Ask just about anyone what’s wrong with modern dating and they will likely tell you the same thing: The apps suck. They’re built on a pay-to-win model. Fewer people are finding quality partners. Some studies have even suggested that increased time on them leads to higher depression and anxiety while also contributing to loneliness among men. All told, the pursuit of finding love through a swipe has created a generation of burned out, sexless singles distrustful of dating apps.
But the dating apps aren’t the only problem—at least not the main one anymore. According to recent research, the cost of dating in 2026 has priced out the average single person, and the divide in who can afford to date is wider than ever.
An overwhelming majority of US singles (86 percent) say that money concerns have led them to delay dating or reentering the dating pool, according to a survey published in April by financial services firm JG Wentworth. A BMO Real Financial Progress Index report earlier this year found that “date-flation” is on the rise, with the average all-in cost of a date increasing by 12.5 percent in 2026, to $189, a rate that is outpacing the cost of living. And low-income earners are being hit the hardest—33 percent of people making under $50,000 per year say they’ve stopped dating completely, while 15 percent of people earning over $100,000 have fully taken a break from the dating process, according to recent research from Louis Jadot and Morning Consult.
“To me, that signals a real shift: Connection is no longer something people pursue spontaneously; it’s something they have to budget for, justify, and sometimes opt out of entirely,” says Farnoosh Torabi, a financial analyst and host of the So Money podcast. “That can make people more intentional, but it can also make dating more limited and more unequal.”
What these new economic pressures have created is an unavoidable friction: People, as Torabi noted, want to be more intentional about dating—in-person dating events were on the rise in 2025, according to data the ticketing platform Eventbrite shared with WIRED—but doing so has gotten financially harder.
Dating is slowly turning into a luxury exclusively for the rich.
As Brandon Wade, co-CEO of the dating site Seeking, sees it, you shouldn’t date if you can’t afford it. “Until we have achieved a level of financial security to provide, how do we love? You’re not loving and giving from a place of abundance. You’re giving from a place of lack.”
Men from Gen Z to Gen X especially seem to be opting out of the process. The narrative, primarily centered on straight relationships, has become exceedingly common across social media as more people feel the pinch.
TikTok user @eddieeye71, a single father and amateur musician, posted a recent video in which he talks about the high costs he has seen, noting that he stopped dating 18 months ago. “I feel like I’ve had more control of my finances,” he says. TikTok user @Imjustln posted a video where he says he also feels strained: “I cannot be dating in this economy. Not only am I spending $80 for a tank of gas, I’m driving 45 minutes to an hour to go see people for a date night, then dropping $80 to $100 per date—like what is going on? I just did that two nights in a row. Hell no!”
That pinch may also, in part, explain why sugar baby discourse—and the economic realities of dating—has recently captured the zeitgeist.
