A member closes your app and forgets about it. Someone writes to them an hour later. Without a notification, they find out tomorrow — or never, because by then they have opened a different dating app.

Push notifications reach people when your site is closed. On a dating site that is not a nice extra: the whole business depends on two people being in the conversation at roughly the same time.

You can order more types for both the site and the apps.

Notifications are delivered through Firebase Cloud Messaging, Google's service for sending messages to phones and browsers. It covers iOS, Android and the web from one place.

Three things worth knowing:

The delivery itself is free. Firebase does not charge for sending notifications, however many you send.

It is gentle on the battery. Phones treat this service as a system-level channel rather than an app keeping itself awake, so members are less likely to disable your notifications in frustration.

No coding on your side. The connection is set up in the admin panel.

Browser notifications work in most modern browsers, but not all — check the current list if your audience uses something unusual. In the browser, notifications are sent to the main page only.

Step-by-step instructions for iOS and Android: push notifications setup.

This is where most owners lose more than they gain. A member who gets six notifications a day turns them off, and once they are off you have lost that channel permanently — almost nobody switches them back on.

Start with messages only. A new message is always worth interrupting someone for. Everything else is optional.

Group the weak signals. Three profile views in an evening is one notification, not three.

Watch the hours. A notification at three in the morning is not a reminder, it is a reason to uninstall. If your members are spread across countries, send by their local time.

Never notify about nothing. "We miss you" and "check out new profiles" are the messages that teach people to ignore your app. Notify when something actually happened.

Push reaches people who installed the app. Email reaches everyone else, including people who have not opened your site in a month.

Sensible division: push for things that need an answer today, email for a summary of what happened while they were away. See email notifications.

Do notifications work if the app is closed?
Yes. That is the point of them.

Do I pay per notification?
No. The delivery service does not charge for volume.

Can members choose what to be notified about?
They can turn notifications off at the phone level at any time — which is why restraint matters more than settings.

Which plans include this?
See the comparison table on the pricing page.