Today, dating app Tinder launches a group chat feature called Group Hangouts in the U.S. It builds on the app’s Double Date Mode to help form connections through friends and groups. With Group Hangouts, three or more people can add an IRL activity, like karaoke, and find other groups with shared interests to start chatting and matching.
“Double Date proved something we suspected all along, young singles want their friends in the mix when they’re meeting someone new,” Tinder‘s chief product officer, Mark Kantor, stated in a press release shared with Mashable. “Group Hangouts takes that even further, and we think it’s going to be one of the most fun things we’ve ever built on Tinder.“
How Tinder’s Group Hangouts work
Step 1:
Start a group
One person creates a group, picks an activity, and invites at least two friends to join.
Step 2:
Browse and match as a group
Once a group has at least three members, it appears in other users’ main Tinder stack (how people discover each other on the app). Your group can discover other groups, Like them, and match if it’s mutual.
Step 3:
Take it offline
Once your group matches with another, you can chat together and make IRL plans.
Forty percent of Group Hangouts invitations were accepted in early tests in Australia. Once in a group, women were 2.2 times more likely to Like a group profile than a traditional profile. This is similar to the positive results Tinder saw when it first launched Double Date in June 2025, in which women were three times more likely to Like a pair than individual profiles.
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Early tests of the Double Date feature also found that those matches exchanged 35 percent more messages than traditional one-on-one matches. And, given that 90 percent of Double Date users were under 30 during testing, it signals to Tinder that Gen Z daters are interested in dating with friends.
Mashable Trend Report
Groups can vary in size, but everyone must have their own Tinder account and profile. Individuals choose to join and can leave a conversation without leaving the Group. Users can also block and report other people.
Group Hangouts is the latest in a growing trend of dating apps involving other people in singles’ orbits to help them find love. Hinge recently launched Friend’s Take, a way for a user’s loved ones to vouch for them on the app.
This goes hand in hand with an increasing desire to meet people in person rather than on one’s phone. This summer, Eventbrite reported a spike in the use of the phrase “meet cute” in event listings, with hobby-based outings doubling as socializing opportunities.
Apps are trying to capitalize on that, as well. In July, Tinder expanded its Events feature to several major cities, so singles can find IRL events and match with other attendees. And former Tinder executive, Taru Kapoor, just launched a “social matching” app called Rivet.
Group Hangouts is now available in the U.S. and select markets, and will roll out to more areas soon.
