Love may be free, but the quest to find it isn’t necessarily without costs. Shedding its stigma, online dating is more popular than ever. An endless sea of dating sites exist, like niche sites for daters of specific nationalities or with certain hobbies. No matter the type of dating site you’re interested in joining, all of them boil down to two categories: free sites and paid sites.
With every online dating site you visit, all of them will show off the many happy couples that met using that site. You may be wondering then if there are any benefits to paying for an online dating membership compared to joining a free site. Here are the pros and cons of free online dating sites versus paid ones.
6. Con: Members Can Disappear at Any Time
This applies to both free dating sites and paid ones. On free sites, members may be a lot more finicky and likely to shut down their account at the drop of a hat. Once you pay for a dating site membership though, you pretty much have to stick it out to get your money’s worth. However, some people may sign up for a free trial for a paid site. You two may hit it off only for them to vanish, never to return.
5. Pro: Compatibility Analyses Can Introduce You to New Dating Partners
Many paid dating sites boast compatibility analyses that draw on your preferences, hobbies, and interests to find you someone similar to date. However, free sites like OkCupid allow you to answer a slew of questions about dating and personal views that give you a compatibility percentage with other users. Paid sites will probably have more accurate algorithms, and even so, someone may seem great on paper but you may not feel sparks when meeting in person.
4. Con: Members Are a Lot Pickier
Unfortunately, when paying for a dating site, some members fall into the “grass is greener” mentality where there’s always someone more attractive and better around the corner. You may find that you don’t get as many responses on a paid site compared to a free site for that reason. You too may find yourself becoming pickier because you paid for a membership on a site.
3. Pro: Better Means of Saying No
Everyone has to deal with unwanted messages at some point. You then have to decide whether you tell the other person you’re not interested and open yourself up to potential verbal attacks or if you ignore the message altogether. Many paid sites have a “no thanks” button or similar feature that allows you to express your disinterest firmly and without feeling guilty.
2. Con: Members Are Still Looking for Sex
No matter what kind of relationship you want, you’ll still find members on paid and free sites that are just looking for sex. You’ll probably still receive unsolicited messages even if you pay for a membership on a dating site.
1. Pro: Paid Site Users Tend to Want Long-Term Relationships
Those that have decided to pay money for a dating site are more likely seeking a serious relationship. If you want a long-term relationship, paid sites remove a lot of ambiguity. However, some paid site members may only want sex or short-term partnerships, so this isn’t always foolproof.
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