We may have finally solved the mystery of the reported $500 per month Grindr subscription. According to the company’s CEO, it doesn’t exist.
But still, questions persist…
Earlier this year, Grindr rolled out a new premier tier called EDGE. Powered by AI–or as Grindr calls it, “gAI
”–the feature seeks to eliminate friction from the user experience. The AI service recaps previous chats, recommends profiles and provides additional info about users and whether they’re a “likely match.”
When EDGE was first released in February, Business Insider reported that monthly subscriptions cost between $349.99 and $499.99. Multiple outlets ran with the eye-popping $499.99 figure, rounding up to a clean $500.
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In its report, Business Insider cites “screenshots posted online” that show the EDGE subscription rate runs up to $500 per month. But none of those apparent screenshots are included in the article. There is a screenshot that shows EDGE costs $349.99 per month, which is still an absurd figure, but not quite $500.
When we asked Grindr about EDGE’s price tag, a company spokesperson said test pricing started at $80 weekly and was subject to change over time. At $80 per week, EDGE would cost $320 per month.
Six months in, Grindr says it intends a broader rollout of EDGE later this fall. As far as the price, CEO George Arison disputed in a recent earnings call the widely reported $500 figure.
He clarified they tested EDGE pricing at $500 in Canadian dollars, not U.S. dollars. “There is this information out there in the ether that we tested a $500 price point for it. We actually haven’t,” he said. “We tested a CAD $500 for it, which is not the same. We never tested a $500 price in the U.S.”
Gay financial expert Nick Wolny laid out the pertinent details from that call in a fresh video. Interestingly, he inserts a screenshot that shows the $499.99 monthly figure for EDGE.
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Regardless of EDGE’s price, the main takeaway from Grindr’s Q2 earnings is that the company continues to rake in record revenue. Grindr now expects revenue of at least $540 million this year, an increase of nearly 25% over 2025. Overall, second-quarter revenue was up 33% year-over-year.
Despite the exorbitant prices attached to premier services, Grindr’s subscription revenue keeps skyrocketing. App-based revenue increased by 30%.
Surprisingly, Arison says Grindr is seeing users convert to EDGE “who are not payers at all.” That means all sorts of people are forking over hundreds per month for an AI-powered grid assistant–not just folks who were already subscribed to the platform’s paid versions.
An endemic part of gay culture, Grindr continues to be the app that gays just can’t quit. For years, gays have complained about the company’s enshittified free version and expensive subscriptions.
Yet, they keep using it. In the earnings call, Arison says Grindr works to maintain a “robust free offering.”
Indeed, the vast majority of Grindr users stick with the free version. Though it’s a husk of its former self, it remains juuust usable enough for people to keep logging on.
A publicly traded company, Grindr is desperately trying to shed its reputation as a “hookup-only” app. This spring, Grindr threw its first D.C. party, and collaborated with Madonna for a surprise pop-up show in Times Square.
On the call, Arison said that Grindr “is a very known brand,” but not yet a “loved brand.”
“A lot of what we’re doing in marketing is going from being known to being loved,” he added.
While that part is debatable, Grindr is certainly more profitable. For shareholders, that’s all that matters.
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