Grindr AI and Edge subscription test lift focus after revenue growth
Grindr raised its 2026 outlook as it reported AI productivity gains and broader-than-expected interest in its Edge subscription test.
By Jordan Bell · Startups & Deals Reporter
· 3 min read
Grindr’s AI and Edge subscription strategy is becoming a bigger part of the company’s growth case after the dating platform reported $138 million in second-quarter revenue, up 33% from a year earlier. For investors, the key distinction is that Grindr has reported stronger financial results and encouraging test signals, while the revenue and staying power of its expensive new AI tier remain unknown.
According to CNBC, Grindr raised its 2026 outlook to about $540 million in revenue and about $232 million in adjusted EBITDA. That is up from its prior outlook of about $535 million in revenue and $227 million in adjusted EBITDA.
The company had initially projected 2026 revenue above $528 million and adjusted EBITDA above $217 million when it reported 2025 results in February, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Grindr reported 2025 revenue of $440 million, an increase of 28%.
What has Grindr said about AI and its Edge subscription?
Chief Executive George Arison told CNBC that AI is being used in two ways: to help employees build software and to create a higher-priced consumer product. Grindr estimated in its earnings presentation that engineering output rose about 2.5 times from July 2025 through April 2026, even as the engineering team remained about the same size.
That is a company estimate, rather than an independently verified measure of productivity or cost savings. The presentation said producing a comparable volume of technical work before generative AI would have required roughly 200 more engineers and around $60 million in annual cost.
Arison said Grindr was on track to spend $6 million on tokens in 2026 and claimed the associated productivity gain was about 10 times that spending. He also said the company had not eliminated jobs because of AI adoption. Grindr has expanded its use of software-development tools from Cursor, Anthropic’s Claude and Devin, CNBC reported.
The consumer-facing test is Edge, an AI-powered premium companion that Grindr is trying in selected markets. In New York, access costs as much as $350 a month, CNBC reported. The company has not disclosed the number of Edge subscribers, the product’s revenue contribution or where its eventual price will settle.
Arison said the early customer mix differed from management’s initial expectation. Grindr had assumed Edge would mainly persuade existing Unlimited subscribers to pay more. Instead, he said, test users have also included people on other tiers and people who previously had no subscription.
What do Grindr’s subscription figures show?
Grindr said its paying-user count reached 1.4 million in the second quarter, up 16% from a year earlier. Average revenue per paying user rose 12% to $25.51. Arison also said subscriber cancellations, often called churn, were lower than the company expected after price increases across premium plans.
Those figures offer evidence that the company’s broader pricing changes have not produced the churn management anticipated. They do not establish whether Edge can retain users or become a material revenue source. For now, Edge is a price and product experiment, while the reported earnings gains reflect the wider business.
This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.
