An Honest Review of Better Off (2026)

Better Off bills itself as a social marketplace powered by AI matching. The pitch: take a personality quiz, get matched into a group of compatible people, and go do something together. Not just dinner. Brunches, run clubs, paint nights, trivia, ski trips. I tried three Better Off experiences in New York to see if the AI lives up to the hype.

How It Works

Better Off has you take a personality quiz, then uses what they describe as a neural network ("similar to TikTok's recommendation engine") to match you into groups for specific experiences. You browse events in your city, sign up for ones that interest you, and the AI assembles your group. Some experiences are free, others have a cost that varies.

What I Liked

The variety of experiences

This is where Better Off stands out. My three events were a Saturday brunch, a trivia night, and a morning run club. That range in a single app is unusual. Most competitors do one thing: dinners. Better Off gives you options, and the different formats attract different kinds of people. The brunch crowd was mellow and chatty. The run club crowd was energetic and outdoorsy. Same app, different vibes.

The matching felt smart

At the brunch, my group of six were all in their late twenties, all worked in creative or tech-adjacent fields, and all had been in New York for one to three years. That's specific. The trivia group was older and more outgoing. It felt like the AI was placing me with different people based on the type of event, not just running the same personality formula every time.

Available in ten cities

New York, LA, SF, Chicago, Austin, Miami, Boston, Denver, Seattle, Nashville. That's more coverage than most apps in this space.

What I Didn't Like

Pricing is opaque

Some events are free. Some cost money. But it's not always clear what you'll pay until you're deep in the signup flow. My brunch was free. The trivia night was $15. The run club was free. I'd like to see the cost upfront on the browse page so I can decide before committing.

The AI is a black box

Better Off talks a lot about their neural network matching, but you have no idea why you were placed with specific people. Was it my personality quiz answers? My event history? My age? There's no transparency. When the matching works, you don't question it. When it doesn't, you wonder what went wrong and have no way to adjust.

No post-event connection

Same issue as most apps in this space. The experience ends when the event ends. No group chat, no follow-up, no way to tell the app "I really liked that group, put me with them again."

The Verdict

Better Off has the widest range of experiences of any social matching app I've tried. The AI matching is genuinely good when it hits. The ten-city footprint is strong. But the opaque pricing and lack of post-event features hold it back. If you're in a supported city and you want more than just dinners with strangers, Better Off is worth a try. Just go in knowing that the experience varies by event, and some will be better than others.