Grindr revenue triples as CEO bets on 'everything app'

When George Arison took over Grindr in 2022, the company was generating cash but had no clear product or business strategy, he has said. Four years, a SPAC listing, and a controversial return-to-office mandate later, Grindr’s revenue is on pace to roughly triple, from $195 million in 2022 to a guided $540 million-plus this year, with adjusted EBITDA margins holding above 40%.

That growth has come almost entirely from getting existing customers to pay more rather than from a bigger user base. In the second quarter of this year, Grindr had 1.4 million paying users — 9% of its total user base — and average revenue per user has risen considerably since 2022. Later this year, Grindr plans to roll out “EDGE,” a far pricier subscription tier above its existing XTRA ($23.99) and Unlimited ($44.99) plans, using AI-driven behavioral matching; one tested price point worked out to roughly $350–375 a month in Canada, drawing online mockery before Grindr clarified it was one test point among several, not a final price.

Arison has also been pushing back on what he calls a persistent “Grindr discount,” citing an investor who once showed him a financial model with a “Grindr discount” line item knocking 25% off a fair-value estimate. Even so, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Raymond James have all raised their price targets on the stock this year, and Morgan Stanley upgraded it to “overweight” in July, part of a run-up that has seen the stock climb roughly a third over the past six months. The stock still trades at roughly 11 times 2027 EBITDA — about a 35% discount to peers.

Beyond dating, Grindr is expanding into healthcare and travel under a “gayborhood in your pocket” strategy, though non-subscription revenue — including the new businesses — remains a small fraction of the company’s total.

Why it matters

Grindr’s pivot from a single-purpose dating app toward subscriptions, AI-driven matching, and adjacent services tests whether a niche platform can command a premium multiple once reserved for larger consumer-tech “everything apps.”