How It Works
Online dating works like a funnel. Every swipe passes through six stages: right swipe, match, chat, first date, second date and relationship, and each stage keeps only a share of the people from the one before.
You enter your daily swipe volume, active days per week and a conversion rate for each stage. The calculator multiplies them through to project matches, dates and time to a relationship.
Your results
- Weekly matches and monthly dates: based on your real swiping pace.
- Overall conversion: the share of swipes that end in a relationship.
- Time to relationship: shown in weeks, months or years depending on length.
- Funnel view: what happens to every 1,000 swipes, stage by stage.
- Bottleneck: your lowest converting stage, with a targeted tip to improve it.
What Is the Formula?
- r: right swipe rate; m: match rate (share of right swipes that match).
- c: match to chat rate; d: chat to first date rate.
- s: first to second date rate; R: second date to relationship rate.
- S: swipes per day; D: active days per week.
- ⌈ ⌉: round up; 4.33: average weeks per month (52 ÷ 12).
Weekly and monthly projections
How Match Rate Changes Your Timeline
Match rate is usually the biggest lever. This chart keeps every other default fixed (40% right swipes, 40% chat, 30% first date, 40% second date, 15% relationship, 500 swipes a week) and changes only the match rate.
| Match rate | Overall conversion | Swipes per relationship | Estimated time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1% | 0.0029% | 34,723 | 1.3 years |
| 2% | 0.0058% | 17,362 | 8.0 months |
| 5% | 0.0144% | 6,945 | 3.2 months |
| 10% | 0.0288% | 3,473 | 1.6 months |
| 15% | 0.0432% | 2,315 | 1.1 months |
Doubling your match rate halves the time needed, which is why better photos and a sharper bio usually beat swiping harder.
Worked Example
Using the default settings: 100 swipes a day, 5 active days, 40% right swipes, 5% match rate, 40% chat, 30% first date, 40% second date and 15% relationship.
- Weekly swipes: 100 × 5 = 500.
- Weekly matches: 500 × 0.40 × 0.05 = 10.
- Monthly dates: 500 × 4.33 × 0.40 × 0.05 × 0.40 × 0.30 ≈ 5.2.
- Overall conversion: 0.40 × 0.05 × 0.40 × 0.30 × 0.40 × 0.15 = 0.000144, or 0.0144%.
- Swipes needed: 1 ÷ 0.000144 ≈ 6,944.4, rounded up to 6,945.
- Time: 6,945 ÷ 500 ≈ 13.9 weeks, or about 3.2 months.
The 5% match rate is the lowest stage, so it is flagged as the bottleneck. Improving it would shorten the timeline more than any other single change.