The verdict
Timeleft is worth it if three things are true: it runs in your city, its fixed nights fit your week, and you like the idea of a three-hour dinner with strangers you didn’t pick. It takes care of the hardest part of meeting people, which is making a plan, and it does that well.
It’s not worth it if you hate committing an evening before you know whether you’ll click with anyone, or if a subscription plus a restaurant bill is more than you want to spend on a maybe. In that case, start with a conversation and save the dinner for someone you already like. That’s where HMU fits.
How a Timeleft night actually works
Everything below comes from Timeleft’s own site and App Store listing, checked today.
- Quiz: you answer questions about your personality, plus neighborhood, language, dietary needs and budget.
- Subscribe: a subscription is required before your first event. While it’s active, you can book as many events as you like.
- Book a night: dinners are on Wednesdays for groups of four to six. Women-Only Dinners are on Tuesdays at 7pm. Depending on the city, there are also drinks, Saturday afternoon coffee, walks, or a group run followed by coffee.
- Get matched: Timeleft groups people by quiz answers, age range, language and preferences. You learn the venue on the day.
- Show up: dinners run about three hours, and you pay for your own food and drinks.
- After: Connect lets you send a request to the people you want to stay in touch with, Impressions shows you what others appreciated about you, and Repeat helps you meet up with people you’ve already met.
What it really costs
Timeleft doesn’t publish one price. It says prices vary by market and tells you to check the app. On the US App Store, its Timeleft X purchases are listed at $19.99, $46.99 and $62.99. The listing doesn’t say how long each plan lasts. Then add dinner and drinks, which you pay at the restaurant.
Read the terms before you subscribe. Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel, and cancelling takes effect at the end of the billing period. Charges are non-refundable, apart from a 14-day withdrawal right on the first period for people in the EU, EEA and UK. If you don’t show up, Timeleft charges a fee of 35% of the monthly subscription price, and three or more late cancellations in two months can get you suspended. None of that is unusual. Still, it costs real money to flake.
What Timeleft gets right
It removes every decision that stops people from meeting strangers: who, where, when and what to talk about. Its App Store listing puts it simply: you’re matched on personality, not selfies. And it’s popular with people who use it: the US App Store rating is 4.6 out of 5 from 8.8K ratings. Timeleft says it runs in 52 countries and more than 200 cities.
The post-dinner tools matter more than most reviews admit. One good dinner doesn’t make a friend. Repeat and Connect give you a built-in way to see the same people again, and seeing people again is what turns them into friends.
Where it can disappoint
You don’t choose your table. Timeleft says plainly that it can’t guarantee a particular age range and that the group can change as people book and cancel. Some nights you’ll click with everyone. Other nights you’ll spend three hours being polite.
The schedule is also fixed. If Wednesday is your gym night or your late shift, the main format doesn’t work for you. And because each dinner is a new group, getting from one dinner to an actual friendship is still up to you.
Timeleft vs HMU, side by side
They solve different first steps. Timeleft gets you to a table. HMU gets you to a conversation.
- Format. Timeleft: a group of four to six, in person, for about three hours. HMU: Meet Now pairs you with one person for a five-minute chat.
- Who you meet. Timeleft picks your group from your quiz. HMU: Meet Now picks one person, and Discover lets you browse For You, Nearby and Recent.
- Opening line. Timeleft: the table and the menu. HMU: you both get the same opening prompt, and every request starts with a real first message.
- Deciding to continue. Timeleft: send a Connect request after the event. HMU: each of you privately chooses Keep or Pass, and the chat continues only if you both choose Keep.
- Cost. Timeleft: a subscription plus your own food and drinks. HMU: free on iPhone and Android with 3 Meet Now introductions a day, and optional HMU Premium.
- Purpose. Timeleft: friendship by default, with separate Singles events. HMU: friendship, dating, or both.
Who should pick which
Pick Timeleft if you want someone else to plan the evening, you like groups, and you’ll go often enough to use what you’re paying for. Pick HMU if you want to find out whether you click with someone tonight, from your couch, before you spend an evening and a restaurant bill on it. HMU has more than 500,000 downloads across iPhone and Android, it’s for adults 18+, and you can report or block anyone.
Plenty of people will use both: HMU on quiet weeknights, Timeleft once a month for a table.
Where HMU falls short
HMU doesn’t book restaurants, put you at a table or plan anything. Getting from a good chat to an actual meeting is up to the two of you, and that’s exactly the step many people find hardest. If what you want is a group dinner with no planning, Timeleft does that and HMU doesn’t.
HMU also isn’t friendship-only. Some people are there to date, so say what you’re looking for early. And the free tier caps Meet Now at three introductions a day.
If you book a table, make it count
Before the dinner ends, find the one or two people you liked most and say so out loud. Send your Connect request that night, while the dinner is still fresh. Then suggest something smaller and specific within a week.
What to text a new friend after meeting them
- At the table: ‘This was the best Wednesday I’ve had in a while. I’m going to send you a Connect.’
- Next day: ‘Still thinking about your ramen ranking. Want to test the number one spot on Saturday?’
- For a group: ‘A few of us from Wednesday are getting coffee Sunday at 11. Come along.’
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