Upward: Christian Dating App Reviews

Okay as a woman using Upward I guess there are some positives and negatives. I tried Upward for exactly 2 days and at first it was fun and exciting seeing the likes and watching them add up but I guess it depends on what kind of person you are. I’m the type where if I already know someone likes me I’m more willing to invest time into that, but I couldn’t see anyone who liked me and that became frustrating after the first couple days when you have like 100+ likes but barely any matches. Lol. It’s not even that I swipe left on someone because they are unattractive but you just don’t know who would be into you and I guess that’s something they could consider fixing. I also agree with another reviewer in that when you do get matches, many people ghost after…due to browsing and “shopping” to see more matches. In this way I feel as though it’s a bit tricky to truly find someone who isn’t consistently browsing for more matches. Or the person is just not taking it seriously. It’s like it becomes a habit that many can’t stop and no true matches follow through to go on into anything deeper beyond “How are you?” I do believe there are some real people on there looking for something but personally it’s too hard to find them and I would rather let God do his work without me trying to force it. It’s not for everyone, but when it works (IF IT WORKS) it can really lead to great things I guess.

It’s a great app but could better Ive several issues regarding my subscriptions I’ve paid for not reflecting in Upward . Such as my elite membership that I purchased 2 maybe 3 different times this month as well as the several premium memberships none of which bare giving me access to those level features. I’ve messaged him them several times asking if they could fix that or refund my money and they never email me back. I emailed them Friday and they said they would get back with me and never did, I even wrote a review yesterday and it didn’t get posted. 2. A i had to create a new account after my phone number changed because of their system signing me out and making me type in my number which had been changed so it made me create a new account. So that may be part of the issue. So this app needs a different sign in method because folks change their numbers all the time and shouldn’t have to create a new account or not be able to access features because they worried about fraud. It’s the same IP address and name on the account and debit cards it’s not fraud I’d like the money back I’ve spent on both accounts this month especially seeing as though my old account I lost access to it 2 days after I paid the elite membership and the premium. How can this be fixed or I’ll just delete my account and tell my friends not to join here.

If you’re the kind of guy who’s struggling to get attention on other apps like Tinder or Bumble and you’re also a Christian, this one might be a little better for you. I find that the women on Upward tend to be less entitled and don’t have such high standards, basically if you’re decently attractive, it’s not hard to find someone who genuinely wants to talk to you and doesn’t have 40 other guys messaging them. However, the main flaw that Upward has is the lack of any kind of distance filter, it’s not a huge problem because it shows people’s distance whenever you view their profile, but it’s annoying because after using Upward for a little while, like 3/4 of the people it shows are over 60 miles away. Another thing I like about Upward is that it seems like you don’t have to swipe for that long for it to show you someone who’s liked your profile, however that may have changed in the most recent update which has adopted a Tinder style likes page which you need a subscription to see, and is actually more expensive than Tinder. So overall Upward is pretty good but it needs a location filter(that you don’t have to pay for because on some apps you do) and just more users overall.

I really want to love Upward as the interface is really good and I’ve had some decent conversations with some girls on it. But Upward REALLY needs some sort of user verification. The last match I got seemed really great at first. I gave her my number so we could talk easier. We seemed to have a lot in common and our conversation was really nice and everything seemed normal; at least, it did at first. All of a sudden, she sent me a completely unsolicited inappropriate photo of herself and later on, I got a phone call from her number, but it was a male voice on the other end of the call and he claimed he was her father and that his daughter is only 16 years old and that he was going to the police and would file criminal charges against me for child porn and solicitation of a minor. I now know it was a scam and the girl I thought I was talking to probably never existed and this person was just trying to scare me into sending money to avoid getting into some serious trouble. This really freaked me out, but luckily I just blocked the number and nothing more came from this horrible situation. But this was still an absolutely terrible situation and there really should be some sort of user verification to avoid this sort of thing. Please just fix this problem before someone really gets hurt and Upward would be sooo much better.

I downloaded this during quarantine. Things ive noticed you can’t see who likes you unless you match. I wish there was a way to see who liked me. There may be people i skipped over or never saw there. I have matches but people barely message on there. So its a little discouraging maybe offer a video chat feature. Also i noticed that there are people on there that aren’t even Christian. It’s literally a Christian dating app. People are “ spiritual “ that don’t even consider themselves Christian... that’s weird to me. I would think on a Christian Dating app that people are actually doing on there to date not be casual. I’ve noticed some people are on there looking to get there freak on... like go on tinder or something. Sorry I’m sure the creators of Upward have great intentions. I wish there was a way to be selective on Upward i never know where people i match with are from. I’m african american and a women and barely see any men that are black. I don’t discriminate i love em all... but it would be nice to be shown some people like me. Most of the people i see are hunters, fishermen etc😭i love jesus but man im getting discouraged with who i see. To sum all that up Can there be a paid maybe 2.99 feature to see who liked you😫?please

I’ve used Upward for about half an hour, and for an app that’s 2 weeks old, I’m pretty impressed. Some things to consider though: First, because it’s a new app, there’s not a whole lot of profiles to swipe on, for me anyways. I live in a developing, midsize, college town in a semi rural area. I had 4 or 5 profiles within 10 miles away and 6 or 7 in the nearest big city an hour away. After that I started getting a bunch of profiles 100+ miles away. Second, a distance filter would be nice. I could see people in my area and not see people I’d never interact with in person. I’ll update my review once I use Upward longer and hopefully get at least one match.

Update: I’ve used Upward for about a year and have had mixed results. Nice to see that they’ve added a likes screen and that the community has grown. On the other hand, I’ve only had 3 or 4 genuine conversations with my matches and have been unmatched/ghosted a lot, but that’s what happens on apps and what you get when you have a generation of very entitled women. Would be nice to have read receipts so I can tell if my match has seen my message. Overall Upward works really well and maybe you’ll have better luck than me.

I usually don’t write reviews but Upward is the exception! I had tried different apps hoping to find my “one” to no avail. I had just about given up hope when I came across Upward. I decided to give it another shot as this was a Christian app and I had never been on one before. Not even a week in I matched with this guy an hour away from me. We hit it off immediately and facetimed almost every day. He told me his cousin convinced him to get Upward as he bad never tried online dating before. (Thank goodness he did!) On our first date we both had that “God moment” where a voice in our heads both told us “they’re the one” loud and clear. We continued dating and, a few months later, he proposed! Fast forward to almost a year from when we first met: we said “I do” in my childhood church. We have no doubt that God used Upward to bring us together. We have been married for almost 6 months now and continue to have a blast every day. He is truly my best friend and I cannot thank the Lord or this app enough for sending me the man of my dreams! We are so grateful for you and cannot wait to continue our journey together!
-The Smiths.

It would be great if FTH took a few more hints from other dating apps. Not only should distance filters be a bit better, but if someone likes you, Upward should display them first so you can easily see who likes you and if you’re interested. Better that than occasionally seeing that someone has liked you but then swiping and swiping and never getting a match. Having a way to backtrack to the last person after an accidental swipe left would be super nice too. I love the concept because my faith is super important to me and I wouldn’t want to date someone who wasn’t a christian, but the whole app just feels a little clunky and hard to actually find matches on.

Update: reducing it from 3 stars to 2 stars after Upward lost a match I had with the same girl twice in a row in a period of about fifteen minutes. Unbelievable. If Upward can’t even remember who matched with whom, what’s even the point?

Update 2: dropping to 1 star after it did it a third time with the SAME girl in the course of another ten minutes. Y’all need to seriously work on your UI; it’s garbage

I’ve been on Upward less than a day. I’ll come back later to write an updated review. So , far, however, it looks like all of the negative reviews are correct, unfortunately. Upward is full of bots and shady profiles. In less than 24 hours I’ve had three matches. One was obviously a bot, one I haven’t reached out to yet, and one asked me to meet almost immediately (which is fine), but he insisted that I go to his place for the first meeting and unmatched when I suggested a public meeting first. I think that was a real person but I got a very bad vibe out of it, like there may have been something worse going on there that could seriously jeopardize someone’s safety. Be very cautious when using Upward, even more so than you would any of the rest of them. I think I’ve figured out how to spot these fake profiles (their “faith” section is very vague, for one), so we’ll see.

That said, as a Christian/Conservative in a Leftist city, it’s a nightmare trying to find a match on the mainstream dating apps like Bumble, Hinge, etc. I swipe right maybe 1 out of 500 times because most of the people on those apps are the Atheist/Liberal types or they are looking for hookups and polyamory. I’ll try Upward out a little while longer, but am very disappointed. They just need to add a way to verify profiles.

I wanted to like Upward because dating as a Christian woman in your late twenties is hard y’all. Unfortunately, Upward does not do it for me. I bought the premium version thinking it would have more features and save me time, but all of the important filters for me (distance, height, education) aren’t options! Upward shows you people who are 150 miles away without letting you filter down the distance. How is that practically supposed to work? Also I don’t care who thinks it’s shallow, height is incredibly important! I’m 5’11” and it is uncomfortable for me to date someone who is shorter than me, and it’s uncomfortable for them too! If God wanted me to marry a short man, he would have made me a short woman! I put my height in my bio so that men can know how tall I am, but this really should be a filter because no one needs to waste their time flipping through profiles of people they are physically incompatible with or guessing how tall they are. Finally, being able to filter for education is also incredibly important! This goes back to basic compatibility, people with similar education levels are more compatible. Yes it’s possible to guess someone’s intelligence from their profile, but please save us time and improve your app by making this a filter. Why does Upward have such high ratings? Who is this even working for???

I love you but I hate you, no distance filter = all my time and efforts for a long distance relationship. I guess the least i could do is pray for them. Oh, and I cant even go back if i swiped left on accident? So what do I do? Restart my account?! And if it’s telling me someone likes me, hook a bother up?! & put that person in my list of swipes... Or tell me who it is at least. I have faith in the dark for Jesus not your dating app. Lol add super likes maybe? Instant like and people will immediately be aware of who it is? And to go back on swipes should be a must! I feel like i lost the love of my life. She couldve been someone that liked me! This bothers me a lot. Also please add a filter of which denomination we prefer. If this werent an issue, we all wouldnt be attending different churches lol. PERSON AUTHENTICATOR! Please! For all the fake catfish accounts! The idea of your app. Is great, but seriously, no offense... it clearly wasnt thought through. Let’s be real... It reminds me of a college assignment i held off till last minute and just did ENOUGH to pass. So please, as a teacher... take this assignment back! And bring me back your best! Especially during quarantine season. I’d like to go out soon, and meet a wonderful Proverbs lady to intertwine my soul with. Seriously hurry up my whole family’s asking when I’m gonna get married. Hahaha Thanks FTH <3

I never write reviews, but I am so upset by Upward. I got Upward a few days ago, like today is the 4th day. Everything was great and I was really enjoying the experience with it. Had good matches and actually had guys texting and interacting which was not the case on the first app I tried. So I was in the middle of a conversation with a guy and my phone went to sleep and when I went to check my messages again my app logged out. I went to log back in and it’s saying my account is disabled! I have not violated any community standards, my pics and profile was all appropriate. Even if something was wrong Upward doesn’t give you any warning and there is no response from customer service. There is no phone number and no reply’s come from the emails. I have sent many emails now because I paid money for Upward and I have not done anything wrong so I would like to know why I cannot access my account. This is supposed to be for Christians but that seems really shady! I’m really disappointed especially since I had a great first day and 1/2. I would have given a 5 star if this was corrected but I’ve read another review where this happened and this app would not give a reason and banned him permanently. So I am assuming that will happen to me, which is not fair especially not even giving a reason why you’re banned. 😠

I think Upward interface is simple and to the point which I love, I’m also someone who actually pays for “Elite”. One of the worst features is lack of location filter. It’s very frustrating when you’re reading a profile and you’re thinking “oh she seems like my type I would love to talk to her” only to find out that he’s 100+ miles away and you’re coming across way too many profiles of individuals who live 50+ miles away. This also leads to another issue because I’m noticing I’m spending more time than I would want to on Upward because I come across maybe 5 profiles out of 20 who actually live in my area (I live in a metropolitan area). So outside of that I also wish there was a verification process like a photo to ensure you’re who you say you are. With that being said I think the developers are on to something great however after my current subscription end I’m not 100% sure I’m going to renew it because there’s another Christian dating app that apparently has a photo verification and location filter. I may just try it out after I’m done here however if you’re trying this app for the first time I think you’ll enjoy it just keep in mind of the lack of location filter.

I downloaded Upward after looking at other online dating options. I honestly didn’t want to spend money on a subscription and I was hoping to find something for Christians. While I found there were a lot of guys on Upward who were saying they were Christian without true faith and trust in Christ, I did actually chat with a handful of guys who seemed serious about their faith. When I started talking to my now-husband, we connected immediately and shared phone numbers. Two weeks later, we met in person. 4 months after that, he asked me to marry him! We have now been married for over a year and have a baby girl. We are grateful and feel so blessed that God used Upward to bring us together.
About Upward itself- I liked that it was simple, easy to use, and didn’t have especially lengthy bios. You only chatted with people who were also interested in you and it felt like you could pretty quickly and easily get a sense for if it could go somewhere with that person.
It worked for me, so I definitely have to recommend! ☺️

So I gave Upward a try for a year after seeing it advertised on Snapchat. As a Christian and someone who has been in the online dating business for awhile, I was excited trying this app as it was advertised as “A Christian Dating Website.” Well not only I met my toxic ex on here and wasted 8 months of my life thinking he was the one turns out he had a dark past and an addiction, I also wasted more time coming back on here for another few months getting my time wasted by “Christian Men” who only wanted to have sex with me, don’t reply back, and just take advantage of me because they know I’m a good woman. this app, what I have experienced as a user this whole year is not Christian like and you guys should consider doing background checks, verify the user is who they say they are, and should NOT have a casual selection as that is very hypocritical and is against Christian beliefs. I don’t even want to start on how my matches are too far out from me and I have gave you guys money after money and remained loyal the whole year thinking I was going to find someone. I even had been a loyal customer to the point I trusted you guy to the point when I deleted my account a few times I came back, never again Upward is garbage and has been thrown together last minute I bet like las minute studying for a finals, yuck 🤢

I’ve met some people solid Christians on Upward, even if most of that are fairly distant from me geographically speaking. However, there’s a couple of key annoyances. First, the number of people who have already liked me never drops, and I can (and have) swiped in excess of 400 people on one sitting. Still 99+. Second (and this combines with the first one), it will repeatedly (and randomly) revert to my general geographic area, showing me the same faces I have seen countless times. If I swiped away on someone, I generally did that with intent. I don’t want to have to swipe past everyone again, and again, and again so that I can finally encounter those people who purportedly already liked me. Finally, excessive notifications (“WWJD? Prolly start swiping for singles” - yeah ... probably not. Ditch that notification). I appreciate it for what it is. Technically speaking, I’m not very impressed. Subscriptions are overly expensive, and (unlike Hinge) undos are behind a paywall. Could be worse, but could certainly be better. Edit: I bit the bullet and got a subscription, just to confirm my suspicions. The majority of the people who had already “liked” me were people that I recognized as having swiped away. App is poorly developed.

Edit: advertisements for alcohol now.

It’s a great platform, great idea, the features that they have in the profile are excellent, concise to the point. Love that they have a bio and a spot to share about faith.
That’s all good.
Here’s the bad:
Seems like people don’t get it. They give half-a answers, or just repeat themselves in both spaces. Maybe dating apps should come with tutorials on how to present oneself? Or like, here’s where you should be in maturity, emotional Development to function well on here. The people who occupy the space on Upward, it’s rough. Like, just because it’s Christians doesn’t mean standards fly out the door… I nearly want to start a business in helping people create bios and choose photos. Those who have good profiles, don’t actually participate, it feels like there’s just good profiles you match with to keep you going. Just disheartening. Not Upward creators fault. They’ve done wonderful advertising attractive men on Upward to grab attractive women… but maybe they can market this app in all areas?
It almost feels like, “I’m Christian that should be good enough to grab your interest.”

So I made an account and I was using it for first time for 15 minutes, with in trying to get my account set up it all of A sudden it logs me out right when I was adjusting the distance. Was it because I was a Christian creator on tiktok or did someone report me as a spam account because I wasn’t. Idk why it said it was disabled because I didnt violate and guidelines. And i know im not the only one who got there account disabled for no reason. And when it says it was disabled it doesn’t say why. And again I would never do anything that would violate the terms and conditions. Please fix this bug. Never using Upward again, oh wait I cant always because I’m banned for no reason.

Update: after reading so many of the reviews,
Of people saying that there is so many people that are spam accounts and fake accounts there was probably someone that reported my account thinking it was fake. Also please consider taking the distance off profiles because when someone sees that it makes it easy for some to stalk people. And what do I take out of this, maby GOD did not want me on Upward, so thank you for deleting it because honestly I would of probably deleted it the next day. Be carful and to say this was my first time using a dating and and never will again.

The problem with Upward is the lack of a distance filter. You see how far away they are when you click on the profile, but it’s cumbersome to click on the profile every single time you see someone attractive. Their location should be one of the first things you see, and should be on the main card. Additionally, there’s a problem with age as well, at least for me, being an 18 year old. The smallest age gap I can have is 18-24. That’s simply no good, because a vast majority of people 18 year olds do not want someone that much older than them. A smaller age gap would be much better for people who are younger. Upward also gives less information about the person than other apps like Hinge. In some other apps, it shows their height, political beliefs, and a few things they’re into. Upward has no such thing. Other than that, Upward is great. Even as a non attractive male, I was able to get 7 likes in a short period of time, and even matched with 3 of them. The people on Upward are much better people than the ones on Tinder. You get the feeling that they’re on Upward for an actual relationship, and not just a hookup.

I’m torn on Upward because on one hand it’s nice because it’s algorithm isn’t absolute garbage like tinder or bumble. Upward is supposed to have Christian singles, which I see for the most part. My problems arise when I can’t find a girl within 200 miles of myself. Every other dating app gives you the ability to limit the distance at which you see other singles along with other filters. However this app only allows you to use the age filter. They just don’t have it, you don’t even have to upgrade to use it. Also, I have some likes, I’ve only come across 2 of them over the course of weeks. Overall, my biggest issue with this service is the fact there is no distance filter. I know this app is a smaller app, but I don’t even want to see a girl if she is more than 30 miles away. I know this is harsh, but I and many other people just don’t really care for a long distance relationship. I’m definitely not hating on Upward , i like Upward , I just want more options. This review is really just for the developers. Hope you guys are working, or will work, on these issues. Thanks for your time if you read this.

I’m bugged by the fact that you can do everything but change your location preferences. Everyone I come across is over a hundred miles away & there’s nothing I can do to change that.

I’m tired of waiting for commitment from the other dating apps. Upward has my faith.