Match Group’s newest app is tailor-made for the nearly 20 million single parents in the U.S. who are looking for a partner with a similar lifestyle.
Named Stir, the app’s biggest differentiating feature from other Match-owned dating services is its ability to share personal schedules with other singles. Intended to make dating easier for those juggling child care duties, the app gives users the ability to mark when they’re free on any given day of the week. Users can also specify whether they’re free in the morning, afternoon or evening.
According to survey data collected by Match, more than half of single parents say they’ve been “ghosted” on a first date and one in five say they’ve been ghosted after someone learns they had kids.
“Having kids shouldn’t be a dealbreaker when dating,” vice president of new verticals at Match Group Dinh Thi Bui said in a statement. “We’re dedicated to giving single parents a dating experience where they are celebrated and feel like they can be themselves. With that, our hope is that they can truly focus on having a personal life beyond navigating parenthood.”
Stir is free to use and will also offer premium paid features like many of Match Group’s other dating apps including Tinder. The first paid tier for Stir begins at $40 per month, which allows users to message others before they match and control who sees their profile. Users can pay more to use “Super Likes” or to boost their profile in the dating app’s algorithm. Stir also offer multi-month subscriptions at a discount.
Single parents living in America could potentially be a large market for dating app services. The U.S. has the highest rate of children living in single parent households, according to a Pew Research study from 2019. And Dallas-based Match’s largest competition in the single parent dating space might be itself.
A 2020 Cosmopolitan ranking of the six best dating apps for single parents includes four Match-owned platforms — Match.com, OKCupid, PlentyOfFish and SingleParentMeet. It also names Elite Singles and eHarmony. Of these services, only SingleParentMeet caters to single parents. But several years ago, PlentyOfFish analyzed its own data and found that 44% of its female users were single moms.
Last week, Match Group rolled out a long-anticipated background check feature for Tinder that allows users to run a criminal background check on someone else for $2.50 per check. Match was able to incorporate the new security feature after it acquired nonprofit background checking company Garbo, and it plans to add it to its other dating services in the future.
Match Group expanded its revenue by 24% year over year in 2021. Match’s Hinge dating app, in particular, saw tremendous growth in 2021, doubling revenue over the previous year. Match plans to launch Hinge in non-English speaking markets over the course of 2022. Match has also been experimenting with new ways of dating and socializing since acquiring Seoul-headquartered tech firm Hyperconnect for $1.7 billion.
