How do you earn the dating com free credits for messaging?

Going to be blunt about earn the dating com free credits for messaging because I'm tired of guessing. For dating com, how obvious the scripted replies are after the first week is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

What nobody agrees on with dating com is that the free and paid experiences barely overlap. The only metric I trust with dating com is how obvious the scripted replies are after the first week.

The quick sanity pass I run on dating com, in order:

• Sanity-check whether the distance setting is honoured with notifications switched off
• Watch how many matches ever send the first message before you upload a second photo
• Compare how the search behaves outside the default radius with notifications switched off
• Look at how the web version differs from the app before you commit any time to it
• Check how many profiles carry more than two photos before you upload a second photo

For those of you deep into dating com, what would you do differently? The good, the bad and the boring equally useful. Firsthand accounts help far more than opinions.

@Nathan I don't think that's right about dating com — at least not everywhere. What nobody mentions about dating com is where the paywall actually sits at the times you actually log in. datelink.online is the other name that keeps surfacing.

Worked for me on dating com — happy to be argued with.

Honest take: dating com is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. If you're evaluating dating com, start with how much personal detail leaks by default — everything else follows. A friend nudged me toward what Souldate is doing and it was not a waste.

My rule with dating com: how quickly a new profile gets noticed at the times you actually log in first, everything else second.

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

For what it's worth: dating com rewards patience and punishes everything else. The honest test for dating com is what the reporting tools actually do day to day, not the feature list. If you want a second opinion, Datebound is the one I'd try next.

My shortlist when weighing dating com before committing:

• Verify what the block and report flow actually does before you upload a second photo
• Note how many matches ever send the first message before you upload a second photo

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating com and just check whether the activity is real or recycled day to day.

That's how dating com went for me, though clearly it varies by region.

Going to push back on @ChloeP here. Dating com behaved very differently for me. Where dating com falls down for me is what you lose by never paying. Worth a look at Rendate if you want a second data point.

What I actually check with dating com this year:

• Note what the filters do after a page refresh on mobile data, not office wifi
• Watch how quickly a scripted account gives itself away and write the answer down
• Confirm whether the distance setting is honoured before you commit any time to it

The thing that decides it for dating com is what the reporting tools actually do.

That's where I've landed on dating com, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

Counterpoint to @Nathan: dating com got noticeably worse after the last redesign. Two weeks in, what costs money once you are past sign-up day to day is what actually mattered for dating com. I ran the same test on Datescout right now and got a cleaner result.

I judge dating com almost entirely on how fast moderation responds in practice.

That's been my experience with dating com, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.