The popular dating app Bumble is unveiling a change to its messaging experience, reversing its decade-old policy of only letting women send the first message.
The company announced the change in a press release Tuesday, also sharing an update to its timed response policy.
"Beginning today, anyone in a match can send the first message, while recipients will now have 72 hours, up from 24 hours, to respond, giving members greater opportunity to start conversations at their own pace," the company said.
"This structured, time-bound experience supports Bumble's community in being more intentional with only one initial message allowed to be sent to make a strong first impression," it continued. "Only when a match replies to the first message does the chat open. If a member sends a low-effort message, such as a one word opener, they will be prompted to be more thoughtful with their message before they send."
The company said internal survey data showed nearly 66% of women on Bumble "prefer men to send the first message, with many sharing that this would make dating feel less pressured."
More than half of Bumble members said "lengthening the reply window improved their experience on Bumble" as well, the company added, citing internal survey data.
Bumble said testing showed women on the dating platform "experienced an increase in mutual chat rate, defined as when both parties respond and the chat is opened, more than twice that of men" under the updated messaging and timed response policies. The company said it also saw "early signals of healthy interaction improvements with a decline in chat expiration and unmatching" under the updated policies.
"We built Bumble around the belief that when you make dating better for women, you make it better for everyone and that remains true today," Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd -- who also co-founded the dating app Tinder -- said in a statement included in the release. "While women making the first move was a radical idea, being women-first was never about prescribing just one way to connect. It was about designing an experience with women's needs in mind to create better outcomes for everyone."
The company said the evolution may also signal a generational divide.
"While women making the first move remains an empowering option, many, particularly Gen-Z women, say they also appreciate the flexibility for men to start the conversation," the company said in the release.
Since its launch in 2014, Bumble has stood out in the dating app scene for letting women "make the first move," one of the company's slogans.
Women previously had to initiate conversations after matching with prospective partners.
Alongside a female-driven management team, Wolfe Herd centered her Austin-based company around a philosophy of female empowerment, which extended to the platform's name: Wolfe Herd told Esquire in 2015 that the name "Bumble" was inspired by the matriarchal society of bees.
After the company went public in 2021, sending its value soaring, Wolfe Herd briefly joined the small club of female billionaire founders, according to Forbes. (Forbes lists her current net worth at around $400 million, as of 2024.)
"This is only possible thanks to the more than 1.7 billion first moves made by brave women on our app -- and the pioneering women who paved the way for us in the business world," Wolfe Herd wrote in a social media post following the company's initial public offering. "To everyone who made today possible: Thank you."