OkCupid is that rare thing, an old-school pre-smartphone dating site that has made the leap to the world of apps and swiping.
While it’s not as casual and gamified as Tinder or its many offshoots and competitors, the 2023 OkCupid bares little resemblance to the site that was launched in 2004 and, in 2007, named as one of Time’s top dating sites.
The modern version of the site is user-friendly and intuitive, and there’s a great app that many users use almost exclusively. And OkCupid still makes lists of top dating sites – it was ranked number one by Glamour recently and labeled the best site for finding a serious relationship.
But with such a long history behind it (for a dating site, anyway) and a reputation for helping users find love rather than someone to briefly bump uglies with, what age group is OkCupid actually for?
That depends on how you look at it. OkCupid isn’t for a specific age group, it’s open to everyone and has users from 18 right up to over 80s.
Over the past few years, the site has been making an effort to appeal to a younger crowd, pushing its app and introducing its version of the now-ubiquitous swiping game, Double Take. If you want numbers, though, most OkCupid users are between 25 and 40.
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OkCupid Average Age
Let’s dig into those statistics a little more. That median age of OkCupid’s users is 32 – so that’s past it in Grindr or Tinder years, and a spring chicken for the really serious dating sites like eharmony.
The app and site combined boast a very respectable 2.5 million users, so there are plenty of potential matches to choose from.
The majority of those users (just over fifty percent to be exact) are aged 30-45, so you’re likely to get a slightly more mature and, let’s be honest, classy experience on OkCupid than on, say, Tinder or Hinge.
But that’s not to say OkCupid isn’t fun! A lot of users graduate from Tinder to OkCupid not because they want to hold up their pinky fingers and sip tea while they discuss their stocks and shares, or even because they’re looking for a serious relationship.
They migrate because OkCupid is fun. I mean, who doesn’t want to while away a Sunday afternoon filling out a long, in-depth, and honestly kind of weird personality quiz?
And the full profiles on OkCupid are great because they let you get to know a bit about your matches, they’re also great because they are such a wide canvas for users to be weird as hell.
And admit it, we all love screenshotting a weird profile to send to our mates. Like, why is this girl so obsessed with snakes? Or, does this 30-year-old man have to mention his mum in every single one of his answers?
In short, OkCupid has a higher average age than many dating apps and a lower or similar average age to many dating sites. In many ways, it combines the best of both, and can either bridge the gap if you’re trying to grow up and find the one or stand alone as a really fun but somewhat more involved experience than Tinder or Bumble.
If you want to know a bit more about the finer points of OkCupid, check out my regularly updated guide to the site.
How Old Do You Have To Be To Join OkCupid?
Just like pretty much every other dating app or site, you have to be 18 to join OkCupid. I see you, a 16-year old who feels like he has an old soul, but OkCupid is not for you!
There’s no guarantee that people on the site are who they say they are (though of course every effort is made to keep everything secure and above board) and your mum would be really upset if you got Catfished. Sorry, I don’t make the rules!
This is basic logic (and you know, the law, and a fact of morality) but you can’t search for profiles of under 18s or set your lower age range limit to under 18 on OkCupid either even though on the desktop site you are asked to type ages in numerically.
One user found this out and went viral with the frankly not at all surprising discovery a few years ago, when he accidentally (man, I hope it was an accident) entered five as the lower age range and was met with a stern, red NO from OkCupid. Way to go OkCupid… I mean, the only way to go, or you’d have to be scrubbed from the internet.
What Age Group Uses Dating Apps The Most?
This is a massive question, and really deserves an article of its own. It’s on the to-do list. In the meantime, here are the best dating sites for the over-fifties just in case that’s what you were angling at!
To work out what age group uses dating apps the most we have to think about whether we mean just apps, or all dating apps and sites. Apps are used mainly by the millennials and Gen Z users and are aimed at them too.
Tinder skews young, with membership dropping off over 30, and so does Bumble. Hinge users are a little older, and OkCupid users are, as we now know, all 32 (if you’ve just jumped down to this part of the article, that’s a callback, an app full of only 32-year-olds would be neither a good business model nor a good way to get a date).
Dating sites – those with a primary presence as a desktop site rather than an app – have older user bases. Match.com, for example, is made up mostly of daters aged 39-74, a demographic that makes up 69% of their active users (as they’re mature, they wouldn’t laugh at that percentage).
Then of course you have dating sites aimed at mature daters, which are full of users over 40, 50, 60, or 70 depending on the site.
As a blanket rule, most dating apps are populated largely by users between the ages of 18 and 40. These are simply the people most likely to be dating. That being said, there are dating sites for people in every age group and age shouldn’t be a limiting factor if you’re trying to find love. Or, in fact, if you’re just trying to have fun dating.
