If you have a penchant for rich people or are really worried that no one on Bumble is seeing your beguiling profile (why else wouldn’t you have found love yet, you’re a catch!), the dating app just launched a new feature that you’re sure to find appealing. It’s basically Bumble’s version of Tinder’s “Boost” feature, but called Spotlight. It puts a user’s profile front and center on people’s swipe page for 30 minutes, making their profile really hard to ignore.
Of course, putting yourself at the top of the pile of potential love matches is too good a perk to just give away for free: Users have to pay two Bumble Coins, or $1.99.
If you do decide to pay, don’t worry. Spotlight doesn’t call out those who ponied up to get some eyes on their profile, so potential dates won’t be suspicious about why someone is first in line for their possible affection. They’ll just think Bumble’s secret algorithm put you two together, which it did, but it also let someone elbow their way to the front of the pack for a better shot.
As mentioned, the concept is comparable to Tinder’s Boost feature, and TechCrunch notes that it also has the same name to a similar feature on Hey! Vina, the female-friend-finding app backed in part by Tinder. It’s just the latest volley in the ongoing war between the dating apps that are crowding the digital matchmaking space.
We reached out to Bumble for comment and this is what they had to say about Spotlight, when grilled about whether their new feature would favor the rich:
We’re excited to launch the Spotlight feature, which allows our users to put themselves “in the spotlight” and be shown to more potential matches for a defined period of time. Who you are shown is dictated by our proprietary algorithm, which considers lots of factors – so no, we aren’t concerned that Spotlight will skew results only to those who pay. In addition, we’ve always approached our paid and unpaid features in a balanced way and priced them accessibly, and our payer penetration metrics – especially our industry-leading rate of women payers – indicates that our audience is excited by the features we offer.
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