Coffee Meets Bagel is the self-proclaimed anti-swiping app that came to save all of those who were tired of Tinder’s bad fame.
Although the app Coffee Meets Bagel isn’t that popular everywhere yet, we can’t deny that it came with some perks and a fresh vision of online dating.
Aimed at those who are looking for something less casual, and headed more towards the serious part of forming a relationship, it seems like this one arrived to stay.
Let’s know more about this popular dating app.
Coffee Meets Bagel is the self-proclaimed anti-swiping app that came to save all of those who were tired of Tinder’s bad fame.
Although the app Coffee Meets Bagel isn’t that popular everywhere yet, we can’t deny that it came with some perks and a fresh vision of online dating.
Aimed at those who are looking for something less casual, and headed more towards the serious part of forming a relationship, it seems like this one arrived to stay.
Let’s know more about this popular dating app.
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Some shortcuts to the contents of this article:
What is Coffee Meets Bagel
The Coffee Meets Bagel dating service was born in 2012, from the head of three sisters who had two things clear:
- There are more men than women trying to find dates online.
- Women are more selective, while men are keen to select.
With these factors in mind, and a clear refusal to fall into the swiping trap, the sisters decided to give it a go at her idea, without imagining that Coffee Meets Bagel would become a popular app in places like New York, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
Inside of Coffee Meets Bagel
You might be wondering if the app is against swiping, how can you select a match?
Fair question.
And truth is, that on the surface, Coffee Meets Bagel borrows characteristics that resemble Hinge, with the looks of Badoo.
However, the charm of CMB extends to the tiny world they built, and the way that matches are made.
#LadiesChoice
The algorithm of the app has no major science other than pairing users according to mutual preferences found either when filling the profile, or through Facebook data.
Like other similar dating services, their focus is on quality above quantity but taken a step further with their system called #LadiesChoice.
The workings of it are simple:
People are called “Bagels”.
Every day, men are presented with 21 Bagel profiles to choose from. After 24 hours, these are refreshed whether men looked through them or not.
From those likes, the algorithm looks at which ones are more likely to be a match according to preferences, likes, friends, and similarities shared through both the information input on CMB and what was taken from Facebook.
After this curation, every day at noon, women will receive a selection of six high-quality profiles that are potential matches.
And that’s that.
When a woman likes a profile, a match has been made and communication can start.
In case you were wondering, or finding certain similarities, Tinder got inspired by this system to launch their Top Picks.
Is CMB good for guys?
Like almost any other app of this kind, the answer is yes.
As long as you want something more than a hookup, you can wait 24 hours to get a new batch of profiles and you’re willing to put some effort into creating an attractive profile, then you won’t have any problem.
Despite the fact that the balance of users is 60% males against only 40% of females, you must know by now that an outstanding profile combined with a good attitude and great texting skills will make you shine among the rest.
Just consider that the average age of users goes from 30 to 49, and CMB is more known in the USA, Hong Kong, and Australia, so if you live in another country, or a less populated city, you might be more successful using another dating site.
Hovalo tip: If you need assistance putting up a winning profile, you can check out our articles on taking and editing pictures, or get in touch to know more about our services.
How Coffee Meets Bagel works
Now that we’ve covered the basics of CMB, it’s time to get into the details of setting your profile and start getting those matches rolling.
Joining CMB
To start, you only access to a browser or a smartphone with Android or iOS, go to the app store, look for Coffee Meets Bagel, and download it.
Afterward, you’ll have the option to choose to join through Facebook, or by phone number.
Because the dating site finds connections using social media and puts special attention in trying to pair people with matching interests, likes, lifestyles, and acquaintances, you might want to start with Facebook.
Your friends will never know if you joined the online dating app, and setting up the profile can be easier, as well as beneficial but only if your Facebook profile has high quality, and adds value to your dating life.
However, if that's the case, you might wanna try Facebook Dating instead.
Setting up the profile
The main difference between signing up with Facebook or phone is that with the first method, you’ll be asked to manually enter your name and email address. But you can change them right away if you want to.
Anyway, note that names remain hidden until a match is made.
Once this is done, you’ll be moved to the next section.
- What you’re looking for.
- Gender.
- Birthday.
- Location.
- Have you tried online dating before?
If you signed with Facebook, your last profile pictures that comply with CMB’s rules will be uploaded, but you can delete, rearrange, select others, or upload different ones.
With every uploaded photo, you have the option to add a caption.
When this step is done, you’ll be moved to the following part.
- Height.
- Ethnicity.
- Religion.
- Job title.
- Highest degree.
- The school that granted it.
- Gender.
- Age.
- Height range.
- Max. Distance.
- Ethnicity.
- Religion.
Depending on the selected preferences, Coffee Meets Bagel will pop a warning that narrowing too much the search can potentially make it harder to find people that complies with such characteristics.
And here, it’s up to you to go on or open more your ranges of search.
Anyway, you can always come back later to change them.
Right after the last step is completed, you can start looking through the first profiles presented, or you can keep completing your own.
You have space to add three fun facts to your profile. They won’t be shared anywhere else and can be used as a perfect platform to spark an immediate conversation or make the talk flow easier.
Sounds familiar, right?
As seen on Hinge or Bumble and even on Tinder, you’ll be presented with a series of phrases and questions to complete and add to your profile.
These two features are the equivalent of a bio, so it’s important that you don’t skip them, and put some effort into filling some with the very best of you.
It also makes it easier for CMB to find the best-fitted tentative pairings.
Matching and Messaging
We already explained above how the Likes work here.
Matching isn’t rocket science, and works exactly as you would expect from any other dating app: when both users send a Like, the match is made, and you can start messaging.
But there’s a catch in this.
You have only 24 hours to start talking with the match before it gets lost.
And after you start talking, the chat function is available for just 7 days.
The point of this, as it is with showing fewer profiles, is to focus on quality and commitment.
Coffee Meets Bagel already did the job of helping you find each other. Now your job (and your match) is to get off the app to know each other better and see if things can work out.
However, there’s a plot twist to this.
With the pandemic, CMB followed the trend of its competitors and implemented the option to have video dates within the app.
Needless to say, this one is limited as well. So if you feel like you want to keep talking, better move it to Meet, Zoom, WhatsApp, or any other platform before the app erases the match.
Features available for everyone
Let’s get over the bad news first: there’s barely anything free on Coffee Meets Bagel.
This isn’t a reason to give up on the app though. As a free member, you can see full profiles, ike, match, send messages, and video chat.
All of that without facing a single ad, which is a huge advantage over other similar services.
That said, time to know the features that make Coffee Meets Bagel stand out from the rest in most reviews.
Note: Beware that some of the features described below aren’t enabled in every country or available for both iOS and Android devices.
This is the local currency that helps you unlock most features and let you squeeze all the juice from the app, without the need of paying for a membership.
When you first open your profile, you’ll get around 1000-1400 Beans to get started.
If you want more, you can buy them, get them as part of your paid membership, or earn them following some of CMB’s dynamics.
Note that you can acquire beans whenever and as many as you want to. There’s no limit and no periodic charge.
Constancy is one of the most valuable assets for Coffee Meets Bagel dating purposes.
In fact, when they notice that a user stops login frequently, the profile is no longer shown to potential matches.
But there are daily prizes for those who show up every day.
With this feature, you can compare two of your photographs and let other users vote for the best.
If you’re familiar with Photofeeler, you’ll find this especially attractive, since the same users from the app will be voting, so the results can be more trustworthy to some degree.
Also, whenever you vote for other users’ pictures, you are rewarded with Beans.
Unlike Tinder and how safely guarded they have each user’s Elo Score, in Coffee Meets Bagel you can discover your own ranking within the site in exchange for Beans.
The data is based on the last 10 matches made, and it shows where you figure among both males and females, as well as a chart of how you trend week by week.
For only 50 Beans, you can emulate the Message Before Match feature of Tinder Platinum.
This means that you’re able to message a profile as soon as you give a Like. The user will receive an email notification to see your message, profile, and decide faster to match.
To keep your profile fresh and up to date, you can record yourself answering in under 8 seconds a question that will change daily.
Every reply will be stored in the video section of your profile, available for other users to watch.
Answering these will help to grasp a better idea of your true personality and help people to match you.
This is more an option than a feature, created in response to the pandemic, along with the possibility to state if you’ve been vaccinated.
Once enabled, you’re telling other users that you’re ready to meet in person.
If both have the option active, Coffee Meets Bagel will encourage you to arrange a first date.
Having a Coffee Meets Bagel Woo means that you received a “Super Like”.
Every Woo costs 540 Beans, but according to their official webpage, the expense it’s worth it because every Coffee Meets Bagel Woo can help you get noticed up to 6x faster.
Just remember that being noticed isn’t the same as being matched, so try to send Woos only to the profiles that really caught your eye, and not just as an attempt to find a date fast.
If the profiles shown to you daily aren’t enough, you can unlock more using Beans.
But take into consideration that these users may not have high compatibility with you, so it can be harder to get a match from here.
There can be a case when a profile from the Discovery section catches your eye.
By “Taking” someone, your profile will appear in the profile’s Discovery feed, stating that you’ve liked it. But doing this cost Beans, of course.
If the user likes you back, a match is made, and they don’t need to spend their own Beans in doing so.
There might be the case when you stumble upon a profile that’s not good for you but seems perfect for a friend.
You can share said profile with your friend, and if it’s checked or Liked, you earn free Beans.
Only have in mind that as funny this can be, you can only earn 300 Beans per day, per friend.
As we said before, matches here have an expiration date.
So if you want to get in touch again with a match that got lost, you can spend Beans to have a conversation again for 30 days.
Features unlocked with membership
Now that we’ve covered the functions that anyone can access with enough Beans, it’s time to dive inside the perks that you’ll get paying month to month.
Note that some are available to get with Beans, and others aren’t available for every device.
You’ve noticed that Beans rule CMB, and you’ll get 6,000 of them when paying for a membership.
There’s no need to spend them all every month because they add up.
Every profile you open will display the percentage of conversations opened, the number of chats with other users, activity status within the last 72 hours, and the average time of reply.
As a paid member, you’ll be able to see these stats from everyone, but as a free user, you can unlock the data with Beans for each person that you’re curious about.
Get to know if your messages have been read.
Because CMB focuses on finding mutual connections from Facebook, this feature reveals which friends you and your current match have in common.
If the 6,000 monthly Beans aren’t enough, you’ll get a 15% discount when purchasing more.
Make your profile stand out for 48 hours and increase your chances to have a match.
Unlike other Boosts (like Bumble Spotlight), if you don’t use them, they get stacked and wait until you’re ready.
No need to spend your Beans on this anymore. Throw away Woos like confetti to make sure that your profile gets noticed.
Needless to say that despite being unlimited, you should still pay attention to profiles and send them only when you’re really interested in someone.
You’ll have full access to the Discovery section, and with that, you can send 8 Likes to interesting profiles.
However, this feature and the Unlimited Skip the Line are only available for iPhone.
Why be the last profile on the list when you can be on top every time?
Being a paid member will give you priority all the time and therefore, you’ll be able to match faster.
Pricing
Prices vary depending on the region and country, but not much, since the site tries to give equal, fair rates to all their users.
You can pay with a credit card, PayPal, or directly with your phone bill.
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Membership
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Beans
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Deactivate Account
Membership
Like it happens with other similar services, the price per month gets cheaper the more months you buy at once.
Deactivate Account
You can either deactivate your account or erase it completely.
Before you do any of it, make sure you don’t have an ongoing subscription, because it will keep generating charges.
This means that your account will be temporarily deactivated, but all the information, photos, videos, matches, and chats will be saved for when you return.
You’ll also be able to keep chatting with current matches, but your profile won’t be shown to other users anymore.
To pause your profile, go to Settings, scroll to the Account section and tap Go On Hold.
Tap on the top corner to see your Profile (Android only), then go to Settings, scroll to the bottom, and tap on Delete Account.
Here you’ll be presented with the option of deleting the account.
This step is permanent, so if you want to return, you’ll need to go over the process of setting a new profile from scratch.
Also, if you want to get rid of any trace of CMB and you are connected with Facebook, it’s recommended that you remove the app directly from the social network as well.
Conclusion to this Coffee Meets Bagel review
We can’t deny that Coffee Meets Bagel has outstanding options that certainly make more entertaining the process of finding a date, and the fact that most features can be purchased with Beans and without the need of having a membership is a big point in favor.
However, CMB it’s far from being the best dating site you can find out there depending on where you live and the kind of people that you’re expecting to meet.
As much as they praise the algorithm, we can tell you that the success of Coffee Meets Bagel relies more on their filtered system that attempts to make users pay more attention to the profiles instead of making it a game of classification.
Now, we can tell you that CMB claims to have made at least 200 marriages in the USA until April of 2020, and inside the app, it is possible for you to know stories of users who found love there, which helps encourage you to keep searching.
Conclusion to this Coffee Meets Bagel review
We can’t deny that Coffee Meets Bagel has outstanding options that certainly make more entertaining the process of finding a date, and the fact that most features can be purchased with Beans and without the need of having a membership is a big point in favor.
However, CMB it’s far from being the best dating site you can find out there depending on where you live and the kind of people that you’re expecting to meet.
As much as they praise the algorithm, we can tell you that the success of Coffee Meets Bagel relies more on their filtered system that attempts to make users pay more attention to the profiles instead of making it a game of classification.
Now, we can tell you that CMB claims to have made at least 200 marriages in the USA until April of 2020, and inside the app, it is possible for you to know stories of users who found love there, which helps encourage you to keep searching.
If you’re a romantic, this is your cue to go for it, but if you’re more interested in casual dating, meeting people, and don’t have immediate plans to commit to a serious relationship, perhaps it is best that you try other sites and apps.
Also, when you really want to start online dating, it is recommended that you don’t stick to only one site or app, so it’s perfectly fine if you manage more than two accounts at the same time, and since you’ll only get a limited number of profiles every day, you’ll have plenty of time to swipe somewhere else.
And there you go! That’s all about this Coffee Meets Bagel review.
Remember that if you need further guidance, have more inquiries, or want to know how we can help you to make the process of online dating easier and better, you can get in touch or read more about outsourcing dating apps, and we’ll make sure that you get the dating life that you deserve.
See you next time!
If you’re a romantic, this is your cue to go for it, but if you’re more interested in casual dating, meeting people, and don’t have immediate plans to commit to a serious relationship, perhaps it is best that you try other sites and apps.
Also, when you really want to start online dating, it is recommended that you don’t stick to only one site or app, so it’s perfectly fine if you manage more than two accounts at the same time, and since you’ll only get a limited number of profiles every day, you’ll have plenty of time to swipe somewhere else.
And there you go! That’s all about this Coffee Meets Bagel review.
Remember that if you need further guidance, have more inquiries, or want to know how we can help you to make the process of online dating easier and better, you can get in touch anytime and we’ll make sure that you get the dating life that you deserve.
See you next time!
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