Honest cost breakdown for building a dating app — from a minimal MVP to a full-featured platform. No agency fluff, just real numbers.
MVP cost
$5,000
Full platform
up to $50,000
MVP timeline
3–5 weeks
Our delivery
21 days
Typical agency rates. Freelancers may be cheaper upfront but rarely stay within budget.
| Feature | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Auth + profile creation | $600 | $2,500 |
| Swipe / matching engine | $800 | $3,500 |
| Real-time chat | $1,000 | $4,000 |
| Location + discovery | $500 | $2,000 |
| Premium subscriptions (RevenueCat) | $600 | $2,500 |
| Photo storage + moderation | $400 | $1,500 |
| Push notifications | $300 | $1,000 |
| Total range | $4,200 | $17,000 |
Our fixed-price MVP bundles all core features for $5,000 — no hourly surprises.
| Option | Cost | Timeline | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency (fixed price)← Us | $5,000 – $50,000 | 3–8 weeks | Low |
| Freelancer (hourly) | $6,000 – $75,000 | 2–6 months | High |
| No-code (Bubble / Webflow) | $2,000 – $6,000 | 2–6 weeks | Medium (lock-in) |
| In-house team | $250,000+/year | 6–18 months | Very high |
React Native / Expo
iOS and Android apps
Supabase
Auth, profiles, and matching logic
RevenueCat
iOS/Android subscriptions
Cloudflare R2
Photo and media storage
Book a free 30-min call. We'll scope your MVP and give you an exact price before you commit to anything.
A dating app MVP (profiles, matching, chat, subscriptions) costs $12,000–$40,000. A full Tinder clone with video, advanced filters, identity verification, and AI matching is $100,000+.
A basic v1 matching algorithm is proximity + mutual like — no ML needed. It's a simple SQL query filtering by distance, age range, and gender preference. AI recommendation layers come in v2 once you have data.
Niche dating apps (farmers, professionals, faith-based, sports) have much lower competition and can reach critical mass faster. The tech is identical — the differentiation is in the community you target.