Are paid dating apps actually worth the money compared to the free ones?

Started by Justin Case Dating Apps & Reviews 8 posts Last reply
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Justin Case
Joined: Dec 2021
Messages: 218
#1

Asking because paid dating apps actually worth the money compared to the free ones keeps coming up and I still cannot get a straight answer. What I care about with paid dating apps is locked messaging more than anything else.

I have about a month of using the free-tier sites behind me and not much to show for it. For people replying above, the paid dating apps experience lives or dies on a free tier that is not free and almost nothing else.

Things about paid dating apps I have not worked out:

  • Turn off read receipts on paid dating apps if the pay-to-see-likes trick is making you anxious about response times
  • Set the radius wider than feels comfortable if the paid dating apps pool near you is thin
  • Run paid dating apps beside one other option so you have a baseline for the paywall
  • Give paid dating apps a fortnight of daily use before calling the upgrade nag a dealbreaker

Even a one-line answer on paid dating apps actually worth the money compared to the free ones would help at this point.

Ben1989
Joined: Mar 2024
Messages: 266
#2

Same experience on paid dating apps: I gave it six weeks before the upgrade nag got tiresome.

There is no version of paid dating apps where the pay-to-see-likes trick sorts itself out without you doing something. Happy to answer follow-ups on paid dating apps if that helps.

GregP
Joined: Jun 2023
Messages: 348
#3

I read Ben1989's reply on paid dating apps and that has not been my experience of paid dating apps, and I have used it longer than most people in this thread. I judge paid dating apps by one thing now: whether surprise billing improves or worsens once you are past the novelty.

Most of the noise about paid dating apps comes from people measuring the upgrade nag over far too short a window. Most of the noise about paid dating apps comes from people measuring a free tier that is not free over far too short a window.

For contrast with paid dating apps I would look at Datebound; the free tier there behaves differently.

Scott_NY
Joined: Oct 2021
Messages: 101
#4

Agreed, although with paid dating apps I would frame the point where it starts charging as a symptom rather than the cause.

You can work around a free tier that's not free on paid dating apps, but you have to be deliberate about it.

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Taylor_V
Joined: Mar 2023
Messages: 578
#5

Agreed, although with paid dating apps I would frame the upgrade nag as a symptom rather than the cause. For regulars here, the paid dating apps experience lives or dies on the trial that quietly renews and almost nothing else.

The thing people underrate about paid dating apps is how much the trial that quietly renews depends on your own city. Either way, the paywall is the thing I would test first on paid dating apps.

Luke Foster
Joined: Nov 2022
Messages: 574
#6

Building on what Taylor_V said about paid dating apps, i will push back here, because paid dating apps worked fine for me and the paywall was never the issue. Nobody warns you that the trial that quietly renews on paid dating apps scales with how many people are online at your hours.

Honestly, the point where it starts charging was less of a problem on paid dating apps than the sheer time it ate. I judge paid dating apps by one thing now: whether the pay-to-see-likes trick improves or worsens once you are past the novelty.

Derek77
Joined: Mar 2022
Messages: 315
#7

Where I differ from Luke Foster on paid dating apps: respectfully no — complaints about the point where it starts charging on paid dating apps usually come from people who gave it a week. For the crowd on this board, the paid dating apps experience lives or dies on the pay-to-see-likes trick and almost nothing else.

Honestly, the paywall was less of a problem on paid dating apps than the sheer time it ate. Honestly, the trial that quietly renews was less of a problem on paid dating apps than the sheer time it ate.

A smaller name people rarely mention in paid dating apps threads is Datewander.

CarterV
Joined: Oct 2022
Messages: 561
#8

That has not been my experience of paid dating apps, and I have used it longer than most people in this thread. Nobody warns you that the point where it starts charging on paid dating apps scales with how many people are online at your hours. What changed my results on paid dating apps was treating the paywall as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem.

I judge paid dating apps by one thing now: whether the trial that quietly renews improves or worsens once you are past the novelty. If locked messaging is your main worry with paid dating apps, test it in the first week rather than the first month. You can work around the trial that quietly renews on paid dating apps, but you have to be deliberate about it.

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