# Bumble in 2026: revenue, payers and the Ithaca deal

Published 2026-10-16. Updated 2026-10-16. https://www.datingapi.io/insights/bumble-business-profile

**In short:** The Bumble app earned $171.7 million from 2.08 million paying members in the three months to June 2026, both down about 15% on a year. Bumble deliberately shrank its member base to raise quality, lifting revenue per payer to $27.55 a month. On 13 October 2026 it agreed to be taken private by Ithaca Holdings for about $1.3 billion.

The Bumble app is in the middle of a deliberate reset. In the three months to June 2026 it earned $171.7 million, down 14.7% on a year earlier, from 2.08 million paying members, down from 2.50 million [1]. Revenue per paying member rose to $27.55 a month [1]. Bumble says it chose to shrink its member base to improve quality, and on 13 October 2026 it agreed to be taken private by Ithaca Holdings for about $1.3 billion [3][11].

This profile covers the Bumble app itself. Bumble Inc also owns Badoo, which we cover separately in the [Badoo business profile](/insights/badoo-business-profile), so here Badoo appears only where it affects the group picture.

## Owner and launch history

Bumble launched in 2014 as a women-first dating app, where features such as Opening Moves give women a way to start conversations [7]. Its owner, Bumble Inc, also runs Badoo, launched in 2006, and the friendship app BFF [7].

The ownership story in brief, from the company's filings:

- **29 January 2020:** funds managed by Blackstone buy a majority stake in Worldwide Vision Limited, the group that owned Bumble and Badoo [7].
- **16 February 2021:** Bumble Inc completes its stock market listing [7].
- **1 July 2024:** Bumble acquires Geneva, a groups and communities app [7].
- **Mid-March 2025:** founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as CEO after Lidiane Jones resigns for personal reasons, as announced on 17 January 2025 [8][6].
- **May to July 2025:** Bumble shuts down Official and sells Fruitz [7].
- **September 2025:** Bumble For Friends is relaunched in the US as BFF [7].
- **13 October 2026:** Bumble agrees to be acquired by Ithaca Holdings for $6.05 a share in cash, a premium of about 138% to the unaffected share price on 9 October 2026 [11].

The Ithaca deal is already approved by shareholders: affiliates of Blackstone and Wolfe Herd signed a written consent, and the board approved it with Wolfe Herd recused [11]. Ithaca's co-founders and co-CEOs, Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, will become Bumble's co-CEOs at closing, and Wolfe Herd says she will stay actively involved [11]. Bumble will not hold an earnings call for the third quarter of 2026 and expects to file its quarterly report by 9 November 2026 [11].

## Business model and tiers

Bumble is freemium. Members can use the core app for free and pay for a subscription or for single in-app purchases [7]. Bumble's subscriptions are Bumble Boost, Premium and Premium+, while Badoo sells Badoo Premium and Extra [7].

Bumble defines a paying member as someone who bought or renewed a subscription or made an in-app purchase in a given month, averaged across the months of the period [1]. BFF earned no revenue as of the end of 2025 and is excluded from the figures [3].

The Bumble app carries the group. It produced $783.0 million of Bumble Inc's $965.7 million revenue in 2025, about 81% [3]. In the second quarter of 2026 the share was about 82% ($171.7 million of $210.5 million) [1]. Both shares are our calculation.

## Revenue and paying members, quarter by quarter

| Quarter | Bumble app revenue | Change on a year | Paying members | Change on a year | ARPPU, per month |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q1 2024 | $215.8m | not shown | 2.73m | not shown | $26.34 |
| Q2 2024 | $218.0m | not shown | 2.82m | not shown | $25.79 |
| Q3 2024 | $220.2m | not shown | 2.87m | not shown | $25.58 |
| Q4 2024 | $212.4m | not shown | 2.81m | not shown | $25.17 |
| Q1 2025 | $201.8m | down 6.5% | 2.71m | down 0.8% | $24.84 |
| Q2 2025 | $201.4m | down 7.6% | 2.50m | down 11.3% | $26.85 |
| Q3 2025 | $198.8m | down 9.7% | 2.34m | down 18.3% | $28.27 |
| Q4 2025 | $181.0m | down 14.8% | 2.19m | down 22.3% | $27.61 |
| Q1 2026 | $172.7m | down 14.4% | 2.08m | down 23.1% | $27.65 |
| Q2 2026 | $171.7m | down 14.7% | 2.08m | down 16.9% | $27.55 |

Source: Bumble Inc quarterly results, which report each quarter alongside the same quarter a year earlier [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Changes on a year are our calculation from the reported figures, so they may differ slightly from Bumble's own rounding.

What the table shows:

**Paying members fell by more than a quarter.** From a peak of 2.87 million in the third quarter of 2024 to 2.08 million in the second quarter of 2026 is a fall of about 792,000, or 28% [4][1]. That is our calculation.

**The fall may be levelling off.** The Bumble app had 2.082 million paying members in the first quarter of 2026 and 2.077 million in the second, almost flat [2][1]. Bumble said in March 2026 that its member base reset was largely behind it [3].

**ARPPU rose as lower-value payers left.** Revenue per paying member went from $24.84 a month in the first quarter of 2025 to $27.55 in the second quarter of 2026, up about 11% [6][1]. At the latest rate, that is about $331 a year per paying member (our calculation: $27.55 times 12) [1].

## How ARPPU is calculated

Bumble defines ARPPU as revenue divided by paying members, divided by the number of months in the period [1]. You can check it: $171.7 million divided by 2.0771 million paying members, divided by three months, gives $27.55, matching the reported figure [1]. Match Group calculates revenue per payer the same way, so the Bumble app's $27.55 sits between Tinder's $17.90 and Hinge's $33.11 for the same quarter [10]. See [ARPPU](/glossary/arppu) and [payer](/glossary/payer) for the definitions.

For the group, the Badoo app and other apps averaged $11.21 a month from 1.08 million paying members in the second quarter of 2026 [1]. The detail is in the [Badoo profile](/insights/badoo-business-profile).

## Safety and verification

Bumble has built its brand on women's safety, and its filings and launches describe several layers:

- **Photo verification** and machine-learning safety monitoring that flags harmful behaviour [7].
- **ID verification**, launched in March 2025 in 11 countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and Spain. Members upload a government ID to earn a badge, can ask matches to verify and can choose to see only ID-verified profiles [9].
- **Share Date**, which sends who, when and where a member is meeting to trusted contacts [9].
- **Review Before You Send**, which flags messages that may break the guidelines and lets the sender edit them first [9][7].

In March 2026 Wolfe Herd described the strategy as "raising the bar on trust and authenticity" [3]. For background, see [ID verification](/glossary/id-verification) and the [Online Safety Act](/glossary/online-safety-act).

## Recent product and leadership changes

Since Wolfe Herd's return, Bumble has cut hard and refocused. It reduced its global workforce by about 30% during 2025 and made significant senior management changes [7]. It ended 2025 with about 580 full-time employees [7].

The financial picture is mixed. The business is still cash generative: adjusted EBITDA was $72.9 million in the second quarter of 2026, a 34.6% margin [1]. But write-downs have been large. Bumble booked impairment charges of $1,039.0 million in 2025 and a net loss of $906.6 million [3], and a further $169.3 million impairment in the second quarter of 2026, giving a quarterly net loss of $127.9 million [1]. It settled its tax receivable agreement with Blackstone for about $186 million in late 2025 [4] and refinanced its debt in April 2026, extending maturities to 2030 [2].

On product, Bumble said in May 2026 that it planned to launch a "fully reimagined Bumble experience on our rebuilt, AI-enabled platform later this year" [2]. In August it described work on the platform migration, matching changes, conversation-starter tools, more in-person options and planned group experiences [1]. Its guidance for the third quarter of 2026 was Bumble app revenue of $167 million to $173 million [1]. What Ithaca does with that roadmap is the open question; see [Bumble's rebuild and 2027](/insights/bumble-rebuild-2027).

## What it means for dating app operators

- **Cutting low-quality members costs revenue first.** Bumble lost about 28% of its paying members while raising ARPPU about 11% [4][6][1]. If you plan a quality reset, model at least a year of lower revenue before engagement improves.
- **A platform rebuild is a multi-year project, even at scale.** Bumble has been migrating to a rebuilt platform while shrinking its workforce by about 30% [1][7]. Smaller operators rarely have that runway. [Build vs buy](/insights/build-vs-buy-dating-app) sets out the options.
- **Verification is now a brand feature.** Letting members filter to ID-verified profiles turns a compliance cost into something members can see [9]. Plan how verification shows up in the product, not just in the back end.
- **Public markets have been hard on shrinking dating apps.** Bumble chose to go private after years of falling payers and large write-downs [11][3]. A smaller, profitable, privately run app can make choices that a listed one struggles to.

If you are weighing a rebuild of your own app on an existing platform, [how it works](/how-it-works) explains the steps.

## Questions

**How much money does Bumble make?**

The Bumble app made $171.7 million in the three months to June 2026, down 14.7% on a year earlier. Bumble Inc, including Badoo and other apps, made $210.5 million [1].

**How many people pay for Bumble?**

The Bumble app had 2.08 million paying members on average in the second quarter of 2026, down from 2.50 million a year earlier [1]. Its peak in the period we tracked was 2.87 million, in the third quarter of 2024 [4].

**Who is buying Bumble?**

Ithaca Holdings agreed on 13 October 2026 to take Bumble private for $6.05 a share in cash, valuing it at about $1.3 billion [11]. Ithaca's co-CEOs, Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, will become Bumble's co-CEOs when the deal closes [11].

**Does Bumble have ID verification?**

Yes. Since March 2025 members in 11 countries, including the US and UK, can upload a government ID to earn a verified badge, and can choose to see only ID-verified profiles [9].

## Sources

1. Bumble Inc. announces second quarter 2026 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2026-08-05. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001830043/000183004326000099/bmbl-ex991prxq22026.htm
2. Bumble Inc. announces first quarter 2026 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2026-05-05. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001830043/000183004326000046/bmbl-ex991prxq12026.htm
3. Bumble Inc. announces fourth quarter and full year 2025 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2026-03-11. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000183004326000018/bmbl-ex991prxq42025.htm
4. Bumble Inc. announces third quarter 2025 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2025-11-05. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000183004325000039/bmbl-ex991prxq32025.htm
5. Bumble Inc. announces second quarter 2025 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2025-08-06. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000162828025038334/bmbl-ex991prxq22025.htm
6. Bumble Inc. announces first quarter 2025 results, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2025-05-07. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000095017025065679/bmbl-ex99_1.htm
7. Bumble Inc. annual report on Form 10-K for 2025, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2026-03-16. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000183004326000027/bmbl-20251231.htm
8. Bumble Inc. announces leadership transition to drive its next phase of transformation, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2025-01-17. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830043/000119312525008082/d926132dex991.htm
9. Bumble heightens safety measures with new ID verification feature, TechCrunch, 2025-03-17. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/17/bumble-heightens-safety-measures-with-new-id-verification-feature/
10. Match Group Q2 2026 shareholder letter, Match Group (SEC filing), 2026-08-04. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000891103/000089110326000128/mtch8-k20260804ex992.htm
11. Bumble to be acquired by Ithaca Holdings, Bumble Inc (SEC filing), 2026-10-13. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001830043/000095010326015480/dp254907_ex9901.htm