Hily Dating App Review
What’s the deal with Hily, the dating app whose name stands for “Hey, I Like You”?
Hily launched in 2017 and presents itself as an inclusive dating app for people looking for relationships, casual dating, friendships, or something in between. It combines familiar profile browsing with compatibility questions, personalized icebreakers, zodiac compatibility, profile verification, and paid visibility features.
According to Hily, the app has been downloaded more than 41 million times. However, downloads do not tell you how many people are currently active—or how many compatible singles are available in your area.
Is Hily better than Tinder, Bumble, or Hinge? We examined its current features, pricing, safety tools, App Store ratings, and recent customer reviews to find out.
How Does Hily Work?
Hily works similarly to most mainstream dating apps:
- Create a profile with photos and information about yourself.
- Browse recommended profiles in Finder.
- Like or pass on the people you see.
- Match and chat when the interest is mutual.
- Use optional compatibility and communication features to learn more about potential matches.
Free members can create a profile, browse profiles, use basic filters, send a limited number of likes, match, and chat.
Hily also offers several features designed to make profiles and conversations feel more personal:
- Compatibility Quiz: Questions intended to identify shared traits and relationship compatibility.
- Icks & Clicks: A compatibility feature that compares potential turnoffs and things two users appreciate.
- Personalized icebreakers: Conversation starters based on profile information.
- Zodiac Synastry: An astrology-based compatibility score.
- Music: Users can add favorite artists to their profiles and connect through shared musical interests.
- Major Crush: A premium feature that lets you show stronger interest and potentially send a message before matching.
- Video calls: Users can speak face-to-face without immediately sharing personal contact information.
Older Hily reviews describe a Stories section featuring short user videos. That feature is no longer prominently advertised in Hily’s current app listings, so users should not download Hily specifically for that experience.
How Much Does Hily Cost?
As of July 2026, Hily’s paid options cost:
- One week of Hily Premium: $14.99
- One week of Premium+: $24.99
- Profile boosts: Approximately $5.99 to $9.99
- One “unblur” purchase: $4.99
The exact offer displayed to you may depend on your device, location, promotional offer, and account history.
Is Hily free?
There’s a free version, yes, but tread carefully.
Some Hily subscriptions include a three-day or seven-day free trial. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, it will automatically convert into a paid subscription at the price displayed when you enroll.
A free trial is not the same as a permanently free membership. Before accepting one, check:
- How long the trial lasts
- Which subscription it becomes
- Whether you’ll be billed weekly, monthly, or for a longer term
- The exact renewal price
- The deadline for canceling
Weekly subscriptions can become expensive quickly. At $24.99 per week, Premium+ would cost nearly $100 over four weeks if left active.
Hily Dating App PROS
• Catfish free — Setting up a Hily account requires you to link your Facebook or Snapchat, submit a live photo, or send a photo of your ID. These requirements make it much harder for scammers or bots to create profiles.
• Hily uses AI to determine compatibility and block offensive messages. Hily’s machine learning helps to identify and show you users with similar interests and taste. The more you use the app, the better this feature works. Hily also claims its AI blocks inappropriate messages and the infamous dick pic.
Hily Dating App CONS
• Anyone can send you a chat request, even if you haven’t liked their profile. Hily may have precautions in place against very inappropriate messages, but it can feel like a waste of time to field message invites from people you aren’t interested in connecting with.
• Cancelling your Hily Elixir subscription is not super straightforward. You not only have to follow the steps to cancel your subscription in the Hily app, you also have to go to the App Store (or Google Play for Android) and suspend your subscription there in order to avoid getting charged. Some users have been frustrated with this unclear, two-step process.
• Baby, it’s a man’s world. Even though it’s not explicitly stated, Hily feels like an app made by men, for men. Provocative and damsel-in-distress imagery throughout the sign up experience and the option to roam the app for an affair feels out of touch with what a lot of women want in a dating app.
Overall Takeaway: 🫤
We give Hily a 50/50. The features are interesting but don’t seem to be providing much success for users. We notice more complaints than compliments so it’s a no (at least for right now) from us.
Stick with the other apps, but test your photos for maximum impact first.
Don’t bother bouncing around dating apps until you’ve got your profile picture perfect.
With the wrong pic, you can end up with 0 matches, no matter how great or terrible the app is. The right pic can change your dating life completely.
Test your dating pics on Photofeeler to make sure you’re using your best ones.
