Grindr reported third-quarter revenue of $141 million on Thursday, Nov. 5, up 22% from $116 million a year earlier, the company said. It’s the first Grindr earnings report since the gay dating app closed its $250 million purchase of Freddie, a PrEP telehealth service, on Nov. 2, and it showed adjusted EBITDA of $61.7 million, a 43.7% margin, down from 47.4% a year earlier. Grindr raised its full-year forecast for the third straight quarter, to $560 million in revenue and $236 million in adjusted EBITDA, up from about $540 million and $232 million in August.
“Q3 2026 was another outstanding quarter for Grindr, with user engagement remaining strong and continued momentum across our core business,” CEO George Arison said in the release. “We are raising our full-year 2026 guidance, which puts us within our 2024 Investor Day financial targets nearly a full year early.”
The quarter also brought a net loss of $6.6 million, compared with net income of $30.8 million a year earlier, according to the tables in the release. The loss included “a $33 million litigation settlement charge and deal costs of $3 million,” Grindr’s shareholder letter said, and leaving out litigation-related and transaction-related costs, Grindr earned $21 million.
Chief financial officer John North tied the charge to U.K. litigation over Grindr’s data practices before 2020, before its current owners and management took over, according to The Motley Fool’s transcript of Thursday’s call. In September, Grindr agreed to pay £26 million to settle a claim from about 12,000 U.K. users who alleged it shared their data, in some cases their HIV status, with ad companies, Gayety reported. Grindr didn’t admit liability.
Average paying users came to 1.4 million, up 11% from a year earlier, and each paying user brought in an average of $27.15 a month in app revenue, up 10%, the letter said. “We delivered an outstanding third quarter with strong performance across our financial and user metrics,” it said. “Our position in gay life gives us the right to do more,” Arison wrote to shareholders in August.
Grindr’s 2026 Forecast Climbs From $540 Million to $560 Million
In August, Arison wrote in the second-quarter letter that “we are raising our 2026 guidance and now expect full-year revenue to be approximately $540 million, up from $535 million, and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $232 million, up from $227 million.” “Driven by strong user engagement and organic momentum, Grindr delivered an outstanding second quarter,” he said in the August release.
North told analysts on the August call that growth would slow in the third and fourth quarters, once Grindr lapped its subscription price changes and a strong second half of 2025, according to a Motley Fool transcript. He said the higher forecast came mainly from the price increases, which drove away fewer subscribers than Grindr had assumed.
Grindr took in about $268 million in the first half, with growth of 38% in the first quarter and 33% in the second, so it needed roughly $272 million more to reach about $540 million. “Grindr’s exceptional first quarter performance sets us up for another year of strong growth, reflected in our raised 2026 outlook,” Arison said in May. Grindr’s new forecast includes “a minor contribution from Freddie in the fourth quarter,” Thursday’s letter said, and it leaves the fourth quarter needing about $151 million, by Gayety’s math.
“At our forthcoming Investor Day in June 2027, we will share our vision for what Grindr will become by the end of the decade,” Arison wrote.
Freddie Closed Nov. 2, After Grindr’s Third Quarter Ended
Grindr paid $190 million in cash and $60 million in stock for PurposeMed, Freddie’s parent company, and the sellers can earn up to $70 million more in cash tied to 2027 targets, the closing release said.
“Together, we have an opportunity to prevent thousands of new HIV infections a year while building a major new source of profitable growth for Grindr,” Arison said in that release.
Thursday’s results cover the quarter that ended Sept. 30, before the deal closed. Grindr’s September letter to shareholders said Freddie expected “2026 revenue of more than $80 million and more than $10 million in Adjusted EBITDA,” figures it said “do not represent company guidance.”
“On our Q3 earnings call in November, we plan to provide an initial 2027 outlook for the combined company, along with more detail on integration, the US rollout, and planned investment,” Arison and Freddie co-founder Dr. Husein Moloo wrote in that letter.
Thursday’s release put that outlook at revenue of at least $705 million and adjusted EBITDA of at least $275 million for 2027. “We are carrying that momentum straight into 2027, where we are providing our initial outlook a quarter earlier than usual,” Arison said.
“At the same time, we closed our acquisition of Freddie, bringing an established, profitable telehealth business into Grindr Health to dramatically expand access to PrEP,” Arison said in Thursday’s release.
“Approximately three in four U.S. Grindr users who sign up for Freddie have never used PrEP, showing Grindr can expand the PrEP market itself,” Thursday’s letter said. Grindr expects Freddie “to serve approximately 12,000 U.S. patients at the end of 2026,” the letter said.
Eligible users in the U.S. and Canada can reach Freddie through the Health center in the app now, and Freddie’s patients don’t have to use Grindr at all, Gayety reported. Grindr promised in its September announcement that “participation will be entirely voluntary.” The stock it handed Freddie’s owners was valued at $15.58 a share, and Grindr shares fell nearly 8% on Oct. 1, the day after the deal was announced, as Gayety noted in its earnings preview.
Grindr Edge Launches Nov. 17 at $120 a Month
Edge, Grindr’s AI-powered premium tier, “launches globally on November 17, with early access beginning November 10,” Thursday’s letter said.
“We are launching Edge at an introductory price of $120 per month, nearly three times what Unlimited cost until this year,” the letter said. Grindr opened early-access registration on Oct. 20, and “within 72 hours, nearly 400,000 users had registered,” it said.
“We are currently testing EDGE in beta in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and select cities in the US, with plans to expand globally before the end of year,” Grindr said in March in its 2026 product roadmap. The August letter called Edge one of “the primary drivers of revenue growth in 2027 and beyond.”
Madonna, $210 Million in Grindr Buybacks and Match’s Sniffies Stake
“Over three months, we embedded Madonna throughout the Grindr experience,” the August letter said, and the run included a June takeover of Times Square. “Q2’s landmark Madonna partnership demonstrated Grindr’s exceptional cultural and commercial power,” Arison said in the August release. (A queen knows her audience.)
Rival Match Group, which shut down its gay app Archer in June, owns roughly half of the cruising app Sniffies, Gayety reported this week.
“Since December 2025, we have deployed $210 million toward repurchasing our common stock,” Grindr told shareholders in August, and about $300 million remained under its buyback authorization at the end of June.
