Free app · 18+ · EU
How spareachair works
From signing up to your first Event, step by step.
From sign-up to your first table
Step 1: Sign up
Create an account with your email address and confirm it. You pick a display name and get a generated avatar. There are no photo uploads.
Step 2: Verify that you’re you
A specialist verification provider checks your ID document and a selfie, and tells us the result: whether you’re verified and 18 or over. We don’t keep copies of your ID or your selfie.
Step 3: Answer a few perspective prompts
About eight quick questions, such as city or countryside, tech optimist or sceptic. There are no right answers. They help us seat you with people who answered differently.
Step 4: RSVP to an Event
We host the Events, in formats such as an Evening, a Lunch break, a Morning coffee or a Weekend afternoon. Each one has a theme, a start time and a set number of seats. We remind you 24 hours, 1 hour and 10 minutes before it starts.
Step 5: Talk at rotating tables
The lobby opens 5 to 15 minutes early, depending on the format. Then you’re seated at a table of 3–6. A round lasts 15 to 30 minutes, then the tables reshuffle. We don’t seat you with someone you’ve blocked.
Step 6: Keep in touch, if it’s mutual
After the last round, tick “keep in touch” next to anyone you’d like to talk to again. Only if you both tick each other can you send messages. A voice or video call only happens if both of you accept it. Either of you can end it or block at any time.
What an Event can look like
This is an example of an Evening, one of the Event formats, not a real Event. Times are in your local time zone.
- 19:50
The lobby opens. You check in and read the theme: “Is the city worth it?”
- 20:00
Round one. Five people at your table: a teacher, a farmer, a software tester, a retired pilot and you. Everyone types first.
- 20:20
Round two. New table, new people. Two of them switch their mic on and you listen for a while before you join in.
- 20:40
Round three. Someone offers video. You choose whether you want to see it.
- 21:30
The Event ends. You tick “keep in touch” for two people. One of them ticked you too.
Text first, then voice and video by choice
Text is always on at every table. Your mic and camera are off by default, and you choose if and when to turn them on.
Video works both ways by consent: someone has to switch their camera on, and you have to choose to see it. We don’t record audio or video.
How tables are put together
We look at your perspective prompts, your line of work and your age band, and seat people so that each table is as mixed as possible. We also try not to seat you with the same person twice in one Event.
We never seat you with anyone you’ve blocked. Nothing about the seating is romantic or based on looks: spareachair is not a dating app.
Your seat is waiting
Get the free app, verify your ID and RSVP to your first Event. For adults aged 18 and over with an ID from the EU/EEA.
Get the spareachair app
Free, for verified adults aged 18 and over.