Hank vs Sweatpals

Pricing

Both Hank and Sweatpals fall in the Free price range. Hank: Free to download and use. Sweatpals: Free to join and discover; hosts set their own ticket prices.

Format & matching

Both apps use groups of Varies, and both use interest-based matching.

How they work

Hank: Download the app and create a profile. Browse a calendar of local activities — walks, coffee meetups, happy hours, museum visits, book clubs, and more — happening near you or online. Join anything that catches your eye. Before the event, you can see other attendees' profiles and start a conversation. After the activity, stay connected with people you clicked with through in-app messaging. If you don't see the right activity, create your own — set the time, place, and description, and Hank handles the rest.

Sweatpals: Download the app, set your location, and browse a feed of fitness and wellness experiences happening near you — everything from sunrise yoga to weekend hikes to pickleball meetups. Join a community built around your favorite activity and chat with other members. When an event catches your eye, book a ticket directly in the app. If you're a host, you can create events, manage memberships, collect payments and waivers, and even send SMS blasts to your community — all from one dashboard. The discovery feed also surfaces experiences you wouldn't have found on your own, which is where the magic happens.

What to love

Hank: Purpose-built for 55+ — no competing with twenty-somethings or navigating dating-app mechanics. Completely free with no subscription walls or premium tiers. Both in-person and online activities mean you can participate regardless of mobility. You can host your own events, not just join existing ones. Clean, simple interface designed for accessibility.

Sweatpals: Two-sided marketplace — great for both discovering events and hosting them. Built-in ticketing, payments, waivers, and SMS marketing for hosts is genuinely useful. Strong presence in Austin and Bay Area with 25K+ local users. Community chat and social feed create ongoing connection beyond single events. Free to discover and join — no subscription paywall for attendees.

Reality check

Hank: Currently strongest in the New York area — thinner activity selection in other regions. No Android app yet (planned but not launched). Smaller user base compared to mainstream apps means fewer activities in less populated areas. No algorithmic matching — you browse and choose activities yourself.

Sweatpals: Concentrated in a few cities — experience outside Austin, SF, and Miami is thinner. App can be buggy — multiple reviews mention glitches with profiles and photos. The 'Pals' matching feature is inconsistent and often shows no results. Host-dependent quality means some experiences are polished and others are bare-bones.

Søren's take

On Hank: Hank fills a gap that's been wide open for years: most friendship apps are designed for people in their 20s and 30s, and the 55+ crowd has been left to figure it out on their own. Hank's approach is refreshingly straightforward — here's a calendar of things to do, go do them with people your age. No personality quizzes, no swiping, no algorithms. The free pricing is a big deal for this demographic. The main limitation is geographic reach — it started in NYC and is still building out — but if you're 55+ and looking for community, this should be on your phone.

On Sweatpals: Sweatpals is trying to be the Eventbrite of fitness, and in the cities where it has traction — especially Austin and the Bay Area — it works. The dual focus on attendees and hosts is smart: hosts get real tools (ticketing, waivers, SMS), and attendees get a discovery feed that surfaces things they'd never find on Instagram. The app itself is still rough around the edges — reviews mention bugs and the matching feature barely works — but the core experience of finding a local run club or yoga class and just showing up is solid. If you're in one of their active cities and want to meet people through movement, it's worth downloading.