Lunchclub questions, answered
Lunchclub appears to be retired. Its latest App Store release is dated 3 Mar 2022, and the status page lists the dated signals behind that verdict. The answers below describe the service as it stood in 2024, and this page is kept for reference. [1] [7] [6]
Does Lunchclub still run?
It appears to have stopped. The App Store's latest release is version 2.3.8 from 3 March 2022, and lunchclub.com loads only a title. That is dated silence, not a published shutdown notice. See status for the full list. [1] [6]
Does it cost money?
The App Store lists Lunchclub as free, with no in-app purchases. Its pricing and terms pages show no text, so no paid tier is published. In 2020 the CEO floated fees on executive hires, on founder-to-investor introductions and on selling employee connections, but none became a settled model. [1] [6] [9]
How does matching work?
The 2020 sign-up asked for your objectives, interests, a short bio, a conversation starter and your meeting preferences, and the company said feedback after each meeting shaped later matches. In 2019 profile data came mostly from public sources such as Twitter, GitHub, Dribbble and AngelList. A Lightspeed partner who spent about 40 meetings on the service said matching weighs factors beyond sector and seniority, without naming them. [9] [10] [11]
Can I choose who I meet?
No, according to three of the 25 user reports, all from Product Hunt and dated only as relative ages. Two say the location filter was removed, and one says members could not pick a partner by field or by person. Treat it as a complaint from three reviewers rather than a settled rule about the service. [4]
How long are the calls?
Accounts put them between 30 and 60 minutes: 45 minutes in a 2020 blog run of seven weekly calls, 30 to 45 minutes in a 2020 Blind reply, three 45-minute calls a week in a 2023 Hacker News comment, and one hour in a 2024 personal review. The format appears to have varied by match or changed over time. [12] [13] [14] [16]
How often do people no-show?
Five of the 25 user reports describe a match who did not show or cancelled late, all from 2020 to 2023. No company or reviewer gives a frequency, and these accounts come from people who chose to write, so they show the problem happened, not how often. [2] [3] [15] [13] [12]
Do people get useful meetings?
Nine of the 25 user reports describe a useful or enjoyable meeting, from 2020 to 2024 or as relative ages. The newest dated ones are from February 2024. Those accounts are self-selected, so they show that good meetings happened, not that they were typical. [2] [3] [4] [13] [12] [14] [16]
What does it do with my calendar and contacts?
The privacy policy says it reads calendar data from a connected Google account by default, to connect people, and accesses contacts only with permission. It says data is not rented or sold to third parties without consent, with exceptions for a sale of the service, legal requests and security. The App Store privacy label lists fewer data types than the policy does. [5] [1]
How do I delete my data or close my account?
Send a deletion request to support@lunchclub.ai. The policy lists no deletion steps and no response time, and it says data may be kept for a "commercially reasonable time" after an account closes, with no period given. [5]
Who runs it, and what happened to the company?
The App Store listing and the privacy policy name Elliot Technologies, Inc. as the developer and operator. Fortune reported on 11 November 2025 that growth plateaued in 2022, that the founders pivoted into Lighter, and that about 80% of the team moved across. Lighter's site describes a perpetual futures exchange and does not mention Lunchclub. [1] [5] [7] [8]
Can I reach support, and do they reply?
The policy lists support@lunchclub.ai and gives no response time. Three of the 25 user reports say support did not reply or was slow: two dated 2023, and one from a Product Hunt reviewer dated only as about two years ago. [5] [2] [3] [4]
What are the alternatives, and what do they cost?
Boardy's FAQ says talking to Boardy and getting introductions is free, with some paid extras and daily caps that have no published number. Happenstance Pro costs $24 a month billed yearly, or $288 a year. Ten Thousand Coffees is aimed at employers and shows no price or individual sign-up. See alternatives for what each one does and who it suits. [17] [18] [19]