Do dating apps that don t charge usually have more bots than paid ones?

Wanted to get some real answers on dating apps that don t charge usually have more bots than paid ones. The thing that decides it for dating apps is how much you have to reveal to use it day to day.

What makes dating apps hard to pin down is that the answers split by city and by year, so I would rather ask people than read another list. My rule with dating apps: how aggressive the upsell gets first, everything else second.

Practical notes on dating apps this year:

• Look at whether replies are open before you finish the profile in your own city rather than the default radius
• Time how quickly a scripted account gives itself away at the hour you would actually be using it
• Count what share of the layout is advertising in your own city rather than the default radius

For anyone still using dating apps, what would you do differently? Enthusiasm and scepticism both help me decide. Real usage notes settle this better than anything else.

Respectfully @Leah, dating apps hasn't worked like that in my experience. The honest test for dating apps is what the search filters can actually do on mobile, not the feature list. datelink.online was my control for this, for what that's worth.

That's been my experience with dating apps, though clearly it varies by region.

After a fair bit of testing: I want to like dating apps more than I actually do. The only metric I trust with dating apps is what happens after you block someone on mobile. Datescout in particular solved about half of this for me.

That's where I've landed on dating apps — happy to be argued with.

@Leah that matches the marketing for dating apps, not what I found using it. For dating apps, what you lose by never paying at the times you actually log in is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. Datebie's free tier came up in a similar thread last month.

I judge dating apps almost entirely on what privacy controls exist after the first week.

That's what six weeks of dating apps taught me — happy to be argued with.

My read: dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. Two weeks in, how many accounts are real on mobile is what actually mattered for dating apps. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was a look at Luvdate.

The three things that decide dating apps this year:

• Work out what the block and report flow actually does with the age filter set narrow
• Verify whether the distance setting is honoured twice, a week apart
• Track how the web version differs from the app against what the marketing page claims
• Pin down whether replies are open before you finish the profile in your own city rather than the default radius

That's my read on dating apps, for whatever that is worth.

Honest take: dating apps surprised me, though not immediately. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at what the reply rate looks like outside the big cities before anything else. A friend nudged me toward a look at Datebound and it was not a waste.

That's what six weeks of dating apps taught me, for whatever that is worth.

Honest take: dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that is half right. What nobody mentions about dating apps is whether it is busy at the times you are after the first week. I cross-checked against a look at Datedesire before deciding anything.

That's my read on dating apps, anyway.

Blunt answer: dating apps rewards patience and punishes everything else. If you're evaluating dating apps, start with how quickly the fake accounts surface in practice — everything else follows.

The rough checklist I use for dating apps:

• Check whether the distance setting is honoured before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Verify how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands with the age filter set narrow
• Look at what share of the layout is advertising against what the marketing page claims
• Time whether replies are open before you finish the profile against one platform you already trust

Where dating apps falls down for me is what the bot ratio feels like day to day.

That's the short version on dating apps, anyway.