The whole thing fits on one page

Every morning at 9am Eastern, Arch introduces you to five people. Introductions go both ways: if someone is in your five, you’re in theirs.

They stay until you dismiss them, so nobody vanishes overnight. Dismiss someone and they leave at nine the next morning, when someone new takes the spot. They’re never told, and until then you can change your mind.

Joining during the day

You don’t have to wait for the morning. When you finish your profile, Arch looks for people whose five aren’t full yet that day, so your first introductions can arrive within minutes.

Who Arch picks

People whose answers fit with yours, who are looking for someone like you, and whose age and distance settings include you. All of it has to be true both ways.

There’s no matching step. Write to anyone in your five and your first message arrives as a request. They choose whether to answer, and if they do, it’s a conversation.

You can have ten conversations open at once, or fifteen with Premium. Past that, Arch holds your new matches until you leave one, so the people you’re already talking to get your attention.

Ending a conversation

Leave whenever you like. Leaving, blocking and deleting your account all look exactly the same from the other side, so nobody is left wondering which it was.

What Arch doesn’t show

There are no read receipts, no “seen” and no online status. Nobody can tell when you were last on Arch, or whether you’ve read what they sent.

When you join, Arch asks sixteen questions, ordered to warm up: temperament first, then how you handle each other, then how you live, and last, the three that decide things.

Every option is a fair way to be. Your answers are never on your profile, never shown to anyone and never turned into a score. You can change them once a month, or any time with Premium.

1. Temperament
2. Someone cancels plans an hour before. What is your honest first reaction?
3. What does a good Saturday look like?
4. How do you get your energy back?
5. What are you like first thing in the morning?
6. How much of your week is planned in advance?
7. How you handle each other
8. When something is bothering you, do you want to talk it through or sit with it first?
9. How direct are you when something is wrong?
10. After an argument, what do you need?
11. How much reassurance do you want from someone?
12. How you live
13. Where does drinking sit in your life?
14. How close are you to your family?
15. What is money for?
16. How much does your work matter to you?
17. The three that decide
18. Do you want children?
19. Do you see yourself with one person at a time?
20. Do you want to be living in this city in five years?

Four to six photos, three prompts answered in your own words, three interests, and the basics: your first name, your age and your neighbourhood.

Arch shows your neighbourhood, never a distance. If you let it use your location, it’s read once, rounded to about a kilometre before it leaves your phone, and never shown to anyone. You can type a town instead.

Your first photo

It’s the one people see in their five, so make it a clear photograph of you on your own.

Once you’re talking to someone, the Date planner puts a first date together: somewhere to eat or drink, then something to do, halfway between the two of you.

It works from both of you. You each answer five quick questions about what a first date should be like, from how you feel about drinks to how far you’d travel, and it reads your interests too. Your answers shape the plan without ever being shown to the other person.

Real places

Every stop is a real place from Apple Maps. Tap one to open it in Maps. Mark a place “Not for us” and Arch won’t suggest it to you again.

Agreeing on it

Send the plan in your conversation. Either of you can change it, and once you’ve both agreed, add it to your calendar.

Everything above works without paying. Premium gives you more room.

• Eight every morning. Three more people a day, chosen with the same care.
• Fifteen conversations. Keep more going before Arch asks you to choose.
• Choose your location. Set it anywhere: where you’re moving, or somewhere you visit often.
• Answer anytime. Change your questionnaire answers whenever you like, not once a month.

Prices are shown in the app, in your currency, before you pay. Premium is billed and managed by Apple, and you can cancel any time in your iPhone’s Settings, under your name and then Subscriptions.

Arch is for iPhone, for people 18 and over, everywhere in Canada except Quebec for now. It’s in beta: nearly finished, and we’re listening hard.

You sign in with Apple, so there’s no password, and you can choose to hide your email address from us.