Bumble

Bumble's listing is written in the language of respect and safety, and it is the only one of the four that names identity verification as a headline feature rather than a footnote. It calls itself a free app for meeting singles, and the framing it repeats is consent and confidence — a commitment to member safety, tools that empower confident dating, messages that must meet community guidelines. The substance behind the framing is ID Verification and video chat, and those are the two worth reading for.

You build a profile with interests and prompts, link Spotify to see what music you have in common, and match. Video chat and sharing pictures are listed as ways to get to know your matches better, and the listing says you can share the details of your meetups with someone you trust. Snooze Mode hides your profile if you want a break while keeping your matches. The one mechanism the page states as a rule rather than a feature is that all messages must meet Bumble's community guidelines — a moderation commitment, and an unusual thing for a store listing to say out loud.

The app is free and the listing offers a good deal for it: profile personalisation, ID Verification, dating advice, Spotify linking, video chat and Snooze Mode are all presented as free features. Premium is what is left — seeing everyone who likes you, advanced filters, rematching expired connections, Incognito Mode, extending a match by 24 hours, unlimited swiping, Travel Mode, and weekly SuperSwipes and Spotlights. The split is honest in a way this category rarely is, because the verification sits on the free side, where it does the most good.

Two things here are stated as behaviours rather than intentions, which puts Bumble above Tinder and below Badoo on this page. The first is ID Verification, offered as a free feature and framed as the way to trust that the person you are talking to is real. The second is the community guidelines rule on messages, which is a moderation commitment rather than a tool. Sharing meetup details with someone you trust is a third, and Snooze Mode is a control rather than a protection but a real one. The listing names no age requirement, and "verified matches" appears as a phrase without saying what proportion of matches carry a verification.

People who want a dating app where verification is free rather than an upgrade, and who would use the meetup-sharing feature. It suits anyone who wants to move from chat to video before meeting in person, since video chat is a free feature here rather than a paid one.

The most carefully worded page of the four, and mostly for good reasons: verification free rather than paid, a moderation rule stated as a rule, and a shared-planning feature that is genuinely useful. The weakness is that the language leans on trust words — verified matches, confidence, respect — harder than the mechanisms justify, and the one number a reader would want, what share of matches are actually verified, is not given. Free video chat and free ID verification are the concrete difference between this page and Tinder's.