranked HER third behind Taimi and Hinge for queer users. Taimi has video calls, a social feed similar to HER's, and group chats. It's the closest direct competitor.

HER vs. Lex

Lex is text-based. No photos. Very different vibe. It's like if Craigslist Missed Connections went to a liberal arts college and got a poetry degree. If you prioritize personality over appearance, Lex might be more your speed. But if you want to know what someone looks like before you commit to a coffee date, HER wins.

The Geography Problem

This is the real killer for all queer-specific apps. HER works well in major metros. New York, LA, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Sydney. If you're in a big city with a visible queer community, you'll have a solid experience.

If you live in a rural area or a smaller city? You're going to run out of profiles fast. And "fast" might mean "within the first ten minutes of using the app." There's no algorithm trick or premium feature that can fix a user pool that doesn't exist. This isn't HER's fault. It's just math. But it's worth knowing before you invest time (or money) in it.

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautifully Queer

The Good

• Identity customization that actually means something. 20+ sexuality options, 21+ gender identities, pronouns, pride pins. This isn't performative inclusivity. It's built into every interaction.
• Community features nobody else offers. The chat rooms, events, and feed create an actual community. Not just a pile of profiles. This is what the best dating apps should aspire to.
• Free messaging. You match, you talk. No paywall between you and a conversation. Take notes, Hinge.
• Queer-founded and led. Robyn Exton built this from lived experience, not market research. (For now, at least, with Match Group lurking.)
• Real-world events. An app that gets you off the app. What a concept.

The Bad

• The name. "HER" doesn't exactly scream inclusivity for non-binary and trans users. The app has evolved past its name, and the name hasn't caught up.
• Bots and fake profiles. Real problem. Not unique to HER, but frustrating.
• Ghost town outside big cities. If you can't see a Pride parade from your apartment, your user pool might be single digits.
• Key features behind a paywall. The Discover page and unlimited likes should arguably be free for a community app.
• No web version. Mobile only in 2026 is a choice.
• Facebook/Instagram required for signup. This is actively harmful for closeted users or anyone with legitimate safety concerns. For an app that serves a vulnerable community, this is an inexcusable design decision.
• Match Group now owns your data. If that doesn't concern you, it should.

Is the HER Dating App Worth It? The Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 3.8/5

HER is the best option specifically built for queer women, non-binary, and trans people. Not because it's perfect. It's not. The bot problem is real, the geographic limitations are brutal, and the Match Group acquisition casts a shadow over its future.

But the community features are genuinely unique. No other dating app gives you chat rooms, events, a social feed, AND a matching system designed specifically for queer users. The free tier is generous enough to be actually usable. And the identity customization puts every mainstream app to shame.

Best for: Queer women, non-binary, and trans people in major metro areas who want dating AND community in one app.

Skip it if: You're in a rural area, you need a web version, you refuse to link Facebook or Instagram, or the idea of Match Group having your data keeps you up at night.

My honest take: Download it for free. Try the community features. See if your area has enough users to make the matching worthwhile. If it clicks, consider premium. If your area's a desert, keep it installed for the chat rooms and events listings, and supplement with a mainstream app that has more local users. Upload your data from whatever apps you're using and see how you're actually performing before you blame the platform.

FAQ: The Stuff People Always Ask

Is HER dating app free?

Yes, with limitations. The free tier includes matching, messaging, community rooms, and the feed. Premium starts at $14.99/month and unlocks features like seeing who liked you, unlimited likes, and incognito mode.

How much does HER cost?

$14.99/month on a monthly plan. About $10/month for 6 months. Around $7.50/month on an annual plan. Cheaper than Hinge and Bumble's premium tiers, pricier than Tinder Plus.

Is the HER dating app safe?

Mostly. HER has selfie verification, profile reporting, and active moderation. Standard dating app precautions apply: meet in public, tell a friend, video chat first. The bigger safety concern for some users is the Facebook/Instagram signup requirement and what that means for privacy, especially post-Match Group acquisition.

Can men use HER?

No. Cis men are explicitly excluded. The app is for queer women, non-binary, and trans people. If you're a cis dude reading this out of curiosity (hi), check out our Tinder review instead.

Is HER worth the premium?

It depends entirely on your city's user density. In New York or London? Probably. In a town where the nearest Pride event is three hours away? Save your money.

Is HER legit?

Yes. It's been operating for 13+ years, has 60,000+ App Store ratings, an Editors' Choice badge from Apple, and is now backed by Match Group (for better or worse). It's not a scam. Whether it's the right app for you is a different question.

Sources

• DatingScout HER Review
• Global Dating Insights: Match Group Acquires HER
• Apple App Store: HER
• Bloomberg: Match Group Acquisition Coverage