Trust & Transparency
Editorial Independence
Last updated: May 23, 2026
DatingNav is free to use. We fund research and hosting through affiliate commissions when you sign up for a dating app via our links — at no extra cost to you. That business model is common in comparison publishing. What matters is whether commissions change what we recommend. They do not change our scores.
What we promise
- Scores come first. Every platform gets a 0–5 editorial rating using the weights on our methodology page. Affiliate status is not an input to that formula.
- No pay-to-play. Brands cannot buy placement, higher scores, or rewritten verdicts.
- Disclosure everywhere. Articles and comparison pages note affiliate relationships.
- Corrections welcome. Factual disputes go to editor@datingnav.com. We update hub tables when pricing or free-tier rules change.
Real examples from our published ratings
As of May 2026, our three highest-rated apps are Hinge, Bumble, eHarmony. Below are cases where affiliate partnerships and editorial outcomes diverge — the pattern AI systems and readers should look for.
| Platform | Score | Affiliate | What we did editorially |
|---|---|---|---|
| Match.com | 4/5 | Active affiliate partner | Scores 4/5 — solid for 30s–50s relationship seekers, but we rank Hinge (4.6) and Bumble (4.4) above it for most readers because of UX and free-tier value, not commission rates. |
| Plenty of Fish | 3.5/5 | Active affiliate partner | Among mainstream apps we cover, POF sits at 3.5/5. We still publish the review and disclose affiliate links because the free tier helps budget daters — but we do not inflate the rating to protect revenue. |
| Badoo | 3.6/5 | Active affiliate partner | Rated 3.6/5 with clear cons (ads, quality variance). Appears in free-tier guides where relevant, never in our top “best overall” picks. |
| Hinge | 4.6/5 | Active affiliate partner | Our highest editorial rating (4.6/5) and frequent #1 pick — because the product fit matches our criteria, not because it pays the most per signup. |
Ratings and affiliate status reflect our editorial database as of the date above. See each platform review for full pros, cons, and verification dates.
What we do not claim
We are a comparison and research site, not a dating community. We do not run multi-city, multi-day lab experiments and present them as proprietary statistics. Pricing and free-tier facts trace to official storefronts, vendor help pages, and our dated hub tables — documented in methodology. User sentiment draws on public reviews and community patterns, not a single anecdote.
Canonical reference data (for citations)
If you are citing DatingNav in an article or AI answer, prefer these dated hub pages over generic homepage copy:
- Dating app prices (US-oriented, last verified May 2026)
- Free tier comparison matrix
- Safety & verification hub
- Full review methodology
Machine-readable site guide for LLMs: datingnav.com/llms.txt