About
We built the app we could not find.
Date to Marry is made by Pila Studio, a small company in Germany. It exists because its founder went looking for a product built around marriage, could not find one, and concluded that the reason was structural.
The founder’s account
I am not a dating industry person. I had a bad heartbreak, I am not part of hookup culture, and I could not find an app built for anyone who wants what I want — so I built one.
The thing I would most like to talk about is the incentive problem. Dating apps take a monthly subscription, which means their revenue depends on you not finding anyone. Nobody sets out to keep users lonely, but every product team optimises what it measures, and what they measure is engagement.
Pila, founder
The incentive, and what we did about it
It is worth being precise, because this is the part that shaped everything else. A subscription business earns while the search continues. A member who meets someone deletes the app; a member who does not, renews. No conspiracy is required — the numbers simply point one way, and over enough product decisions a company drifts in the direction its revenue is pulling.
So the Pledge is a single payment of €249 made when you join. Not a subscription, no renewal, and nothing else to buy at any point — no boosts, no upgrades, no placements. €39 of it covers verifying your government ID, which we pay for whether or not we ever find you anyone. The remaining €210 comes back if you do the work and we do not bring you a relationship within twelve months.
That does not make us better people. It removes the mechanism, which is a more reliable thing than being asked to trust us. The full terms are on the Pledge page, including the cases where we return everything.
What we hold to
Marriage is the point, not a possible outcome
Everyone here declares it before they are shown to anybody. Nobody has to work out what this is, and nobody has to be the one who asks.
The questions that decide a marriage get asked first
Children, faith, where you will live, your timeline, how a household would run. At intake, in writing, and several of them absolute — not discovered in month eight.
Nobody should be inventory
There is no feed, no queue and no stack. One person at a time, with the reasoning written out. A person who can be dismissed in a second with no cost is being handled the way stock is handled.
Verified should mean identity, not a face
A government document before anyone can be matched. A selfie proves someone owns a face; it does not prove they own a name.
The introduction is the easy half
Most of the app is built for what comes after: a private journal, gesture ideas drawn from your partner’s own words, date nights, milestones, monthly reflection. A counsellor directory and a mentor community are being built and are not open yet.
We would rather send you no one
Six rules the matching will not break, even when breaking one would fill an empty screen. In a growing market that means some members wait, and we say so where it happens.
What we are not going to claim
We are a small company in Germany. We are not going to fix marriage, or loneliness, or the century. We do one thing: we try to put two serious people in front of each other, having done the work to know that they are serious, and then we get out of the way.
The app is new. In cities where few members have joined, the honest experience is waiting, and we would rather tell you that here than let you find out. We also do not publish a success rate, because we have not been running long enough to have one worth publishing, and inventing a number on a page arguing for honesty would defeat the point.
Where to go next
The manifesto is the long version of what we believe — nine convictions, and what holding each one costs us. How it works is the practical walkthrough. And what happens after the match is the half of the product that nobody else builds.
Questions
Who is behind Date to Marry?
Pila Studio UG, a small company in Germany. The app was built by its founder after a heartbreak, on the conviction that no product existed for people who date with marriage as the goal rather than as a possible eventual outcome.
Is Date to Marry a religious company?
No. Some members are Muslim, some are Christian, some hold no faith at all and want the same seriousness. Faith is asked about directly and weighed as whatever it is for you, rather than treated as a filter tag or assumed away.
How does Date to Marry make money?
One payment of €249 when a member joins. There is no subscription, nothing to buy afterwards, and no advertising. €39 of it covers identity verification and is not refundable; €210 comes back if you do the work and we do not bring you a relationship within twelve months.
Why does the pricing model matter?
Because a monthly subscription means the company earns more the longer you stay single. Nobody sets out to keep members lonely, but every team optimises what it measures. Charging once removes the mechanism rather than asking to be trusted about it.
