It was mid-November and my friend and I were sipping espresso martinis in Greenpoint as she made her convincing plea for why I needed to reevaluate my entire dating life — a common point of contention between two twenty-something women sitting in a cocktail bar.
“You just need to listen to me,” she said, grabbing my phone. “Get on Raya!”
I had just moved to New York City and was single for the first time in five years. I’d already heard plenty of jabber about what has been called the “Soho House of dating apps” — her words, not mine. A few of my friends were on it. Not celebrities, but not quite “normies” either. Some ex-models, a few struggling artists, a couple of semi-nerdy tech guys, plus a handful of girls with an impressive social media following. Let’s just call them micro-influencers.
Dating apps have never scared me. Meeting people online is the par for the course for Gen Z and millennials. Whether that leads to a serious relationship, is a separate conversation. But, over half of adults under 30 have used a dating app or site. Tinder is the most popular, followed by Bumble, then Hinge, according to 2023 data from the Pew Research Center.
Then, there are the other options, like Raya.
What is Raya?
“Our focus at Raya is to provide members with access to exciting people and opportunities around the world…” a brief description reads from the app store. The brand goes on to list Raya’s community values, “trust, respect, and privacy – are core to the membership experience.”
Since its conception in 2015, Raya has reached 100 million in user spending, an impressive measure of growth for a relatively niche target market. The brand has positioned itself more as a social network than a dating app; a space to build connections, whether romantic, platonic, or perhaps for business. Still, perhaps the biggest draw of Raya is the fact that A-listers like Channing Tatum, Joe Jonas, Demi Lovato, and Olivia Rodrigo have allegedly been members.
There were only a couple of things holding me back from signing up. First, I’m not a socialite and have never considered myself better-than-Bumble. Second, you can’t just sign up. Those interested must request referrals, and submit an application that gets reviewed by an anonymous panel that may or may not consist of 500 members worldwide. Third, there are some rules. Screenshotting is banned, and talking publicly about Raya is strongly discouraged (consider this my request to be pardoned).
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If they deem you cool enough, you must dish out $24.99 a month for a standard membership, or $49.99 a month for Raya+, which allows unlimited swiping and lets users see who likes them. Memberships auto-renew, and are available for one, six, or 12 months.
When I asked my friend if she honestly thought it was worth it, she responded: “Absolutely. If you’re on Raya, you don’t need any other dating apps.”
How do you get on Raya?
If there was an app that rendered all the other apps useless, I wanted to know all about it.
Selfishly, I also wanted to find out if I could crack the code to get accepted. I’d heard rumors swirling that the acceptance rate was around 8%, which is roughly the same odds as getting into an Ivy League. I hadn’t been so lucky with that, but then again, Harvard probably didn’t take into account my “aesthetic.”
Raya remains pretty elusive on the Internet. The website is more or less a dead-end. If you haven’t received an invitation, your best bet is to download the app and start an application. It took me less than five minutes. I entered my Instagram handle, age, location, and occupation, and requested a referral from my friend. Then, I waited.
About a month later, I got a text. “Welcome to Raya.”
That was just the beginning. After spending a few months on the app, I’ve interviewed dozens of other members — trying to understand the rise of Raya — how a social network that seems to rely mostly on its cultish status and word-of-mouth publicity has grown at such an impressive, rapid pace, that doesn’t seem to be slowing.
I’ve grilled them for answers to the most important questions. What celebrities are on Raya? Can a normal person get on Raya? What are the rules of Raya? And, most importantly, what is it like to date the elites?
Names have been changed to protect members’ identities and adhere to Raya’s policies regarding privacy. We’ll call our sources Aiden, Zoe, Elliot, Caroline, and Molly.
Zoe uses Raya for networking, but also has been on some extraordinary dates: “He closed the Soho House dining room, and I was able to try everything on the dinner menu.”
Zoe, 22, describes herself as an artist and student. She has over 15,000 followers on Instagram and has one of those effortlessly photogenic feeds filled with beaches, highrises, and lavish dinners. She didn’t have any referrals with her application but recalls being accepted after a couple of months.
She doesn’t just use the app solely for dating, but also to network, make friends, and discover new places. “It has a feature that you can use, that shows others that you are only here for friends which I think is neat,” she explained.
Earlier this year, Raya’s parent company rolled out a new app called Places, an invitation-only subscription that can be used as a directory for people looking for luxury hotels, exclusive experiences, and restaurant recommendations. In New York City, it’s frequent to see users pinning trendy spots like Coqodaq and Laser Wolf or nightclubs like The Stranger and Paul’s Casablanca.
Zoe mentions that Raya promises “a level of exclusivity and clique that the average person cannot access,” and for her — it’s risen to the occasion. She has never had to pay on a Raya date, and she’s been invited to afterparties with celebrities and influencers.
She said one of her standout dates took place at the real-life social club that Raya has been compared to.”He closed the Soho House dining room, and I was able to try everything on the dinner menu. As a woman, the men that you have access to are much better than using Hinge, or any other dating app, at least in my experience,” said Zoe.
Aiden doesn’t think of himself as “anything special,” but feels Raya genuinely brings together people that can “generate really interesting conversations.”
Aiden is 28-years-old and works as an Account Executive. He travels frequently, posts on social media often, and seems quite personable, but doesn’t think of himself as “anything special.” One of his friends told him the girls on Raya were “pretty attractive,” so he decided to give it a try.
After a few months of waiting, he was accepted. He quickly realized the Raya members were also all over the world. “I’ve added a good amount of my matches on Instagram over the past year, and I can safely say I’ve never had so many people post stories from Mykonos and Ibiza as I did this past summer.”
While he’s not sure he’s been in an exclusive relationship through Raya, he does admit to meeting some interesting people while traveling. Earlier this year, he explored Toyko with a girl he met on Raya. In Paris, he sat under the Eiffel Tower and pondered life with another. A few weeks ago he saw Tate McRae on the app. He was bummed that they didn’t match.
“I’ve always felt like going on a date in a new city is the best way to experience that city, especially if you’re with a local, and Raya makes it easy to do that,” he surmised. “There is potential to match with really cool people and I’ve seen some pretty famous people in my stack who you’d otherwise not get the chance to match with.”
Aiden has used Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, and never thought he would spend money on a dating app, but that perception has now flopped. “Raya is by far the best,” he concluded. “I find that people on Raya tend to be more adventurous, well-traveled, and involved in interesting lines of work that generate really interesting conversations.”
Molly can’t get herself to delete Raya: “How they apply scarcity marketing mixed with my risk aversion makes me feel compelled to stay on.”
Molly, 24, is now working as a Marketing Manager, but she learned about Raya early in college, when she said the app was “more strictly confined to users with celebrity status.”
Despite that impression, she applied with lighthearted intentions. Years passed and she assumed she wouldn’t get on. She even attempted to reach out to Raya Corporate hoping they might reconsider her new credentials.
“Once more normies started getting let in, I tried to resubmit my application with updated details, as I was no longer jobless and under the legal drinking age,” she shared. “Raya Corporate wouldn’t let me, which I do think hindered my acceptance. I didn’t really know what referrals were, so I might have had a few, but I wasn’t referral farming. Embarrassingly, I think it took me three or four years to get off the waiting list.”
Since getting on the app, she has been on a couple of dates. One date led to a second. The other was what she has described as a disaster: “He showed up 30 minutes late, was extremely rude, mansplained Bitcoin, forced me to order mushrooms (even though I don’t like them), talked about how much money he had, and then asked to split the bill…” She said the night ended after he got up and left because he was “so hungry.” She was still at the bar waiting for her Uber.
Despite the blip, she’s staying on Raya for now. Why? “If you stop paying, you can’t get back on without reapplying…” she explained. “Even though I probably wouldn’t care if I never got back on, how they apply scarcity marketing mixed with my risk aversion makes me feel compelled to stay on.”
Elliot embellished his life to get on Raya and thought he would have imposter syndrome once accepted. But now, when he sees celebrities, he feels like they are “the odd ones out.”
Elliot is a 24-year-old software engineer and a self-described homebody. He doesn’t go out much and has used a few other dating apps, but is generally disillusioned with the modern dating world. He says he uses a “good level of discernment” to select dates, and believes the bar is naturally higher on Raya.
It only took him about two weeks to get off the waitlist. While he believes he meets the “quota for basic attractiveness,” he also did what he thought it would take to get on the app — “I embellished my life to seem more interesting and important as one does.”
Though he’s yet to clock an A-lister, he’s seen some B and C-list celebrities. The Raya experience feels exclusive to him, but not quite how he expected: “I thought it would make me feel really cool, or have imposter syndrome,” he admitted. “But, actually, I just found it funny. It felt that they (the celebrities) were the odd ones out, more so than myself.”
He also points out that the basic membership restricts swiping. “All you get is just the main swiping feature,” he said. “But even that is limited to small batches that refresh in unknown intervals as you exhaust each batch.” While the matches may be more limited on Raya, this could be a draw for some people — maybe those who prefer smaller menus at restaurants — fewer options, but better quality.
That checks out for Elliot: “I would say the average attractiveness on Raya is significantly higher than on any other app I’ve used.” He still has some qualms about dating apps in general; he feels good matches are typically gatekept and paywalled, and it’s become a bit of a pay-to-play game.
Despite his frustrations, he’s still on Raya. “I don’t want to meet my wife in the club so options are limited.”
Caroline got on Raya in hopes of finding “serious contestants” for dating. Then, she was flown out for a luxurious ski weekend.
Caroline, 24, is a writer and creative, working in marketing. She decided to apply for Raya because she appreciates the fact that the app requires a few more steps that might filter out people who don’t take dating seriously.
“The idea of there being an application process and a paywall led me to figure that maybe there might be people on there looking for more than just an ego boost, therapist, or sloppy 1.67 seconds,” she joked.
She confirmed the app has largely lived up to those expectations, but not without a few shortfalls. On the one hand, she has connected with many people in the creative industry, influencers, and some professional athletes she may have not met otherwise. But, she also says that she meets fewer Raya matches in person, compared to other dating apps — perhaps since members seem to be spread out across the globe, constantly traveling.
She’s been invited to join them, too. “Actually, I met someone on Raya who I never responded to apparently, who then set me up with someone who wasn’t on Raya. That guy flew me and my best friend out the next day to go skiing in a very, very luxurious environment for the weekend,” she shared. “Didn’t even hug the guy.”
In her mind, different dating apps attract different people. “Bumble dates will whip out the itinerary and flowers. If you get a sane one on Hinge, that too. Tinder dates will booty call you to their bachelor party’s Airbnb drenched in McDonald’s leftovers and sad beers at 3 A.M. Raya dates will FaceTime you from across the country and text you to get a drink the next time they’re in town.”
She likes the idea behind Raya, and her experiences have shown her that “seemingly unapproachable humans are indeed approachable … human beings.” At the same time, she’s weary that people on Raya could be running on a bit of an ego trip.
Is Raya worth it?
A few nights ago, I received a text from a close friend who knew I had been researching and writing about Raya while using the app myself. She posed the same question I’d reluctantly asked my friend about a year ago: “Is the app that costs $25 a month worth it?”
“Yes, I think so,” I told her. “Especially, as a woman.”
Not because of swanky thousand-dollar dinners or luxurious weekends away. Of course, those are welcome perks (that aren’t guaranteed of course). But, because there is an uncomfortable truth about online dating for everyone: there are “weirdos” and less-than-great people everywhere.
I’m talking about the fact that you can’t vet everyone (although I promise I can find your homecoming photos and see how many Facebook friends your mom has in less than five minutes). Still, free-for-all dating apps are bound to attract more fake profiles and maybe some people who may live a different life behind the screen. As women, we’re already engrained to expect the worst — and prepare for it.
Raya provides me with a spec of relief in the fact that referrals are usually necessary and real people are supposedly evaluating each applicant — hence why there is a process in place to narrow down the dating pool. Not just anyone can get on.
Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I have no qualms with the “dating app for ‘elites.’” I wouldn’t call it that, anyway. I’ve made friends that I’ll keep for life, met dates from every corner of the world and went out with some pretty incredible people that I can’t say I wouldn’t have bumped into back in my little hometown podunk bar.
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