It’s quirky, it’s fun, and it’s decidedly tilted towards friendship rather than dating. The wonderfully-named Coffee Meets Bagel dating site is laid back and very relaxed site, whose closest comparison is probably eHarmony. However, unlike that barnstorming international site, Coffee Meets Bagel is lower key and definitely more of a social event rather than simply a dating or hookup site. While it does generate plenty of potential matches for users, there’s no pressure to dive head-first into a potential relationship, and you can take things at your own pace.

This Coffee Meets Bagel review found this site legit even though there were a few reported cases of scamming due to a lack of proper auditing of profiles. Special Features of Coffee Meets Bagel. Having illustrated the unique features of the site, this Coffee Meets Bagel review found the system of this dating site to be its unique feature. On Coffee Meets Bagel, women receive a handful of “Bagels” (this app’s term for potential matches) that have been deemed highly compatible by the algorithm in terms of education, interests, similar social network etc. Men also receive a limited number of daily Bagels, however they get up to 21.

Originally launched in 2012 in New York City by three sisters, Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang, it quickly established a foothold in key North American locations including Boston and San Francisco. After receiving a considerable amount of funding from various investors, Coffee Meets Bagel went global and gained a particularly strong foothold in the US, where its relaxed approach to online social interaction and emphasis on friendly encounters rather than online dating was a big hit.

Today, the site continues to grow, spreading into the European market and rivalling larger, well-established sites such as eHarmony.

As a dating site, it works well and it has a higher-than-average number of women using the site. With a variety of features that help users to streamline their criteria, the matching process is effective and much more targeted than you may find on other, more generic sites. The result is that it’s an easy-to-use, effective, and popular serious dating site that sees itself as an ‘anti-Tinder’ alternative.

Coffee Meets Bagel is a dating service that aims to match its members through a mutual friend on Facebook. This laid-back and efficient version of the average dating app boasts a casual and friendly atmosphere. One of its most notable selling points is that the Coffee Meets Bagel app strives to make dating a priority. Coffee meets bagel app profiles can't be scanned, so this app is a perfect option if you want to restrict your visibility. Meet Rich and Professional Singles On CMB: CMB is the better website they tried every day for women using Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB). Coffee Meets Bagel provides individuals that want a long-term relationship and marriage.

Table of Contents

Our Summary

The first thing that really strikes you about Coffee Meets Bagels or CMB Dating, as it’s also known, is just how user-friendly it is. That’s verified by the sheer number of users the app version in particular has, and the number of matches it generates. There are claims that since the app launched in 2012 it’s generated 2.5 billion introductions, and more than 50,000 couples are now together because of Coffee Meets Bagels. While this may be a little hyped, our Coffee Meets Bagels review uncovered that this is probably the biggest serious dating website and app you’ve never heard of.

Don’t let that low-key level of exposure fool you, though – CMD is big. It launched in 2015 and Coffee Meets Bagel was widely welcomed by Sydney socialites and young professionals, who found it easy to use, friendly, and surprisingly comprehensive for a serious dating site. While there have been a couple of bumps along the way, including a data breach in 2019 that affected around 6 million profiles, the overall security and data protection aspects of the Coffee Meets Bagel dating app has been good.

There are plenty of good points to look at, including the number of ‘bagels’ a user is exposed to on a daily basis. The fact that the app has so many users makes it highly likely that you will find at least some matches in your immediate area, but only if you’re in a big city. If you’re on CMB dating out in the Outback, or in a part of the world where the app hasn’t reached its full potential market penetration yet, then you may find that your ‘bagels’ are a long way away, and the closest you’re going to get to any kind of a relationship is via emails.

What we can say, though is that CMB definitely works hard to create a positive, and user-friendly online experience, and is regularly voted as one of the best dating apps currently available. It’s particularly popular with women, who make up the majority of the users, and with new features constantly coming online it’s an exciting, interesting, and very satisfying experience that really demonstrates to the ‘big boys’ like Tinder and eHarmony how a dating app should be done. Our opinion? Coffee Meets Bagels is a definite hit.

🆓 Free services and paid services

As with most dating apps, sign-up is free, but bear in mind that does mean you’ll get very limited access to the site’s various features. However, it’s a good place to start, as you can easily navigate your way around and do a bit of ‘window shopping’ to start with.

The services work in a very similar way to Tinder initially, and once you’ve signed up for greater access you’ll be sent ‘bagels’ (their term for matches) that you can either like or pass on. You’ll get the chance to find out more about your likes and start chatting.

The paid upgrade opens up a host of features, and really lets you delve deeper into the site, as well as taking advantage of forums, online chatting and messaging.

Because the system uses algorithms that piggy-back social media activity such as Facebook, it will try and match you with people with whom you share at least one Facebook friend. Don’t worry if you’re not on FB, though, as you’ll still get those ‘bagels’ on a daily basis. To boost your ability to chat, open up more bagels and to generally spread the love you have the chance to purchase ‘beans’ (this is where the Coffee part comes in). You earn these through regular use of the platform, or by buying beans in increments of 100, 2000 or 3000.

💰 Prices

If you decide to upgrade to a paid membership it will cost you:

If you want to buy beans to use on the site rather than earning them, they will cost you:

So if you’re going to be particularly active on the site and also want to open up even more bagels or use those beans for other activities, our advice is to buy a batch of 3000 beans, which will save you a whopping 60% compared to buying them in blocks of 100.

📊 Membership structure

Coffee Meets Bagels is big. Much, much bigger than you might first think. They claim to have generated 2.5billion introductions since the launch in 2012. Looking at the numbers for this CMB review, that’s not an unreasonable assumption.

CMB is designed for singles who want to break out of the Tinder-style swiping approach to online dating, and prefer a ‘slow dating’ approach that generates meaningful connections and ultimately, serious, long-term relationships.

According to SurveyMonkey, more than half of users fall into the 30-49 age group, while around 36% are aged 18 to 29, with the medium demographic falling within the 20-35 bracket. Percentage-wise, women make up the majority, with a 60:40 split between the sexes. There is no data to suggest how many lesbian and gay users there are online, but it would seem that the majority of users are heterosexual.

Type of membership

This is a very simple section to explain – you’re either free, or you’ve paid up to the premium service. It’s that easy. When we started our Coffee Meets Bagel review, that was one of the aspects that really stood out for us. The Kang sisters have deliberately kept the model straightforward to ensure that the user is the focus of attention and that everyone gets the same experience once they’ve paid their membership fee. The ability to purchase beans, either through regular usage or by paying for them, is the only additional concept within the basic membership structure. If you just want the minimal experience then you can simply sign up to the free Coffee Meets Bagel dating app, but for the extra few dollars a month you have an access-all-areas pass for the entire site.

Premium membership on Android gives you:

• Activity reports on members
• Message read receipts
• 6,000 free beans

If you take out Premium membership on an iOS platform you get:

• 8 additional “Takes” in Discover
• Activity Reports on members
• Message read receipts
• 15% more beans when you restock your supply

💡 How to reduce costs at Coffee Meets Bagel

The easiest way to keep costs to a minimum is to stick with the free sign-up, but if you want to enjoy everything that’s on offer, then paying for membership is the way to go. Our advice is if you like what you see then start off with a single month and then go straight to the six-month deal, which will save you a substantial 43% compared to the standard monthly fee. If you just want to dip your toe in the water, a three-month sub will save you 29% on the standard monthly charge.

✍️ Registration

Registration is very easy:

1. Go to the website or the online app stores. You can sign in either with an email or log in with a phone number.
2. Complete your dating profile. The set-up screens walk you through the process. Enter your first and last name (your surname is kept private).
3. Add your email address, birthdate and the gender you identify with (currently just male or female).
4. Upload up to nine pictures.
5. Then share your location and enable notifications, and you’re ready to go.

Our top tip: Make sure you complete the profile page’s three statements: “I am…” “I like…” and “I appreciate when my date…” to increase the chances of people discovering your profile. You have a character limit of 276-characters on each section, so make it punchy, to the point, and engaging.

📱 User-friendliness

Coffee Meets Bagels dating website and app goes out of its way to make life easy for users, especially women (hence the hashtag #ladieschoice). Once you get your head around the concept of beans and bagels, there’s not a lot else that you really need to worry about.

Accessing the profile screen is easy, and allows you to set your search criteria with just a few taps. We recommend using the app rather than the website, as CMB has been app-centric from the outset, and is far more responsive when used on a smartphone or tablet.

Coffee Meets Bagel Female Profiles

There are a few aspects of the site that you may not be familiar with at first glance – but it’s really a matter of the terminology that this specific site uses, and once you understand it, things get much easier. For example:

• Skip The Line – this is a feature that lets your profile be shown first to users who have a lot of profiles in their like/pass queue. Spend a few beans and your profile pops up first, as well as sending the recipient some virtual flowers. That will increase the possibility of a user seeing your profile by up to three times.
• Priority Like – the same as a Super Like on Tinder, it lets someone know that you’re really interested in matching.
• Take – this is simply liking a bagel. If you’re a paid-up member you get eight free ‘takes’ a day.
• Beans – the in-app currency, which can either be bought or earned.
• Activity Reports – sign up to premium membership and you get more specific data about a user, such as whether they’ve been active in the last 72 hours, how quickly it takes them to respond, and whether they’re likely to send the first message.
• Suggested – these are your daily bagels and are suggested matches that the app’s algorithm has identified.
• Discover – a feed of profiles of singles that are in your local area that may not appear on your Suggested list.

Don’t worry if all that sounds overly complicated – once you’ve used the system a few times it becomes quite intuitive, although you may stumble around for a little while before you really get to grips with it.

The App

What puts CMB head and shoulders above many of its rivals is that it was originally launched as an app, and much of the development in the last seven years has been focused on making the mobile portal as good as it can possibly be. While the PC/laptop site hasn’t been completely abandoned, it is very much a social contact site for the smartphone generation and has found particular popularity in the 20-35 demographic.

During our CMB review, we found that the download time was minimal, so there’s no waiting around, and the navigation on a mobile device is easy and straightforward. We did notice that the site itself has some grammatical errors and typos, which for such a high profile site is a little disappointing, but overall the app is responsive, clean, and easy to use. It’s available for both Android and iOS, and depending on the operating system you use, the initial free sign-up will offer slightly different packages.

✉️ Contacting users

When you get your daily bagels, you can look through them and either like or pass (you have 24 hours to decide). If you like a profile then you can send a message at the same time. You can then start chatting through the CMB texting platform, but remember that unless you extend the chat time by spending some of your beans, you’ve only got eight days to get to know your match.

You can also use Discover if you want to widen your search, and while these matches may not be as targeted as your daily bagels, they will generally be in your area.

Coffee To Bagel

👍 Pros and cons 👎

✔️ What we like

• You’re not overwhelmed with random matches or unwanted responses, so you can be more selective about your responses.
• CMB profiles are not searchable, which makes them more private and less likely to be spammed
• Membership deals are straightforward – you’re either paid up as a premium member or you use the free service
• The app-focused approach makes it very easy to use on a mobile device or smartphone
• The targeted daily matches are less likely to promote ghosting as both parties have more in common than other, more generic site matches.

❌ What we don’t like

• You only get a very limited number of matches each day, so while you’re not swamped, you may miss out on local matches that might be more relevant.
• Matching is based on a limited number of criteria, and even those are a little vague such as height and religion.
• Because the algorithm accesses your Facebook account and searches ‘friends of friends’, there’s a possibility that it could end up matching you with an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend!
• Outside of large cities, the number of users drops dramatically, which considerably reduces the number of matches you may get.

🙋 FAQ

CMB is biased towards women users and has a 60:40 ratio of women to men. At noon each day, women users are presented with profiles of men who have already ‘liked’ them. Women can then tap ‘like’ as they want, resulting in an instant match. This way, so the site’s developers claim, women can minimise the possibility of time wasters or matching with men that they are not compatible with. These are known as #LadiesChoice matches.

CMB accesses your Facebook information (including likes, political views and mutual friends) to create a profile of your preferences. The algorithm then builds a graph based on your second and third-degree connections. You will have to enable the algorithm to access your data, so if you’re not keen on cross-platform data sharing, this may not be the site for you.

Discover lets you find matches in your local area that wouldn’t necessarily come up on your daily bagels list, so they may fall outside your usual list of preferences and are based purely on location, rather than compatibility.

CMB is not a hookup site, and was developed as an ‘anti-Tinder’ alternative to prevent ghosting and quick-swiping. It provides users with daily bagels (those who have expressed an interest in your profile) which you can then choose to contact or discard.

You do need to move fast on any matches that are sent. You have just 24 hours to pass or like on a match, and chatting is only available for eight days, after which you need to use some of your beans to keep the lines of communication open for up to 30 days.

You’ll need to put your account on hold before you’re allowed to delete it entirely. Do this through the Settings > Membership field by clicking Deactivate and selecting ‘Indefinite’. Once you have done this you can then go back into the settings page and delete your account permanently.

ℹ️ Company info

Head office:

San Francisco (HQ), CA

JPMorgan Chase Building, 560 Mission St, San Francisco, United States

Phone: +1 (917) 439-3770

Press inquiries: press@coffeemeetsbagel.com

Email: contact@coffeemeetsbagel.com

Online help centre: https://coffeemeetsbagel.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

We also wrote reviews for the following dating sites

'I've been on Tinder for over a year and I've only ever gotten four matches,' I once proclaimed to a table full of people. 'And only one of those has ever responded to a message.' Upon hearing this information, a gay male friend cheerfully snatched my phone out of my hands and opened the app.

'What? That can't be right. Your settings must be wrong.' And then he actually proceeded to double check whether or not I had been doing Tinder correctly. I don't know if you've ever had a dating app with the difficulty of Candyland mansplained to you at a bar, but I can assure you, it's not cute. Of course, I hadn't been doing anything wrong; Tinder is just an atrocious app for queer women.

It occurred to me that most people don't take the numbers game into account when it comes to dating queerly. The CDC estimates that around 4 percent of the population is LGB- or 'something else'-identified. Of course, the estimate depends on self-reporting, and queer folks are not always great at coming forward, for reasons we can't possibly imagine. But even so, the non-hetero dating pool is significantly smaller, and many so-called 'LGBT' spaces only cater to gay men.

Because of that, LGBTQIA folks have known for approximately two decades what Tinder is just beginning to monetize: the Internet is a spectacular tool for meeting people with whom you'd otherwise never cross paths. But for dating apps to be fun to use, they need a wide userbase. And to have a wide userbase, they need straight people. And once straight people become their majority market, the app becomes myopically geared towards straight people, thereby diluting its usefulness to the people who arguably have a greater need for it in the first place.

Even gay-geared apps, in the hopes of finding success like heavy hitters Match and OKCupid, design their gender and sexuality options to mimic their straight counterparts. What's the point of catering to niche markets if you're not even going to bother researching their actual needs?

Check out Bustle's 'Save The Date' and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

But, in all honesty: people wanna grind. So in the spirit of swiping your way to success against all odds, I've heroically set up accounts on the most popular dating apps Google Play has to offer (plus some more obscure ones who are getting it right) to gauge their LGBTQ+ friendliness.

1. Match

Match is like the network TV of dating apps: it's really big (5 million downloads on Google Play alone), really well-funded, and madly swarming with normcore people of privilege. Basically, it's soulless and without charm. It's impossible to root for an app like this because it already has everything going for it; there's nothing remotely unique to champion here.

Unsurprisingly, the extent of its self-identifying options are 'man' or 'woman' seeking 'men,' 'women,' or 'both.' There's literally more nuance available in the options for how to describe your smoking habit ('cigar aficionado' anyone?) than in the options to describe your gender or sexuality. In other words, if you identify as queer, don't waste your data plan surfing Match.

2. OKCupid

OKCupid has a little more grit, and caters much more effortlessly to a younger audience. Also bestowed with the 5 million downloads badge on Google Play, its userbase is just as prolific as its predecessor Match, but with a refreshing We're Chill About All This Dating Nonsense And You Should Be Too bent. And realistically speaking, it's pretty much the Facebook of dating apps: everyone is on it, so how useful is it, really, to go to a smaller competitor who might have a few features you like better?

For a mainstream, mostly hetero dating app, OKCupid made one important protection when it was first acquired by Match back in 2011: the 'I don't want to see or be seen by straight people' option. This does a ton of the leg work in eliminating creepy messages from bros trying to convince lesbians that they 'just haven't had it good yet.' This past November, OKCupid also expanded its gender and sexuality options to offer 22 possible gender identities and 12 sexual orientations.

Gone are the days of skimming for the obligatory '*queer not bi...**sexual anarchist not queer' footnotes in the profiles of folks who couldn't be summed up by the app's surprisingly limited self-identifiers, given its millennial-heavy user base. But don't get too trigger-happy deleting that tedious paragraph where you're forced to queersplain what a special snowflake you are. There's still one glaring area of OKCupid's pro-queer/gender options cause in which it continues to suck: the 'seeking' portion, which is arguably the entire point.

The options for 'I'm looking for' are still limited to 'women,' 'men,' and 'everybody.' Shit's not helpful when I'm looking for a FAAB transmasculine cutie to smooch and/or fix my broken dresser drawer. If OKCupid is going to go through the trouble of helping users self-identify in more authentic ways, then why not finish the job and help them actually attract and match with the sorts of partners in whom they're interested?

3. Tinder

Look, not everyone is searching for 'personality' in a match. Enter Tinder: the sleek dopamine rush your brain has been craving. As pretty much every queer woman knows: Tinder is god-awful. The 'interested in' mechanism doesn't care if you're looking for women; your feed will be flooded with dudes. The women it does show you then, ostensibly, might not even be looking for women, so your gaydar has to be super on-point. Plus, as much as I would love to while away my time in the Trader Joe's line swiping, I inevitably get a 'no more matches found near you' time-out after just a few minutes. If you're not straight, Tinder doesn't care about you. Tinder is not sorry.

4. DOWN

DOWN, formerly Bang With Friends, boasts 500,000 downloads and connects with your Facebook to let you swipe on your Facebook friends, and also their friends. Your 'looking for' options are — you guessed it — men and women. It automatically assumed I was looking for men, and when I changed it to women, it just displayed all my straight friends. It stands to reason, then, that, even when I expanded my search parameters to show me friends of friends, those women were also straight. A more effective friend-banging scenario might just be to send someone a flirty text saying come over and watch Netflix with the leaf emojii followed by the fire emojii.

5. Hinge

Hinge is another one of the Facebook-linked apps designed to match you with friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. And, like all the other Facebook-based apps, its gender options are M/F and it's 'interested in' options are men, women, or both. Its actual gaydar appears to have a slight edge on DOWN and Tinder, but not by much.

6. How About We...

Although a brief perusal of the activity-based dating app How About We... yielded someone who I'm pretty sure is my soulmate, the object of my affection hasn't been active in two years, and this app features the same tired M/F option, looking for men/women/both.

7. Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish is larger than both OKC and Match, with 10 million downloads, which is remarkable considering it forbids users from identifying as bisexual (you can only seek men or women, not both) and using 'sexual language' in their profiles. I guess all gay fish just have to be switches?

8. Coffee Meets Bagel

Coffee Meets Bagel is super charming, because, when you set up your account, you can identify as either a mustache or a pair of kissy lips, seeking either other mustaches, or other kissy lips. (You cannot desire both mustaches and kissy lips, or, suffice to say, a mustache with kissy lips.) Then, for the rest of the time you use the app, your potential suitors are referred to as 'bagels,' you are referred to as coffee, and the mustache/kissy lips iconography never returns again. Actually going out and getting a bagel and coffee will be a more satisfying use of your time than trying to make Coffee Meets Bagel happen.

9. Dattch (aka Her)

We all had high hopes for Dattch when it rolled out nationwide. It generated a ton of media buzz as a 'first of its kind' dating app exclusively ~*for women*~. It earned credibility by offering verified profiles, rescuing you from sneaky dudes popping up in your feed. It even has a cutesy blog you can peruse in-app. Although it's a neat little tool and definitely different from the catch-all apps that target straight users, it's also a little...lesbian-centric.

It definitely has its place in the world and will appeal to certain queer-identified folks, but Dattch doesn't allow users to select a gender identity, which means that its developers either assume all users identify as women or they don't think it matters, as long as you're looking for women. Neither of those scenarios seem particularly inclusive for an explicitly non-hetero app. The sexuality identity options are broader than the generic gay/bi framework, and wander into queer, pansexual, and the ever-curious 'flexisexual' — but you can't search for mates by those same options. Users can't filter matches by gender (obvs) or sexuality, only by age and location. If an app straight up isn't going to offer typing by gender, then the least they can do is help users glean hints by filtering to appropriate sexuality markers.

10. Wing Ma'am

Literally, the only hope for the future is Wing Ma'am, which has a horrifically gendered name but is actually the most impressively inclusive option available to queer folks. It's set up to display not only people, but also events in your area, increasing your chances of meeting someone with whom you vibe. A bunch of the profile questions mimic OKCupid's, so it's an easy copy/paste, if you've already penned a flawless OKCupid profile with all the nuance and style of a Chuck Klostermann essay.

And finally, most importantly: the filters. Oh, the filters! There's only one master drop-down list from which users can select multiple options, and it includes markers across the gender, sexuality, and relationship preference spectrum: queer, questioning, genderqueer, trans, intersex, and polyamorous to name a few. It's also the only app of all 10 reviewed here that offers 'asexual' as a self-identifier, which huge and important gesture of visibility for a vastly underrepresented community.

And unlike OKCupid, Wing Ma'am users can filter their matches by the exact same list of identifiers. In other words, this is where I screen for my broken dresser drawer-fixing heartthrob. Other unique features include the option of seeking 'double dates,' which, sure, might just mean finding new friends to do couple stuff with, or, as I prefer to believe, is a perfectly subtle invitation for group play.

The only gendered hiccup on Wing Ma'am's profile questionnaire is a fill-in-the-blank stating 'I love my girlfriend because...' which I really wish said 'partner' instead of 'girlfriend,' because it's a well-conceived question and totally sweet. The other problem with Wing Ma'am is that it's newly launched, and thus, teeny teeny tiny — only 10,000 downloads to speak of on Google Play. But it really is the best, most inclusive, most customizable queer dating app on the market. One of the reasons Grindr is great is because it understands how important sorting by 'type' is for interacting with strangers. And when have you ever stood for gay men having more fun than you?

Images: Giphy;Match, OKCupid, Hinge, Dattch, Wing Ma'am/Facebook; Tinder, How About We, Plenty of Fish, Coffee Meets Bagel/Press Kit; DOWN/Twitter