About The Dating Academy

The Dating Academy is an independent, primary-source guide to how the dating-app industry actually works. We read the SEC filings, the pricing pages and the court documents so you don't have to — and we cite our sources and flag our confidence on every figure.

What we stand for

• No money from the apps. Every “best dating apps” list that ranks for these terms earns a commission from the apps it reviews. We don't — so we can tell you when the honest answer is “don't pay.”
• Primary sources or it didn't happen. Revenue figures are checked against the SEC's own data; quotes are verified verbatim against the filings; prices are dated snapshots — confirmed against the apps' own listings where we can, and flagged where we can't.
• We flag what we can't verify. Contested stats are labelled as contested. Snapshot prices are dated. We'd rather say “unverified” than pretend.
• We don't monetise your loneliness. Our mission is to help you understand the game well enough to spend less, choose better, or walk away.

How we're funded

The site is free. In time we may sell our own guides or run non-conflicted, clearly-disclosed referrals to services that aren't dating apps. We will never take affiliate income from a dating app, because that would compromise the one thing we're for.

A note on authorship

Our data and filings analysis is editorial and fully sourced. It's published under The Dating Academy Editorial Team— an accountable collective masthead, not a fabricated individual. We never invent a persona or a fake headshot; when a named expert contributes to a “your money or your life” piece, we credit them by name. See our methodology.