Relationship apps represent a neat way to leverage technology to help people succeed as couples in their romantic relationships. With so many options to choose from, though, it’s important that you find the relationship app that works best for you.
In this article, we’re going to look at 9 of the most popular relationship apps currently available for couples. We’ll look at pros and cons of each, talk about key features, mention any associated costs, and even look at some green flags and red flags to look out for with these apps.
If you’re ready to take your relationship to the next level, let’s get started.
LoveTrack – The App That Keeps Couples Connected
Backed by extensive research and partnered with some of the biggest relationship support organizations and University research departments in the country, LoveTrack is hands-down a leading relationship app for couples.
The core feature of LoveTrack is the interactive date night planner backed by research from The National Marriage Project that says couples who go on frequent date nights are 14 percentage points less likely to get divorced. With over 500+ unique and preplanned date nights, LoveTrack ensures you and your partner never have to think about planning a date night again.
In addition to this, LoveTrack also offers daily couples questions, daily relationship advice tips, anniversary and birthday reminders, fun ideas for romance, and several unique ways to remember the things that matter most in your relationship.
And the best part? It’s actually free. Not like ‘get this free version and then have to pay to upgrade to actually use anything’. Actually free, never have to pay for it (if you sign up now).
Partnered with organizations like The Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University, the Together Program at University of Maryland, Blue Star Families, and many more, LoveTrack provides your relationship the best resources and tools you need to succeed.
And it’s literally free. Sign up today (and get your spouse or significant other to sign up too)!
What Makes a Relationship App Great
Before we look at some other options, it’s important to talk about what makes a relationship or love app really stand out. This way, even if you don’t choose to go with LoveTrack or another option on this list, you’re equipped to make an informed decision.
Backing by Trusted Organizations and Partnerships
There are no formal requirements needed to put a relationship app into the app store. What this means is that with no formal oversight, anyone in the world can create an app that may have a strong impact on your relationship. If they know what they’re doing, great. If they don’t, you could end up doing more harm than good to your relationship.
The best way to protect your relationship from this? Look for love apps that have partnered with trusted organizations. In order to earn these partnerships, these apps undergo extensive vetting by experts who know what sound advice is, and what is not. Think of these partnerships as seals of approval.
You’ll notice, the majority of the love apps on our list don’t have any of these partnerships. Again, this is a reason that we believe LoveTrack is the best option for you, especially because of extensive partnerships with major universities and relationship groups.
Practical Features, Not Just Theory
One of the chief complaints people have with relationship help and advice is that it tends to speak in theory and ideas, instead of practical step-by-step advice. In some cases, it’s important to understand the ‘why’ first, but without practical advice as well, it’s useless. Look for an app that understands this.
If you can’t walk away from the app every day with clear steps on what to do next to improve your relationship, that’s not good.
Research-Backed Features and Advice
Just because a feature sounds neat or is fun to use doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s great for your relationship. Look for a relationship app that builds its features around extensive research, like how LoveTrack’s date night planner is built on research from the National Marriage Project.
Pay close attention to this in a later section when we talk about gamification and in-person vs. in-app feature prioritization.
A Price That Doesn’t Make Things Harder
Finances tend to be one the biggest sources of relationship strife for couples. While we understand that sometimes you need to pay for things because resources cost money, the price of a love app needs to be affordable enough to make sense in the long run.
The goal of these apps isn’t a quick fix (at least it shouldn’t be). The goal should be a long-term partner that sticks with you for years and years supporting you along the way. If the price doesn’t support that, it’s no good.
Things to Look Out For With Love Apps
Looking for what makes the best relationship apps great is only half of the puzzle. It’s also important to know the red flags to look out for, so you don’t make a bad decision.
Excessive Gamification
Gamification is the process of making apps addictive by leveraging game-like elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, and rewards to tap into users’ psychological motivations. While some small elements of gamification are unavoidable and some can actually be helpful for an enjoyable experience, excessive gamification that preys on your dopamine is a big red flag.
How do you identify when this is happening? The next point we’re going to cover is the most powerful litmus test.
In-Person vs. In-App Feature Prioritization
If a relationship app has features designed to keep you on the app, that’s a red flag. If the app has features that promote interaction and connection off the app, that’s a big green flag. The idea behind gamification is to increase your time on the app and your desire to constantly come back to it.
Here’s a real world example. Most of the relationship apps on this list offer some form of couples questions as a feature. Promoting healthy and unique conversations is a fantastic idea! However, implementation varies across apps.
With LoveTrack, you’re given three daily couples questions, but you have no way to answer the questions on the app. Why? Because the goal is for you to answer these questions together, in person. The feature is promoting human connection.
Most of the other apps, however, offer this feature where you answer the questions on the app and message your answer to your partner.
This discourages in-person connection all in the name of getting you to spend more time on the app.
It might feel like a more convenient feature that you even feel like you like, but this is the dopamine manipulation of gamification and the prioritization of getting you to use the app more, instead of growing your relationship.
Data Protection Problems
In order for a relationship app to be effective, you do have to share information about you and your relationship. We have absolutely no problem with this. However, the important question comes up of what that company does with that information.
For example, LoveTrack only uses personal information to make your app experience better. It’s never sold to third-parties to try and make a quick buck. As for other relationship apps, you’ll need to spend some time digging into their terms of service and privacy policies to see if they share that same sentiment.
Required Pairing
Some relationship apps can be used as a couple or on your own, where some are basically useless unless you pair the app with your partner. While we believe it’s okay that many apps fall into the latter category, it’s something that some people don’t like.
If you want to test the app out before recommending it to your significant other, you can’t. You basically have to get them to download it, connect with you, and share their information before you get a chance to see if it’s even a quality love app worth your time.
Again, not the biggest problem, but just something to watch out for.
Other Relationship Apps to Consider
Now that we’ve talked a bit more about what makes a relationship app worth your time and what to watch out for, let’s look at a few more popular options to consider.
Between
The Between app is designed to give couples a shared space where they can chat, share a calendar, and share photos. While the app says everything is private, the company that owns Between is not based in the U.S., but instead out of Korea. There are comments and concerns that have been raised about the privacy policy of the app, which is not something that gets us too excited.
Here’s a quote from the company’s privacy policy that we weren’t fans of:
In the majority of cases, processing of your personal information will be justified on the basis that: the processing is in our legitimate interests, which are not overridden by your interests and fundamental rights.
We’re not saying there’s necessarily a problem, but we’re just sharing the information for you to make a more informed decision.
- Biggest Pro: Some unique photo sharing features
- Biggest Con: Concerns about privacy and not a U.S.-based company
- Price: $1.99 per month + additional purchases
Paired
When it comes to popularity, Paired is certainly at the top of that list thanks to the company’s aggressive marketing campaigns. With good reviews and over 100k couples using the app daily, there is certainly a lot to like about Paired.
That said, many of the interactions with your partner take place on the app. If you’re looking for something to support a long distance relationship, this is probably great. However, if you live in the same city (or the same house), this is something we’re not a huge fan of. Relationships are designed to happen in person. Apps can help facilitate this, but they shouldn’t aim to replace it.
Additionally, Paired is around $15 a month, so there is a cost to use the premium features.
- Biggest Pro: Popular option with a lot of users
- Biggest Con: Heavy focus on in-app activities and not in-person
- Price: $14.99 per month
Couple Joy
Another popular love app is Couple Joy. The features of Couple Joy include app-based games, daily prompt questions, and relationship widgets you can add to your phone to track things like how long you’ve been together.
Much like Paired, Couple Joy has fairly strong ratings and reviews, but our chief concern is the same that the majority of the features promote in-app interactions. There are even add on purchases to protect things like streaks, which really demonstrates a lean in to the gamification. Again, this may be good for long distance relationships, but probably not ideal for people who live together or in the same city (even if it feels more comfortable).
Additionally, some reviews highlight issues with the accuracy and updating of the tracking widgets.
- Biggest Pro: Tracking widgets you can put on your phone
- Biggest Con: Focus is heavily on in-app interactions
- Price: $6.99 per month + additional purchases
Gottman Card Decks
Built by the Gottman Institute, the Gottman Card Decks is a free relationship app that gives you questions to ask your partner within particular categories. It looks like there are around 1,000 total questions, according to the company’s app store listing.
It’s great that it’s free, but it doesn’t look to have a lot of continued growth or support. The last update to the app was nearly a year ago.
- Biggest Pro: Free
- Biggest Con: Not much more than a few batches of questions
- Price: Free
Honeydue
Honeydue is a relationship app for couples that is designed to help you manage your money together. From reading reviews, it seems like people were big fans of the app, but the quality has fallen off lately.
When the app was working better, it seems people really enjoyed the ability to track spending, coordinate bills, and share expenses. That said, the recent featured reviews mention a lot of bugs and lack of upkeep.
- Biggest Pro: One of the few love apps on our list built around money
- Biggest Con: Lack of upkeep, bugs, and glitches
- Price: In app purchases
Couply
Powered by AI (which you may see as a positive or a negative), Couply is a Canadian-based relationship app that has couples quizzes, daily questions, relationship advice, and date ideas. On the positives, it does have several features to cover a lot of the relationship landscape.
That said, most of the features promote in-app connection which, as we’ve already said, isn’t really the greatest thing for your relationship unless it’s absolutely required by distance.
- Biggest Pro: Good reviews and several features
- Biggest Con: Heavily promotes in-app connection, not in-person
- Price: $11.99 per month
Love Nudge
Love Nudge is a relationship app that has a pretty strong backing from Dr. Gary Chapman (well known for relationship advice). The app is built around your love languages (developed by Dr. Chapman) and how you can use those to strengthen your relationship.
While we’re big fans of the love languages, the app seems a bit too focused on one area for us. While we don’t need a love app to cover everything, it would be nice to see it cover more than what it does. We’d probably recommend using this app in addition to another, as more of a complementary piece.
Additionally worth noting, some of the most recent reviews talk about confusing features, glitches, and the need for updates.
“Love the concept of the app but majority of the time it freezes and I can’t update my goals.”
“The app has very lackluster instructions. The quiz part works. I can see my and my partner’s love language results. But, the goals don’t seem to work at all.”
- Biggest Pro: Backing by acclaimed Dr. Chapman
- Biggest Con: Narrow focus, and some reports of bugs and confusing features
- Price: Free with limited in-app purchases
Raft
Raft is a relationship app that can be used with your partner or with close friends. The idea? It’s a calendar app to help you share plans and manage calendars. While the concept seems pretty neat, the app seems to be neglected. It hasn’t had an update in over two years and the reviews are quite old and talk about bugs.
Raft was created outside of the U.S. as well (Sweden) and while it looks great visually, the lack of support in several years doesn’t bode well.
- Biggest Pro: Simple features and helpful (when it works – reports or bugs)
- Biggest Con: Limited focus and not updated in over two years.
- Price: $2.49 per month
Comparing Love Apps and Relationship Apps
| App | Main Feature | iOS Rating | Android Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LoveTrack | Date night planner + full relationship assistant | 4.9 | 4.9 | 100% free |
| Between | Shared online space | 4.8 | 4.5 | $1.99 monthly |
| Paired | In-app connection | 4.7 | 4.6 | $14.99 monthly |
| Couple Joy | In-app games | 4.9 | 4.8 | $6.99 monthly + add-ons |
| Gottman Card Decks | Couples questions | 4.8 | 4.8 | Free + add-ons |
| Honeydue | Finances and budgeting | 4.5 | 4.3 | In-app purchases |
| Couply | Quizzes and daily questions | 4.6 | 4.4 | $11.99 monthly |
| Love Nudge | Love languages | 4.6 | 4.3 | Free + add-ons |
| Raft | Calendar and scheduling | 4.6 | No Android App | $2.49 monthly |