Safety · 6 min
How to spot a catfish before you gist
The seven tells that come up again and again in reports our team reviews.
Every profile verified before it goes live
For Nigerians who are done wasting time.
Verified people. Real intentions. A path that runs from your first Gist all the way to the aisle — and hands you over to AriyaPlanner when it’s time to plan the wedding.
Installs from the browser in seconds. 4MB, works on low-end Android, no app store needed.
Tonight on Toastly
- 42,180
- Verified members
- 9,340
- Gist sessions this week
- 1,206
- Couples in Couple Mode
Numbers refresh weekly. No bots, no imported profiles, no ghost accounts.
The trust layer
Catfish don’t make it past the front door.
Nobody sees your face until we’ve seen theirs. Phone and selfie-liveness verification are mandatory for every single account — and if you want to go further, NIN or BVN adds a second ring to your seal.
How verification works- 01
Phone, once
One number, one account. No burner numbers, no second profile.
- 02
Selfie liveness
A three-second head turn proves you are a living person, not a saved photo.
- 03
NIN or BVN, optional
Adds a second ring to your seal. Never required, never shown to other members.
Gist
Hear them before you meet them.
A Gist is a structured voice session with a start, an end and something to talk about. Three of them, and you know whether this is going anywhere — no three weeks of texting, no blank video call where you both stare and say “so”.
- Voice first, so tone does the work photos can’t.
- Prompts written for Nigerian dating, not translated from California.
- Live video unlocks on Premium Plus, when you both want it.
Gist session 2 of 3
Voice · 18 minutes · Tuesday, 8:30pm
- 01What's a thing your family does that you'll definitely carry into your own home?
- 02Lagos or somewhere quieter — where do you see yourself in five years?
- 03What does being taken care of look like to you?
Prompts are drawn from what you both wrote. Nobody has to open with “hi how are you”.
Showing up for each other
A small promise, staked by both of you.
When a date is confirmed, you each put down a few coins. You both show up, you both get them back. Plans change and you say so in time — nothing happens. It isn’t a fine. It’s the Nigerian version of “I’ll be there”, written down.
₦500
The usual stake
Small enough that nobody is risking rent, big enough to mean something.
Both
Nobody stakes alone
The date is only confirmed once you have both put your coins down.
0
Penalty for saying so
Cancel with notice and you get everything back. Life happens in Lagos traffic.
Three steps in
Verified, matched, gisting — inside a week.
- Step 1
Get verified
Phone and selfie liveness, about four minutes. Your seal goes live before your profile does.
- Step 2
Match intentionally
Six people a day, chosen from prompt answers rather than a deck of photos.
- Step 3
Start gisting
Book a guided voice session. Three of them tells you more than a month of texting.
Matching
Nothing to swipe. Six people a day.
Your feed arrives once a day and it’s short on purpose. Each person comes with their answers to the same prompts you answered, so you’re reading intentions, not scoring faces. When the six are gone, they’re gone — go and live your life.
You reply to a specific answer to start something. There’s no infinite deck, no streaks, no “you’ve been super-liked”.
Adaeze, 26
Lekki, Lagos · Verified Real
Sunday looks like
Church, then jollof at my mum's, then absolutely nothing until Monday.
Tobi, 29
Wuse, Abuja · Verified Real
I'm looking for
Someone who wants a marriage, not a situationship with better lighting.
Ifeoma, 24
Port Harcourt · Verified Real
My love language
Showing up. On time. With small chops nobody asked for.
Yours to share
Tribe, language, faith — if you want them there.
These matter to a lot of Nigerian families, so they’re on your profile if you choose to put them there. Toastly is not a religious platform and none of these fields are used to filter anybody’s feed. They’re something to talk about, never a gate.
On Tobi’s profile
YorubaIgbo · conversationalEnglishChristian · non-practisingLagos bornWants children
Every one of these can be hidden with a single toggle, at any time, without affecting who you see.
Who Toastly is for
Real life comes with history. Bring yours.
Single, divorced, widowed, raising kids — none of that is a footnote you have to explain away here. What matters is where you’re going and who you want beside you when you get there.
And who it isn’t
And if you’re married, this isn’t the place.
Toastly is for people who are free to build something. Nothing about this app works if one of you is already spoken for — so married people are not welcome here, full stop.
It’s a rule we enforce, not a box we can tick. Report anyone who isn’t honest about it and we’ll act on it.
Built for Nigerian phones
4MB. No app store. No 2GB of data gone.
Toastly installs straight from your browser and sits on your home screen like any other app. It runs on a Tecno from 2019, it opens on 3G, and Gist audio is compressed to about a quarter of what a voice note usually costs you.
- 4MB
- Install size, smaller than one voice note album
- 3G
- Fully usable on a slow connection
- -74%
- Less data per Gist than a standard voice call
- 0
- App store accounts required
Ready to find your person?
42,000 verified Nigerians are already on here, gisting tonight. Verification takes about four minutes.
Women get 30 days of Premium Plus free at signup — full Gist video and incognito mode, no card needed. See how it works
The diaspora bridge
In London, matching in Lagos.
Pick your pool: back home, your diaspora community, or both at once. Gist scheduling does the time-zone maths for you, and the diaspora track is priced in USD.
Diaspora matching
The journey
From Match to Marriage.
Every other app stops at the chat. Toastly is built as a path with four stations, and the last one is a wedding — planned in AriyaPlanner, introduction ceremony through white wedding.
- Station 01
Match
A verified person whose intentions are written down where you can read them.
- Station 02
Gist
Guided voice sessions, then video when you both want it. Chemistry before logistics.
- Station 03
Couple Mode
A shared, private space for two: milestones, plans, and the conversations that matter.
- Station 04
AriyaPlanner
Introduction ceremony, traditional wedding, white wedding — handed over, budget and all.
Walk the full journey
Couple Mode and the AriyaPlanner handoff are included on every plan, including Starter.
Stories
Three couples who stopped scrolling.
“I had deleted three apps before this. The difference is everybody here says what they actually want.”
Chiamaka & Emeka
LAGOS · MARRIED APRIL 2025
“We gisted for three weeks before we met. By the time I saw him I already knew his voice.”
Halima & Yusuf
ABUJA · ENGAGED 2026
“I'm in Manchester, she was in Ibadan. The scheduling did the hard part; AriyaPlanner did the rest.”
Seyi & Damilola
MANCHESTER · WEDDING JULY
Reading for the intentional
All writing
Culture · 11 min
The Nigerian dating culture guide: from introduction to white wedding
Who pays for what, who is asked first, and what actually happens on the day.
Product · 8 min
Why we built a marriage track, not another swipe deck
Scarcity, intent and the case against the infinite feed.
Your person is already verified.
Start the journey tonight. And when it’s time, AriyaPlanner is waiting on the other side of it.