The Stir dating app exists for one reason: it puts “I have a child” into the premise instead of into the third conversation. This review says what the app is, who runs it, what the free tier stops you doing, and — deliberately — no prices, because we have not paid for it.
What Stir is
Stir is a dating app for single parents, run by Match Group — the same company behind Tinder, Hinge, Match and OkCupid. That ownership is the most useful fact about it. It explains the interface (swipe cards, mutual matches, an upgrade prompt at the point where you want to say something), the distribution through the official app stores, and the fact that any survey Stir publishes about single parents is marketing from an interested party, not research.
The product idea is narrow and, on its own terms, sound. On a general app, being a parent is information you have to place: too early and it reads as a warning label, too late and it reads as a withheld fact. On Stir it is the entry condition. Nobody is surprised, and nobody has to be told twice that Saturday depends on someone else’s week.
What that does not do is change the arithmetic of a small city. A niche app has a niche pool by definition. If the general apps are quiet where you live, the niche one is quieter.
What it costs
We do not know, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Checking a subscription price properly means registering an account and reaching a real purchase screen with real payment details. We have not done that. Prices circulating in review listings for this app trace back to other listings rather than to a purchase screen, and copying one would make this page look more informative while making it less true.
Affiliate disclosure, before the table rather than in the footer: some links in this section of the site can earn us a commission. Nothing on this page is arranged by commission, and we have no commercial relationship with Stir or Match Group. The absence of a price below costs us money and is the correct call anyway.
| Question | Status | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns it | Verified | Match Group — same operator as Tinder, Hinge, Match |
| Who it is built for | Verified | Single parents; parenthood is stated, not revealed |
| Download and browse | Free tier | Profile creation and looking around cost nothing |
| Subscription price | Not verified | Requires a real registration with payment details; see the app's own purchase screen |
| Exact free-tier limits | Not verified | Limits can vary by region and account age; the app's own upgrade prompt is the current answer |
| Success rates | No source exists | Every figure of that shape comes from a platform's own marketing |
If pricing matters more than the app itself, the more honest comparison is what each app blocks rather than what each app charges — that is the subject of where the free tier stops being free.
What the free tier actually lets you do
The pattern across Match Group apps is consistent enough to describe without inventing numbers. The free account is generous with everything that fills the app and tight with everything that resolves it. You can install, build a profile, browse and swipe. The wall arrives at the point where a match becomes a conversation, or where you want to know who already liked you.
That shape is worth naming plainly, because it is how the category works on you: the free tier is designed to accumulate a queue of unanswered interest, then sell you the key. Knowing that in advance is not cynicism, it is just reading the business model before it reads you.
Two practical notes. Limits inside these apps can vary by region and account age, so someone else’s screenshot is not evidence about your account. And before paying anything, find the cancellation path — it lives in your app-store subscriptions, not inside the dating app — so the decision to stop is as easy as the decision to start.
Who it suits, who it doesn’t
It suits you if you want the fact of a child stated in the premise, and if the app scene where you live is busy enough for a subset of it to still be a scene.
It suits you less if you are in a thin market, or if you are hoping a niche audience means a kinder one. The audience is smaller, not different in character. A well-written profile is worth more than the app you write it on — that is the argument of our guide to writing a dating profile as a parent, and it applies identically on Stir.
Some context on expectations, and the only two numbers on this page. Pew Research Center, in a survey of U.S. adults fielded in July 2022, found that three-in-ten U.S. adults say they have ever used a dating site or app — a figure covering all adults, married ones included, and measuring “ever used” rather than current use. In the same Pew survey, one-in-ten partnered adults said they met their current significant other through a dating site or app, on a base that includes relationships formed long before these apps existed. Neither figure is broken out by parenthood; no such breakdown exists, which is why this site does not publish one. Both sit with their sources on our statistics page.
What works
- Parenthood is the premise, so the schedule conversation starts from a shared assumption
- Run by a named, established operator with official app-store distribution
- Familiar interface: no learning cost if you have used a mainstream app
- Free to install, build a profile and browse before deciding anything
What doesn’t
- A niche pool is a smaller pool; density near you decides the whole experience
- Messaging sits behind the paywall, so the free tier is a look, not a service
- Limits and prices can vary by region, so no review can pin them for your account
- Being a parent as an entry condition does not filter for anything else you care about
Signing in and account issues
We do not host a sign-in form and never will. Any page that reproduces an app’s login screen is either a phishing page or one step from being mistaken for one, and a review site has no business holding your password.
Account access lives in the app itself and in the store account you installed it with. Three things are worth checking before anything else. If you signed up with a phone number or a social account, use the same route again rather than creating a second profile. If a password reset does not arrive, check the address tied to the account rather than the one you use now. If billing is the problem, it is handled by Apple or Google, not by the app’s support desk, because that is where the subscription is stored.
If you cannot get in and support is slow, do not solve it by making a new account with the same photos. Duplicate profiles get flagged, and you will end up arguing about two accounts instead of one.
What we don't do on review pages
This page is thinner in one specific way than the pages competing with it, and that is deliberate.
- We don't print prices we haven't paid
- Verifying a subscription means a real registration with real card details. Until we do that, the price line stays empty rather than copied from an aggregator.
- We don't invent hands-on experience
- There is no long-term testing section here, because we have not run one. What we describe is ownership, product design and the category's paywall pattern.
- We don't reproduce anyone's interface
- No screenshots of a service we have no rights to, no imitation login screens, no page styled to look like the app's own.
- We don't score apps out of ten
- A score implies a methodology. Ours would be one editor's impression with a decimal point on it.
What is actually checked here
- Ownership
- Stir is a Match Group product. Stated in the first section because it explains the interface, the distribution and the marketing.
- Dates
- Every claim on this page carries the date it was checked: 20 August 2026. If it is not re-checked, the date will show that.
- Numbers
- The only two figures here come from Pew Research Center and are named in the same sentence as the publisher and the survey date.
- Independence
- We have no commercial relationship with Stir or Match Group, and nothing on this page is arranged by commission. The affiliate disclosure sits above the table, not in the footer.
Before you subscribe to anything
One habit is worth keeping in this category, whichever app you choose. Decide the paid thing you actually want — replying to people, or being seen more — and check that the subscription you are being offered is the one that actually opens it. The upgrade prompt appears at the moment of most frustration, which is exactly when it is easiest to buy the wrong tier.
Then the child-safety part, which does not change between apps: no photographs of your child on a public profile, no name, no school, no neighbourhood, and no custody schedule written out in a bio. The app you use is a preference. That list is not.
Where to go next
- The full shortlist and how the apps differ: dating apps for single parents.
- The other parent-specific service people compare this one against: SingleParentMeet, reviewed independently.
- What “free” actually means across these apps, action by action: where the free tier stops.