Coffee Meets Bagel Review :: Is It the App Christians Have Been Waiting For?
If you tend to be of the mindset that quality trumps quantity, then Coffee Meets Bagel should be right down your alley. However, if you don’t like eharmony because they dole out a few matches at a time, then Coffee Meets Bagel might not be the online dating platform for you.
On the surface, Coffee Meets Bagel seems to be a more viable option for Christians who are searching for better choices in the ever-growing mobile-only dating app world. In our recent 2016 SingleRoots Online Dating Survey, 18% of the people surveyed said either they or their friends had tried Coffee Meets Bagel. Only Tinder ranked higher at 37%.
That, combined with a few favorable reviews from singles we’ve been talking to meant we needed to get on this Coffee Meets Bagel Review. So here’s what we found…
Coffee Meets Bagel Review :: How It Works and How Much It Costs
Inasmuch as possible, Coffee Meets Bagel wants to match you with mutual friends of your Facebook friends. The intent is not to match you with friends you already have, but friends of friends. They believe those matches result in a higher rate of connection. They use your profile, preferences, friends and your evolving history within the app to send you one “perfect” match daily at noon. They call these matches “Daily Bagels.”
Should they run out Daily Bagels to send you, there are Discover Bagels. These Bagels are outside of your preferences—they might be different because of religious preferences, age, distance, etc. You can explore the Discover Bagels, and if you find one the piques your interest, you can use Coffee Beans to take that Bagel.
Coffee Beans are the currency in Coffee Meets Bagel, and it’s their attempt to gamify the app and make it a little more fun. For example, you get 10 Coffee Beans for logging in each day. You can get more beans by doing things like voting in the photo lab or telling your friends about the app. You can also buy more Beans in the Bean Shop. Essentially, the app is free because you can always earn beans and not have to purchase any, but if you did want to purchase some, they start at $1.99 for 100 beans and then go up to around $25 for 3000 of them.
But back to the Discover Bagels, if you find a Discover Bagel you like, you can take that Bagel with Coffee Beans. And, if you have friends using the app, you can give a Bagel to a friend who the Bagel might be a better fit for.
If you discover a Bagel or take it from your Daily Bagels, both parties have to like each other in order to open up a chat. You have one week to chat back and forth with that match before the chat option closes. The idea is to take the conversation offline and in person.
Coffee Meets Bagel :: What Does a Profile Look Like?
Coffee Meets Bagel excels over other mobile-only dating apps in the profile department. Since people are receiving only one Bagel daily, the temptation to skim your profile for the photo is lessened. They need more information if you’re the only person they’re presented with that day, you know?
Besides giving you the options to display basics like your age, height, distance, religion, and ethnicity, Coffee Meets Bagel also allows you the space to complete 3 short answer questions:
- I am…
- I like…
- I appreciate when my date…
The good thing about Coffee Meets Bagel is that the algorithm is already attempting to match you with other “Christian” Bagels because that’s a preference you’ve set. But the 3 short answer questions also give you the opportunity to express your faith even further in an effort to find like-minded believers.
Between matching with mutual friends and more-detailed profiles, Coffee Meets Bagel definitely tops the other mobile-only dating apps receiving more press these days, like Tinder. In fact, the app creators—a trio of sisters—want Coffee Meets Bagel to be known as the anti-Tinder.
Coffee Meets Bagel Review :: The App Is Far From Perfect, Though
You knew this was coming, right? No dating site or app is perfect, and Coffee Meets Bagel has issues of its own.
For starters, Coffee Meets Bagel has a numbers problem. The app launched in New York City in 2012, and rolled out in Boston and San Francisco shortly thereafter. In March of 2013, they added Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., and in August, 2013, it was available everywhere.
And yes, the sisters were on Shark Tank in 2015, and yes, the app’s numbers doubled after that television appearance, but pinning down an online dating site or app about specific membership numbers is hard, so we don’t know how big the membership pool is. Their website boasts over 650 couple connections each week. But when you consider that we’re searching for only “Christian” Bagels, that membership pool dwindles even more significantly.
Consider this: We are Dallas-based, and we rarely run low on match options when we try out online dating sites or apps for our reviews. In the case of Coffee Meets Bagel, we had far fewer days when we were given a Daily Bagel than days we were not. Our friends who were trying out the app reported similar problems, sometimes even only one Daily Bagel a week.
Some of this might be because those of us using it don’t have a lot of mutual Facebook friends with other Coffee Meets Bagel users. It could also be because the app has a smaller number of Christian users. (After all, our SingleRoots survey showed less Christians using it.) We could speculate all day, but we’re unsure that there’s just one definite underlying cause.
One thing we did notice about the people we knew who were using the app was that people who were younger got more matches than people in their mid- to late-30s. We didn’t see this as an issue on other apps like Tinder, Hinge, or OKCupid, but it seems Coffee Meets Bagel is for a younger crowd. If people in their mid- to late-30s were limited in a large city like Dallas, then it’s probably safe to assume it will be an issue for that age range and above anywhere.
Coffee Meets Bagel Review :: Bottom Line
The founders of Coffee Meets Bagel said that they felt like Tinder was created for men—quantity over quality, picture after picture to choose from—but they created Coffee Meets Bagel with women in mind—giving them one quality match per day that meets their preferences. There’s a definite need in the marketplace for Coffee Meets Bagel. It’s well-designed, it’s fun, and it gives Christians a better way to find other like-minded believers than other apps.
We hope that with a few more years of continued growth, it will become the app to beat. For now, though, if we’re talking about a current Coffee Meets Bagel Review, we’d have to say it is a good app to keep on the side for twenty-something Christians who live in cities. It could prove beneficial for them to check daily, see if they get a quality Bagel, and scan the Discovery Bagels. It could also prove beneficial for them to keep a traditional online dating account on the side, too, because searching primarily for like-minded Christians on Coffee Meets Bagel might be limiting.
For anyone else, you’ll probably want to keep a membership on a traditional online dating site, too, because you’ll get more consistent daily matches. Check out our Best Christian Dating Sites reviews to see our recommendations.
Current Online Dating Deals:
Last Updated: 10/1/2024
eharmony (USA Offers):
eharmony (Canada Offers):
Zoosk:
ChristianMingle.com:
Christian Cafe:
Best Christian Dating Sites Rankings
Monthly Price Range | Number of Members | Ease of Use | Christian Filters | Best Deal Link | |
$19.95 to $59.95 Tip: How to Get an eharmony Free Trial | High | Simple | Excellent | 25% Off Any Membership! Use this link with this code at checkout: SINGLEROOTS25 | |
$12.49 to $29.99 | High | Simple | Fair | Browse Zoosk for Free! | |
$16.99 to $32.99 | High | Option-Overload | Good | Review your Christian Mingle matches for free! | |
$8.99 to $34.97 | Medium | Option-Overload | Excellent | EXCLUSIVE 17-Day Free Trial! Use this link with this code at checkout: SINGLEROOTS17 | |