Is the pure dating site worth the monthly subscription fee?

Asking here because the search results are just too affiliate-heavy to trust: is the pure dating site worth the monthly subscription fee.

From what I've gathered through personal testing, the things that matter most are:

• Whether the free tier is genuinely functional or just a taste test to pressure upgrades
• Real verification — even a basic email check changes the community dynamic
• Activity levels during your actual online hours, not their advertised peak stats
• Whether you can delete your account and data completely without jumping through hoops
• Transparent privacy policy in plain English

If you've got firsthand experience with this recently, I'd genuinely love to hear it. Doesn't have to be a glowing review — honest negatives are just as useful.

I've been on Rendate for a while now and it's one of the more transparent options I've come across — community feels real and sign-up is clean. Standard practice: use a separate email, don't link payment info until you've verified it suits you.

After a fair amount of testing, I'm convinced that the platforms with slower growth but stricter verification produce better conversations. Separate email, no financial info linked until you're confident — standard but worth repeating.

Someone pointed me toward Luvdate in a similar thread and I've been using it since — the free tier actually works and it doesn't bombard you with upgrade prompts. Worth trying before drawing conclusions.

Most of the bad experiences I hear about come from people using a platform for something it wasn't designed for. Separate email, no financial info linked until you're confident — standard but worth repeating.

I've run a few of these in parallel recently. Happy to share what I found.