BuddyPress · BuddyBoss · Member matching

Your members never find each other. This plugin suggests who to friend and follow.

A match engine scores every pair of members on the profile fields you weight, then shows the best matches as friend and follow suggestions with a per-field breakdown of why they fit. Members friend, follow, or dismiss right from the card.

★★★★★ Works with BuddyPress and BuddyBoss Platform · 8 shortcodes, 1 block, 2 widgets · Match breakdown on every suggestion

yourdomain.com/members/sarah/suggestions
Priya Nair Product designer
6 mutual friends6 3 shared interests3
Marcus Lee Community lead · Design Hub
6 mutual friends 6 4 shared interests 4 2 shared groups 2
8 shortcodes drop suggestion lists and match data into any page, post, or text widget: friend suggestions, follow suggestions, top matches, match percentage, common interests, mutual friends, suggestion count, and a field-by-field match breakdown
3 ways to place suggestions: two widgets (a standard list and a swipe-card slider), one server-rendered Gutenberg block with a friends, follow, or all context, plus the shortcodes
100 point compatibility score per member pair, built from a baseline match percentage plus the weight of each profile field two members share, clamped to a 0 to 100 range and cached

Built for

Built for six kinds of community operators.

Suggestions start surfacing the moment you turn on the match engine and weight a profile field. Pick the scenario closest to how you run your community.

01

Community managers

A suggestion list shows each member the people they have the most in common with, so new members find someone to connect with instead of landing on an empty network. You choose which profile fields drive the match and how much each one counts.

02

Membership site owners

Members see a match percentage on every profile and a list of mutual friends and shared interests behind each suggestion, so the reason to connect is clear before they send a request. Higher engagement keeps renewals up.

03

Dating and interest networks

A swipe-card view lets members move through suggestions one at a time, swiping right to send a friend request or follow and left to dismiss. Disliked members are held out of the deck so the same card does not return.

04

Site owners who want re-engagement

Welcome, daily digest, and weekly digest emails bring members back with fresh suggestions. Members pick their own email frequency in their BuddyPress notification settings, and a hot-match email fires when a strong new match joins.

05

Large communities

The match engine runs in batches with a time limit and caches every score, so suggestion lists stay fast even on big member rolls. A background cron pre-generates suggestion pools and a cleanup family trims old analytics on a schedule you set.

06

Developers and agencies

The scoring engine fires hooks at every stage, from the candidate pool query to the final clamped score, so you can change weights per pair, short-circuit a score, or feed match events into your own analytics. Four widget and block templates are theme-overridable.

See it in action

How BuddyPress Friend & Follow Suggestion looks on your site.

Switch between the two surfaces in the preview: the member-facing swipe-card view and the admin settings tabs.

yourdomain.com/members/sarah/suggestions
Priya Nair Product designer
6 mutual friends6 3 shared interests3
Marcus Lee Community lead · Design Hub
6 mutual friends 6 4 shared interests 4 2 shared groups 2

The swipe-card view shows one suggestion at a time with the member's avatar, match percentage, and the shared interests behind the score. Swiping right sends a friend request or starts a follow, swiping left dismisses the card. Version 1.7.5 fixed the drag-and-stick behavior so cards track the pointer cleanly and settle instead of sticking mid-swipe. Disliked members are held in a transient so the same card does not come back.

yourdomain.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wbcom-settings
Settings
Enable on activity stream
Show on member profiles
Email notifications
Allowed roles

Admin settings span five tabs under the Wbcom Designs menu: General sets the master match toggle, the baseline match percentage, and the weighted profile-field rules; Display controls layout, badges, colors, and directory integration; Notifications configures the welcome, digest, and hot-match emails; UX controls the suggestion behavior, swipe cards, and member controls; Advanced sets caching, performance batching, and the analytics retention cleanup. Settings export, import, and reset are built in.

Step 1 of 2

How it works

From profile fields to a ranked suggestion list.

  1. Weight the fields that matter

    In the General tab you turn on the match engine, set a baseline match percentage added to every pair, and pick the xProfile fields that count, each with its own weight. Mark a field stop-match and a mismatch on it scores the pair at zero.

  2. The engine scores every pair

    For each candidate, the engine adds the weight of every field two members share to the baseline, then clamps the result to a 0 to 100 score and caches it. Candidates are processed in batches with a time limit so large communities stay fast.

  3. Suggestions surface and rank

    Matches above your threshold become friend or follow suggestions, ordered by score and filtered to exclude existing friends, follows, and dismissed members. They appear in the widget, block, and shortcodes you place.

  4. Members act and the list adapts

    Members friend, follow, dismiss, or swipe from the card. Accepting a friend request auto-dismisses that pair, a dismissed member returns after the days you set, and welcome and digest emails bring members back to a fresh list.

Match breakdown

Every suggestion shows why two members fit.

A suggestion is more than a name. Each card can carry the match percentage, the profile values the two members share, and their mutual friends, and the match-breakdown view renders a field-by-field table showing each member's value, the field's weight, and whether it counted toward the score. The same percentage can show as a badge on member profiles and in the members directory, with high matches highlighted.

  • Match percentage, common interests, and mutual friends on the suggestion card
  • A field-by-field breakdown table showing values, weights, and matches
  • Match badge on profiles and in the members directory above your threshold
  • Shortcodes for percentage, common interests, mutual friends, and breakdown
yourdomain.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wbcom-settings
Settings
Enable on activity stream
Show on member profiles
Email notifications
Allowed roles

Swipe view

One card at a time, swipe to friend or dismiss.

Turn on swipe cards and members move through suggestions one at a time. Swiping right sends a friend request or starts a follow, swiping left dismisses or rejects the card, and the animation speed and the action each direction triggers are configurable. Version 1.7.5 fixed the drag-and-stick behavior so cards track the pointer and settle cleanly. Disliked members are held out so the same card does not return.

  • Swipe right to friend or follow, swipe left to dismiss or reject
  • Configurable animation speed and per-direction action in the UX tab
  • Version 1.7.5 fixed drag-and-stick so cards track and settle cleanly
  • Disliked members held in a transient so the deck stays fresh
yourdomain.com/members/sarah/suggestions
Priya Nair Product designer
6 mutual friends6 3 shared interests3
Marcus Lee Community lead · Design Hub
6 mutual friends 6 4 shared interests 4 2 shared groups 2

What you get

A match engine, the suggestion surfaces, and the emails that bring members back.

Every license is the complete plugin. The match engine scores members on the profile fields you weight, suggestions surface through widgets, a block, and eight shortcodes, members friend or follow or dismiss from the card, and welcome and digest emails re-engage them. The only difference between tiers is how many sites the license covers.

01

Profile-match scoring engine

The engine compares the BuddyPress xProfile field values of two members. You set a baseline match percentage added to every pair, then pick which fields count and how much weight each one carries. A field can be marked stop-match so a mismatch on it scores the pair at zero. The final score is clamped to a 0 to 100 range and cached, and a master toggle turns the whole engine off site-wide when you need to.

02

Suggestion lists and match data, eight shortcodes

Eight shortcodes embed suggestion data anywhere: [bp_friend_suggestions] and [bp_follow_suggestions] for the two lists, [bp_top_matches] for the highest scorers across both, [bp_match_percentage] and [bp_common_interests] and [bp_mutual_friends] for a single pair, [bp_suggestions_count] for the available total, and [bp_match_breakdown] for a field-by-field table of why two members matched.

03

Widgets, a block, and a swipe-card view

Two widgets place suggestions in any widget area: a standard list widget and a swiper-card slider widget. A server-rendered Gutenberg block, bffs/suggestions, drops cards into the editor with a friends, follow, or all context and a card limit. When swipe cards are enabled, members move through suggestions one at a time, swiping right to friend or follow and left to dismiss or reject.

04

Friend, follow, and dismiss from the card

Each suggestion card carries the actions a member needs: send a friend request, start a follow, or dismiss the suggestion. Follow support works through the BuddyPress Follow plugin or BuddyBoss Activity Follow, and the follow UI hides automatically when neither is present. A dismissed member reappears after a set number of days, a disliked member is held out, and members can reset their dismissed list to start fresh.

05

Re-engagement emails members control

Four BuddyPress email types ship built in: an instant new-suggestion email, a daily digest, a weekly digest, and a new-member welcome with initial suggestions. A hot-match email fires for existing members when a strong new match registers. Members choose instant, daily, weekly, or never in their BuddyPress notification settings, and the digests run on a background cron at the day and time you set.

06

Display control, directory integration, and caching

Display settings cover the card layout (cards, list, or horizontal), cards per row, avatar size, a high-match threshold, and custom colors driven by CSS variables. Match scores can show on member profiles and in the members directory, with high matches highlighted. Advanced settings tune the cache backend and duration, the batch size and time limit for large communities, and a scheduled cleanup of old analytics data.

Made for

Six audiences. One product.

Community managersMembership site ownersDating and interest networksSite owners who want re-engagementLarge communitiesDevelopers and agencies

Pricing

Same complete plugin on every tier. Pick how many sites you run.

Every tier ships the full feature set: the match-scoring engine, the suggestion widgets, block, and shortcodes, friend and follow actions, the swipe-card view, and the welcome and digest emails. Tiers differ only by the number of sites your license covers. Yearly plans include a year of updates and support; lifetime plans pay once and keep updates forever.

Personal

$49 / year

or $149 lifetime

One community site.

  • 1 site
  • Match-scoring engine with field weights
  • Widgets, block, and 8 shortcodes
  • Friend, follow, and swipe-card actions
  • 1 year of updates + support
Get Personal at $49 or lifetime at $149
Most popular

Professional

$99 / year

or $299 lifetime

Five sites. Freelancers and small agencies.

  • 5 sites
  • Match-scoring engine with field weights
  • Widgets, block, and 8 shortcodes
  • Friend, follow, and swipe-card actions
  • 1 year of updates + support
Get Professional at $99 or lifetime at $299

Agency

$129 / year

or $349 lifetime

Unlimited sites for agencies running many community builds.

  • Unlimited sites
  • Match-scoring engine with field weights
  • Widgets, block, and 8 shortcodes
  • Friend, follow, and swipe-card actions
  • 1 year of updates + support
Get Agency at $129 or lifetime at $349

Before you install

Questions community operators ask.

Answered by the team that maintains the plugin. Anything else, reach out through the contact page.

  1. 01

    Does this require BuddyPress?

    Yes. It runs on BuddyPress or BuddyBoss Platform, and the Extended Profiles (xProfile) component must be active because the match engine reads xProfile field values to calculate scores. The plugin blocks activation without xProfile and silently deactivates itself if BuddyPress is later turned off.

  2. 02

    Does it work with BuddyBoss?

    Yes. The plugin detects whether BuddyPress or BuddyBoss Platform is active and adjusts its behavior. It also works with most BuddyPress-compatible themes, including BuddyX, Reign, Youzify, and SocialV.

  3. 03

    How are match scores calculated?

    A score for two members is a baseline match percentage added to every pair, plus the weight of each profile field they share. You pick the fields and weights in the General tab; field weights are normalized if they add up to over 100. A field can be marked stop-match so a mismatch on it scores the pair at zero. The final score is clamped to 0 to 100.

  4. 04

    Is there a swipe-card view?

    Yes. When you enable swipe cards in the UX tab, members move through suggestions one at a time, swiping right to send a friend request or start a follow and left to dismiss or reject. Version 1.7.5 fixed the drag-and-stick behavior so cards track the pointer and settle cleanly instead of sticking mid-swipe.

  5. 05

    What happens when a member dismisses a suggestion?

    A dismissed member is hidden from the suggestion list and reappears after the number of days you set, 30 by default. A swipe-left dislike is held in a 24-hour transient so the same card does not return right away. Members can reset their dismissed list to start over, and accepting a friend request auto-dismisses that member from both lists.

  6. 06

    Does it have a REST API?

    No. The plugin registers no REST endpoints of its own, and all of its server actions run through admin-ajax. It does register one user-meta field, the member's swiped list, in the WordPress users endpoint schema, but there is no separate suggestions API to query.

  7. 07

    Can I add suggestions with a block or shortcode?

    Yes. A server-rendered Gutenberg block, Friend & Follow Suggestions, places cards in the editor with a friends, follow, or all context and a card limit. Eight shortcodes embed suggestion lists and match data in any page, post, or text widget, and two widgets cover a standard list and a swipe-card slider.

  8. 08

    Will it slow down a large community?

    The match engine processes candidates in batches with a per-user time limit and caches every score, so suggestion lists stay responsive on big member rolls. You set the cache backend and duration, the batch size, and the candidate pool size in the Advanced tab, and a background cron pre-generates suggestion pools.

  9. 09

    How do the suggestion emails work?

    Four BuddyPress email types ship built in: an instant new-suggestion email, a daily digest, a weekly digest, and a new-member welcome. A hot-match email fires for existing members when a strong new match joins. Members choose instant, daily, weekly, or never in their BuddyPress notification settings, and digests run on a cron at the day and time you set.

  10. 10

    What happens to the data if I uninstall?

    The plugin creates no custom database tables; settings live in WordPress options and per-member dismissal and swipe lists live in user meta. Two non-destructive indexes added to the xProfile tables at activation are removed on uninstall. Uninstalling removes the plugin's options and user meta, and a Clear All Data action in the Advanced tab can wipe everything on demand.

Help your members find each other.

Activate the plugin, turn on the match engine, and pick which profile fields count and how much each one weighs in the General tab. Suggestions start surfacing in the widget, block, and shortcodes right away, members begin friending and following from the cards, and you tune the layout, emails, and caching from the settings tabs whenever you are ready.