Chinese Dating App Charges $300 and Promises a Full Refund If You Don’t Get Married

What if you could pay for a dating app and get your money back if you failed to find someone to marry? Would you take that deal? That’s the unusual promise behind a new service launched in China, which guarantees that users will get their $300 sign-up fee refunded if they don’t get married within three years.

The app is called Liangpei, which roughly translates to “Good Match,” and it takes a very different approach from traditional dating platforms. Instead of letting users endlessly swipe through dozens of profiles, the service introduces just one potential partner at a time.

The idea is to encourage people to devote more time and attention to each relationship rather than simply moving on to the next match.

How Does the Liangpei Dating App Work?

According to Chinese news outlet Sixth Tone, signing up for Liangpei costs approximately $300. However, there’s an interesting catch: if users don’t get married within three years, the app promises to refund their registration fee.

But users can’t simply pay and start browsing profiles. Before receiving their first match, applicants must go through a screening process.

It consists of two steps:

• Questionnaire: Users must answer 25 questions about their dating history and previous relationship experiences.
• AI interview: They then have an approximately 20-minute conversation with an AI system responsible for the matchmaking process.

Only after completing these steps will the app introduce a potential romantic match.

Another unusual feature is that users can only have one active match at a time. In other words, while they’re getting to know someone, they can’t simultaneously look for other people on the platform.

Why Does the App Allow Only One Relationship at a Time?

Liangpei founder Zeng Xinxun told Sixth Tone that the goal is to encourage deeper connections.

According to him, allowing two people to focus exclusively on each other encourages both parties to invest more attention and effort into building a relationship.

Even if things don’t work out, the idea is that the relationship will have reached its conclusion after both people have genuinely communicated with each other.

This approach goes against the grain of popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, where users can spend hours swiping through profiles, collecting matches, and starting conversations that don’t always lead anywhere.

Liangpei is trying to make finding a partner a more focused experience, although this also means users have less freedom to get to know several people at once.

The Dating App Is Only Available in China

For now, Liangpei is exclusively available in China, meaning people living in other countries can’t officially use the service.

However, this isn’t the only unusual initiative involving technology and relationships.

Recently, Justin McLeod, founder of Hinge, launched Overtone, an AI-powered dating app inspired by the Hang the DJ episode of Black Mirror.

Meanwhile, in Singapore, the government launched a dating service aimed at people under 40, even offering to pay for participants’ first date.

And over in the land of NTR, there’s also a dating app for married people looking for someone to cheat on their partners with.