How to Build Flutter Dating App
If you’re looking for a convincing argument for developing a Flutter dating app instead of a native one, keep reading: you’ll find at least a couple of them here. At the moment, this framework is one of the best options for developing mobile or even desktop and web dating apps thanks to its wide range of features, attractive graphics, user-friendly interface, and other benefits.
In this article we’ll share with you the list of benefits of this SDK we’ve discovered during 4+ years of utilizing it for 25+ projects of various complexity.
Features to add to your Flutter dating app
Before exploring the advantages of Flutter dating apps, let’s define the features it should include. We’re not going to touch the very basics here, like authentication, entering the date of birth, uploading photos, etc. However, below you will find both basic and to some extent peculiar features for your dating app Flutter can provide. They will help you increase user engagement and satisfaction.
Basic
- Personality verification
It’s not just about matching expectations and reality when people meet with their date in real life, but also about users’ security. With Flutter, it’s very simple and safe to implement with reliable third-party integrations. Even banks, for which security is a top priority, use them. And we at Surf have done that for our clients.
- Push notifications
This is a multi-purpose feature. It can be used for reminding users about something like filling out a profile or a hanging up dialogue with a date, as well as bringing them back to the swiping in the app by sending emotional notifications (like Tinder usually does), or informing them about offers on plans.
- Voice and video calls
Among the users there will be those who are not excited about texting and prefer to see or at least hear the other person. For them, you can include voice or video calls in your application. And Flutter will handle it just as well as text chat.
- Geo-based matches
Someone is looking for pleasant company for an evening stroll in the park nearby, and someone wants to find not only a date or the love of their life, but also to improve their language skills. So it will be convenient if users can set geo-preferences for finding dates.
Ice breakers and entertainment
- Social media integrations
Most people prefer to check the social media of their matches right away to find out more about them. In order to encourage users to stay on the app, it’s better to let them see Instagram photos, favorite Spotify songs of their matches and others directly in there. It can be done via the social media API integrations.
- Polls
Some users don’t fill out the profile description. There may be various reasons for that: lack of time, laziness, etc. But what could be easier and faster than answering short questions? You can make a poll screen, for example, as a stage of the profile fill-in process. You could include questions about users’ favorite animals, movie preferences , and others. This would give dating candidates at least some information to get the conversation started.
- In-app games
This is a new practice for the dating apps market, but it works great. For example, Bumble was among the first that implemented it. And you can be one of the early-adopters of this feature. Flutter perfectly handles the creation of games thanks to the powerful Flame game engine.
Crucial dating app KPIs
To optimize dating apps for success, you need to prioritize the metrics that matter most to the overall product strategy by tracking and managing KPIs. Engagement metrics and customer acquisition cost are among the most important metrics you should pay attention to first and foremost.
- Engagement
One of the most crucial user engagement metrics are session duration and abandonment rate. The first one is the amount of time a user spends interacting with your application, while the second one is the ratio of all successful in-application transactions versus the started but interrupted ones.
- Customer acquisition cost (CPA)
This is the amount of money you spent to get 1 active user. It is calculated as Total Cost / Number of Users Engaged. The amount of costs includes both the cost of marketing activity and product development.
How Flutter can help boost them
- Awesome UI and animations
The quality of the interface design and the convenience of interacting with it greatly affect user experience and engagement. Attractive UI and smooth animations help create a comfortable environment for users that they want to return to. In one of our articles, we discussed in detail the capabilities of this SDK in terms of application design.
- Great performance
Flutter is almost as good as native development, thanks to its intelligently built architecture and strong graphics engines Skia and Impeller. You can be sure that your application will run smoothly even with a huge influx of users. For example, the video streaming application developed by Surf can easily handle a load of about 25,000-50,000 requests per second.
- Up to 40% lower development cost
Since application development costs also affect CPA, using Flutter will have a beneficial effect on this metric. The framework reduces expenses due to its cross-platform nature and architectural features. Moreover, over 4 years of working with this framework, we at Surf have built our own tools like Elementary and Surf Gear that help our clients get results fast, without sacrificing product quality.
Summing up
Flutter’s intuitive UI, fast development time frame, scalability and affordability make it an ideal solution for building dating apps that potentially millions of users can interact with.
