Two years ago, Luke Bailey had what became a controversial app idea — a dating app called Score for people with good to excellent credit.
The app launched a few days before Valentine’s Day and required users to have a credit score of at least 675 to sign up. At the time, Bailey said he created the app to encourage partners to talk more about personal finances, which is often uncomfortable for many people.
“Fifty-four percent of people say a partner’s debt is a reason to consider divorce,” Bailey told TechCrunch. “Financial compatibility is quietly one of the most important relationship factors, yet no dating platform directly addresses it.”
The app has had its share of critics, and many people have actually called it classist because of its focus on those who handle money well. However, the app, which was supposed to be available for 90 days, became so popular that Bailey kept it for six months. It gathered 50,000 users and made headlines worldwide for its facilities.
Then it disappeared and everything went back to normal in the dating world. Until Friday.
Bailey told TechCrunch that he has made up his mind to officially bring back the Score — for good, this time.
“We originally launched Score to embed financial responsibility into something people deeply value – love,” Bailey said. “When we closed it, we assumed the conversation would continue without us. It didn’t.”
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
Instead, he said people kept asking him why he shut it down. “Academics have even gone so far as to study the impact of behavior,” he continued. “It became clear that it wasn’t just a viral moment. It played something unresolved in relationship culture.”
This time, Score will be available on the iOS App Store (last time it was just a mobile app, he said, because he and his team built it so quickly). Bailey also said that this version of the app will be more inclusive, having taken into account feedback that it was too exclusive. “Well now, everyone can join in.”
There will be two tiers: the basic tier, where no identity or credit verification is required and anyone can browse and log in; Then the verified tier, where members have to verify their ID and credit score to unlock premium features. The app uses Equifax to verify both identity and credit scores, with users giving their consent for the app to do so. It only does what Bailey described as a gentle pull, so there is no effect on the credit.
“We don’t store full credit reports or sensitive personal and financial data. We just get confirmation that someone meets the Verified criteria,” he said.
The verified plan includes features that allow users to see other members nearby, see who has saved their profile, send introductory videos to potential matches, and message users before they swipe back.
He remains bullish on the use of credit scores, saying they are not a measure of wealth, but a measure of consistency. “Banks look for the same thing in customers that we look for in relationships – consistency and reliability,” he said. “Dating apps measure attrition. We measure attrition plus accountability.”
Bailey said the app doesn’t store sensitive data, doesn’t sell personal data, and protects everything by using an encrypted infrastructure.
The latest iteration of the Score collected a lot of data on its users, helping to show how each generation has been affected by socioeconomic factors. For example, it found that millennial men had credit scores about 11% higher than women. But for Gen Zers, that gap was much smaller, with men having credit scores just 3% higher.
“We will monitor how this data [has] evolved,” he said.
The original Score was a US-only experiment, he said, but this time, the company is planning a global expansion, starting with Canada. Watch out for some collaborations, too, he said.
“Financial behavior is one of the strongest predictors of life stability,” Bailey said. “We think compatibility algorithms should reflect that.”
