To keep the lights on, we receive affiliate commissions via some of our links. Rankings remain impartial. Our review process.
We’ve all been there. You scroll through Instagram and see a friend got engaged, another just got married and one is expecting twins. When will you find your one true love? Perhaps these online dating statistics will convince you to create an online dating account and begin dating.
Online Dating Statistics
Below are some online dating marriage statistics (aka, online dating success statistics) as well as general statistics.
- In 2017, there were 54,350,000 single people in the U.S.1
- 49,650,000 people in the U.S. have tried online dating
- At age 26, women have more online pursuers than men
- At age 48, men have twice as many online pursuers than women
- Women lie most about their weight, physical build and age
- Men lie most about their age, height and income
- What’s most important on a first date:
- 30% say personality
- 23% say smile and looks
- 14% say sense of humor
- 10% say career and education
- 17% of couples who got married in 2016 met through online dating
- As of 2017, 52.4% of online dating users are male and 47.6% are female
- Marriages that met online have an average of 18.5 months of courtship
- Marriages that met offline have an average of 42 months of courtship
- Online dating users spend an average of $243 per year on dating site subscriptions
- In 2017, the online dating industry had an annual revenue of $1,935,000,000
- In 2013, 35% of adults ages 18-35 had used dating sites opposed to only 9% of adults older than 552
- There are an estimated 2,500 dating sites and apps in the U.S. and more than 5,000 worldwide3
- An estimated 10% of online dating profiles are fake
- Traffic for online dating spikes as much as 350% in the weeks following Christmas
- In 2016, there were almost 15,000 complaints of online dating romance scams4
- Losses related to those 15,000 scams cost victims more than $230 million
- Older widowed and divorced women are commonly targeted in these scams
Tinder Statistics
- The average Tinder user logs in 11 times per day5
- Women spend 8.5 minutes on Tinder per session while men spend 7.2 minutes
- Users average 79.2 to 93.5 minutes on Tinder per day
- Almost 8% of marriages initiated offline ended in divorce whereas couples who met online reported a lower 6% rate6
Online Dating Infographic
Online Dating Success Stories
Watch this short video of some couples reading through their first conversations with each other thanks to online dating sites.
Is Online Dating Safe?
There are some dangers of online dating, as you probably saw in some of the stats listed above. Unfortunately, not everyone is sincere when making their online dating profile. Practicing safe online dating is essential. Follow the tips below:
- Get to know the other person before meeting up with them in-person
- Meet in a public place
- Tell a friend where you’ll be
- Stay sober
- Keep your belongings with you at all times (don’t leave your purse at the table if you go to the restroom)
Here are some signs that your online date cannot be trusted.
Which Online Dating Platform Should You Sign up For?
The next big decision you have to make is which company you should sign up with. We’ve compared the best online dating sites in this comparison article. We encourage you to give it a read and ask us any questions you may have about which may fit you best. If you’ve already signed up for online dating, what are some of your online dating tips that you can share with our readers? Give them the boost of confidence they need!
Sources: [1] Statistic Brain, [2] Pew Internet, [3] Credit Donkey, [4] FBI, [5] Expanded Ramblings, [6] PNAS
Tagged With:
Interesting stats, 17% of couples who met through online dating got married? Not bad! Guess the odds aren’t against me anymore. 2018 is going to be the year I find the one!
What (((they))) don’t tell you is that those numbers come from a cherrypicked sample over several years. If not just made up completely.
See the 2013 EHarmony fluff piece about 35% of marriages being attributed to online dating. Sounds great, until you find that the results came from a random sampling of about 20,000 people taken from 2005-2012. About 7,000 people over that time period in the survey may have married someone met using an OD site, but that’s not a lot! Not surprising, since 3/4 of OD site users are male!
I have had OD profiles in the past and have seen a few women who were acquaintances on them. But, most of them didn’t meet anyone using OD sites, rather they found their spouse through social circles.