Avito eyes free dating inside its app

Avito is considering launching its own dating service directly inside the main app, according to Kommersant. The company wants it to be free, with the focus on safety rather than fast signup or random matches.

Avito confirmed that the idea is under discussion, but said no final decision has been made. The company is evaluating several factors at once: market conditions, competitor moves, and whether users of its classifieds platform actually want this kind of feature.

If the project moves forward, Avito plans to build on the recommendation systems it already uses across the platform, while adding stronger moderation and verification. Sources cited by the publication say the service is expected to include mandatory profile checks, protection against bots and fake accounts, and integrations with external identity verification systems, including Gosuslugi.

To test demand, the team plans to use a Fake Door approach. That means showing users a button or interface for a product that appears ready, even though the service is still in development, to measure whether people actually click.

Recommended reading

Yandex Maps adds gas station queues and fuel-saving routes

The project is also said to include three-stage moderation and filtering powered by more than 100 machine learning models. For Avito, where millions of listings appear every day, that would extend the same anti-fraud and suspicious-activity checks the company already runs at scale.

The move would put Avito into a Russian dating market that already stretches beyond standalone apps. VK has its own dating service inside its ecosystem, while users have also spent years with Tinder, Bumble, Mamba, Pure, and others. That has left users quick to judge the interface — and just as quick to leave if a service does not feel safe.

Avito’s obvious advantage is scale. By the company’s own public figures, it has tens of millions of active users per month, which could give a new feature immediate reach without a costly standalone launch. But dating products need more than traffic: they depend on trust in profiles and fast responses to fakes, spam, and scams.

If the Fake Door test shows strong interest, Avito could probe the category quickly without a major release or marketing push. If clicks are weak, the project will likely remain an experiment in a market that has looked increasingly crowded for several years.