Category: Raya

There Are 2.5 Million on Raya’s Waitlist

Posted on August 22, 2025
Close-up of a hand holding a smartphone displaying the Raya dating app logo, with a blurred financial chart in the background.

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Raya, the invite-only dating app launched in 2015, is known for its exclusivity: it has a 2.5M–person waitlist, accepts only a small percentage of applicants, and has a user base in the low six figures. Membership costs $24.99 a month, with one-fifth paying $49.99 for the premium Raya+ tier. The company says revenue has grown 50% annually for five years and it became profitable in 2021. About 40% of users are Gen Z, making it the app’s fastest-growing group. Raya enforces strict privacy rules, appeals to celebrities and creatives, and relies heavily on referrals from existing members. Despite talk of networking, 85-90% of activity is dating. Founder Daniel Gendelman has also launched Places, a $39.99-per-year travel and dining guide with over 83K listings, as part of Raya’s expansion beyond dating.

See full article at Wall Street Journal

 

Dating Apps Shift Toward Simpler, Structured Experiences

Posted on August 4, 2025

Breeze logoBBC – Dating apps are evolving to meet changing user habits. Breeze skips pre-date chat, auto-books dates at partner venues, and uses upfront payments to reduce no-shows. A brief chat window before and after the date allows for coordination and closure. Tinder recently launched a double-date feature, letting friends create joint profiles. Hinge introduced Hinge X, a £24.99/week premium tier offering features like priority likes and access to preferred match types. Meanwhile, niche apps like Feeld, Fourplay, Lex, and Raya continue to expand. These changes reflect a clear shift toward simpler, faster, and more structured dating experiences.

See full article at BBC

Curated by the Courtland Brooks team

Raya Celebrates 10 Years as the World’s Most Exclusive Dating App

Posted on March 24, 2025
Logo of Raya

METRO.CO.UK – Raya, the ultra-exclusive dating app for creatives and celebrities, celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a reputation for exclusivity – only 8% of applicants are accepted. With a 100K-person waiting list and a user base that reportedly includes A-listers like Charlize Theron and Paul Mescal, Raya offers verified, high-profile dating, charging up to £44/month for premium access. Despite occasional criticism for being status-focused and transactional, the app has led to some success stories, like influencer Jessica Stocker meeting her fiancé.

by Alice Giddings
See full article at Metro.co.uk

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Inside Raya: the Exclusive Celebrity Dating App

Posted on November 28, 2024

Raya logoDAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Raya, launched in 2015 as a dating app for creative professionals, is known for its exclusivity, requiring referrals and social media clout for membership. Despite its reputation for attracting A-list users like Ben Affleck and Cara Delevingne, the app's allure is fading, with fewer celebrities active today. TikTok and Reddit have demystified Raya's elite image, revealing mixed reviews about its matchmaking and user experience. While some see it as a status symbol, many find it impractical due to distant matches and lack of genuine connections, questioning if the hype still holds up.

by Maanya Sachdeva
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

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Podcast: What Makes Dating-App Raya SO Exclusive?

Posted on May 31, 2024

Raya logoZ100.iHEART – On the most recent show, Elvis Duran discussed the exclusivity of Raya, a private membership-based dating app. Known for attracting celebrities, influencers, and industry leaders, Raya's highly selective application process and committee approval create a unique space for high-profile users to connect and network, making it the ultimate platform for the elite.

by Elvis Duran
See full article at Z100

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Dating App Patent Held by Trinity Info Media Invalidated by U.S. Appeals Court

Posted on August 2, 2023

Dating App Patent Held by Trinity Info Media Invalidated by U.S. Appeals CourtOBWBIP – The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the invalidation of an online dating app patent owned by Trinity Info Media (TIM), marking a blow to its enforcement campaign against owners and operators of dating apps such as Coffee Meets Bagel, Raya App, The League App, and Covalent, Inc. The court's decision relied on the Alice two-step framework, ruling that TIM's patent was too abstract and not eligible for protection under Section 101 of the Patent Statute. Despite this setback, patent litigation in the dating app space is expected to continue.

See full article at OBWBIP website

Which Dating Apps Collect and Share the Most Data From Their Users

Posted on August 29, 2022

Dating apps data sharing for postTECH BUZZ IRELAND – MoneyTransfers.com has analyzed 15 different dating apps to identify which apps share sensitive information with third parties. 67% of dating apps collect users' personal data to share with third parties. Badoo and Her were discovered to be the dating apps that share most of their users' personal data with third parties (35%), including everything from location, contact information, identifiers (IP address and cookies), and usage data. In joint second place were eharmony and Grindr, and in third place came Tinder and PlentyOfFish. There were 5 apps that did not collect any of their users' personal data to share with third parties. These apps were Hinge, Thursday, Flava, Once and Raya.

by Jim O Brien
See full article at Tech Buzz Ireland

The Pricing Puzzle of Dating Apps

Posted on July 11, 2022

Dating appsA MEDIUM FOR MEDIA – How companies make money off dating apps that are ‘designed to be deleted’. Some elite apps like Raya and Lox Club work on memberships. Market leaders Tinder, Hinge and Bumble operate on a “freemium” model. A paying customer is statistically more likely to find a successful match and, as such, has no need for the product anymore. Freemium pricing hooks customers, then lures them to top-ups and premium features. ARPU for dating apps has been steadily increasing, but paying customers represent less than 10% of the total for Tinder (and are below 5% for Hinge and Bumble). Advertising revenues account for a very small portion of revenue. i.e. 3% of revenue for Bumble. Hinge has done away with advertising altogether. Innovative monetization modes include
a. Offerwalls – Users complete virtual tasks for tokens that act as a proxy to premium services.
b. Data Swaps – Virtual tokens used to unlock features in exchange for permissions to sell data to third-parties.
c. Unlocking individual matches – e.g. shaadi.com users create profiles for free, but Shaadi charge them on successful matches.

by Zarir Marfatia
See full article at A Medium for Media

Mark Brooks: How do you think dating apps should monetize in the future? Please join the conversation on this topic, on this Swell. Your opinion matters. Please voice it here. 😉

Raya and the Promise of Private Social Media

Posted on October 15, 2021

Raya logoTHE NEW YORKER – Raya is the rare social network that ensures that all of its users are who they say they are. Since it launched in Los Angeles, in 2015, it has gained a reputation as the "celebrity dating app" and "Illuminati Tinder." The app is private; aspiring users must undergo an application process that can stretch on for months. Once accepted, members must adhere to a rigid code of silence – no exposing other people's profiles and no screenshotting within the app. Even tweeting too much about Raya, or publicly mentioning another member, can be grounds for a ban. Raya was launched by Daniel Gendelman out of his apartment in West Hollywood. Most social-media platforms rely on selling ads. Raya, instead, charged a subscription fee of $7.99 per month (now $9.99). The app's popularity was driven by FOMO. In 2020, Raya added a series of new features including its Directory, a kind of bespoke Rolodex that allows members to search one another by city, industry, or company. You can find a Raya-approved architect or graphic designer to plan a renovation or make a portfolio. According to the company, the Directory has seen more than a million searches to date.

by Kyle Chayka
See full article at The New Yorker

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Inside Private Elite Dating App Raya

Posted on April 19, 2021

Raya logoDAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Apr 19 – Daniel Gendelman, 36, founded LA based dating app Raya in 2015. Celebs who've used the app include Sharon Stone and Channing Tatum. With a waiting list of 100K and stricter vetting procedures than any private members' club, Raya is the most exclusive match-making service ever devised, and the most private, too. The first rule of Raya is not to talk about Raya. Some have had their memberships terminated for just mentioning on social media that they are using the app. Raya says they 'periodically review' their community and remove anyone who isn't respecting the members' privacy, but leaks still happen. Members pay £5.99 a month. Because the pool is small – 10K in total – users aren't limited by location but can match internationally. Most users tend to be in London, Paris or LA. Users choose a 'theme song' that accompanies their photos. There is also a feature solely for networking for work purposes.

See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

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