Sub Club Podcast: How Tinder Captures More Value With Tiered Pricing and Consumables — Ravi Mehta

Podcast: Sub Club by RevenueCat
Hosts: David Barnard, Jacob Eiting
Guest: Ravi Mehta, former Chief Product Officer at Tinder
Date: November 26, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep with Ravi Mehta, former CPO at Tinder, on the mechanics and strategy behind Tinder’s tiered subscription model and its use of consumables (ala carte purchases) to optimize both user satisfaction and revenue. The conversation touches on the evolution of app monetization, decision-making frameworks, onboarding strategies, and broader product leadership lessons relevant to the app economy. Listeners are taken inside the major philosophies of pricing, product strategy, and user psychology that shaped Tinder and other successful tech companies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fitting the Demand Curve: Tinder’s Famous Monetization Chart

• Description of the Chart: X-axis represents number of paying users, Y-axis is willingness to pay. Tinder overlays three subscription tiers—Plus, Gold, Platinum—along the curve, capturing different segments, then layers in consumables (e.g., Super Likes, Boosts).
  • [03:43] David Barnard describes the chart and asks Ravi how it shaped monetization at Tinder.
• Ravi’s Philosophy: One subscription leaves money on the table from users who would pay less or more. Adding tiers partially fills the gaps; consumables further refine monetization, creating “almost perfect price discrimination.”
  • Quote:
    "There's a whole bunch of people that are willing to pay $50 or $60. So you're leaving money on the table on both sides of that subscription." — Ravi Mehta [04:30]

2. Subscriptions as a ‘Force Multiplier’ for Consumables

• Why Subscriptions & Consumables Work Together: Subscriptions provide predictable revenue and get users to cross the “penny gap”; those already paying are more likely to buy add-ons for greater utility.
  • Quote:
    "Subscriptions are kind of force multipliers for the microtransactions." — Ravi Mehta [11:36]
• Free Users & Monetization: Free users rarely buy consumables directly; ads fill some revenue, but are a small percentage compared to subscriptions.

3. Differentiated User Needs & Product Bifurcation

• Free Tier Importance: Essential in products with network effects (e.g., dating, marketplaces). Pays off by fueling the network and upselling the motivated minority.
• User Segmentation: Tinder’s premium products mostly meet the needs of men seeking more matches, while Bumble has features for filtering inbound attention (often catering to women).
  • Quote:
    “The needs of someone who's getting a lot of people swiping right on them and the needs of someone who's not ... are very different.” — Ravi Mehta [09:56]

4. Iterative Development of Pricing Tiers and Products

• Staging Tiers: Tiered pricing and add-on bundling evolved organically through experimentation and relentless SKU testing, not via a single master plan.
  • Quote:
    "There were literally hundreds and hundreds of different SKUs available because of all the testing..." — Ravi Mehta [19:10]
• Meeting Extreme Users' Needs: The most valuable users (the “whales”) often hit product value ceilings, motivating creation of high-end tiers like Tinder Platinum.
  • Quote:
    "We weren't hitting the limit of what they wanted to spend, they were hitting the limit of what Tinder could do for them." — Ravi Mehta [18:38]

5. Generalizing the Model: When Does it Work?

• Free vs. Paid vs. Trials: Choose a structure based on network effects and how quickly value can be delivered/habits formed (e.g., dating needs low friction, gym memberships benefit from up-front commitment).
• Consumables Only Work If Value Scales: Ala carte models need strong linear scaling of value with increased use to encourage higher spending; not every app is suited (utility apps may struggle).
  • Quote:
    "As long as they're scaling linearly or about that, then people want to buy more of it." — Ravi Mehta [22:07]
• Founders Often Undercharge: Many successful apps could 2–3x revenue simply by raising prices or segmenting their offerings better.
  • Example: "Riverside is a great example … it is such a drop in the bucket compared to my time, the production team..." — David Barnard [24:46]

6. Onboarding: When More Steps Are Better

• Case Study — Sesame Care: Increasing onboarding steps from 3 to 25 for weight-loss med intake improved conversions by 40%, as depth built user confidence in the offering.
  • Quote:
    "… by the time that you got to the checkout screen, people were much more likely to check out. And the step to step conversion rate ... was north of 99%." — Ravi Mehta [31:21]
• Short vs. Long Onboarding: Apps need to optimize friction based on where their "aha moment" is (i.e., where real value is first delivered). Fast for things like Tinder, deep and comprehensive for high-consequence services (medical, travel).
  • Quote:
    "Sometimes that's a matter of increasing friction, because the friction ... gives you the information or the motivation that you need. And sometimes it's a matter of decreasing friction..." — Ravi Mehta [33:15]

7. Frameworks & Decision-Making Models

• Role of Frameworks: Frameworks clarify complex decisions by surfacing root questions and separating key variables.

  • Quote:
    "The magic of frameworks is not that they do the thinking for you, but that they help you ask the right questions..." — Ravi Mehta [43:50]

• NCTs (Narratives, Commitments, Tasks) vs. OKRs: Ravi introduces his three-part alternative to OKRs, designed to include the "Why" (narrative), "What" (commitments), and "How" (tasks), after experiencing the limitations of traditional OKRs.

  • Quote:
    "Goals are a three legged stool. ... OKRs only have two of the legs." — Ravi Mehta [45:49]

• Mission-Driven Products: Company mission should define everything downstream—strategy, roadmap, goals—ensuring customer needs remain central as businesses scale.

  • Quote:
    "If your customer is not mentioned in your mission, that's a problem." — Ravi Mehta [57:30]

8. Industry Observations & Broader Product Lessons

• Underappreciated Value: Products are often undervalued by founders and users; pricing and features should be built to reflect true value (e.g., scanner apps, podcast platforms).
• Growth in 2025: Success requires converting “earned” audiences into “owned” ones, as changes to platform algorithms make reliance on following alone less stable.
  • Quote:
    "Growth would be easier if ... people focused obsessively on turning their earned audience into an owned audience." — Ravi Mehta [63:22]

9. Clarity of Vision and Company Longevity

• Why Mission Clarity Matters: Sustainable growth and resilience require clear, memorable missions that are lived out company-wide.
  • Quote:
    "Companies get disrupted because... they start focusing on themselves, not their customers." — Ravi Mehta [57:36]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A single subscription is just a really good threshold monetization point where there are a whole bunch of users who are willing to pay that amount. … It’s good for them ... it's good for us because it makes our business more predictable.” — Ravi Mehta [06:09]

• “Very few free users actually buy microtransactions. It tends to be that these subscriptions are kind of force multipliers for the microtransactions.” — Ravi Mehta [11:36]

• On matching onboarding friction to value:

  • “What is the aha moment for your product? ... You want to keep person highly motivated during onboarding and you want them to be confident that what they're getting is what they want.” — Ravi Mehta [38:44]

• On frameworks vs. OKRs:

  • “Narratives are the why, the commitments are the what, and the tasks are the how.” — Ravi Mehta [48:54]

• “If you have a product that is solving an important need for someone, … you should think about what the value is of that system, rather than just like, ‘oh, 20 bucks a month is a really good place to start because that’s what everyone else is charging.’” — Ravi Mehta [27:02]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:43]: The Tinder demand-curve chart explained; tiered subscriptions + consumables
• [07:28]: Importance of Tinder’s free tier and its network effects
• [11:36]: Why subscriptions amplify microtransaction spending
• [18:03]: How Tinder iteratively developed its subscription tiers
• [22:07]: Product categories where microtransactions/consumables work vs. don’t
• [29:06]: SaaS pricing: examples of under- and overcharging
• [31:21]: Case study: Sesame Care onboarding — longer led to more conversions
• [38:44]: Motivation and confidence: frameworks for onboarding
• [45:49]: NCT (Narratives, Commitments, Tasks) explained as a replacement for OKRs
• [54:08]: Product Strategy Stack — mission drives everything downstream
• [63:22]: "Growth would be easier if...": On the importance of building owned audiences

Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, curious, and pragmatic, filled with hands-on insights, analogies, and occasional humor. Both hosts and guest maintain an analytical yet approachable tone, inviting the audience to question assumptions and experiment with their own monetization, onboarding, and strategy challenges.

Final Takeaways

• Tiered subscriptions plus consumables give maximum flexibility to match users’ willingness to pay, increasing both ARPU and user satisfaction.
• Choose onboarding friction based on the user’s context and the “aha moment”—not all onboarding should be short, or long; optimize for confidence and motivation.
• Frameworks (like NCTs) help teams maintain clarity and focus, but only when anchored by a strong narrative or mission that puts the customer at the center.
• In a fast-moving tech environment, repeatable principles (user motivation, product-market fit, pricing relative to value) matter more than rigid playbooks.
• Own your audience: With distribution channels in flux, turning followers into direct contacts and habitual users is critical for sustainable growth.

For more from Ravi Mehta:

• Substack/Blog: blog.ravimeta.com
• Website: ravimeta.com

(Ads, intros, and outros have been skipped in this summary.)