Free Dating or Paid? Pros and Cons for Each Type

Author: Margaret Collin
Publish Date: 01/05/2009

Let's start with free dating sites. There's nothing like a free lunch. You get a service that you need and you pay nothing for it.

This is the silver bullet of the free dating sites (we'll talk about their disadvantages in a minute). Bottom line - nothing beats getting something for free. It is never better to pay for something than getting it free of charge.

But do we get the same thing? Do we indeed compare apples to apples? Are there any major, serious, real differences between free dating services to their commercial competitors?

The answer to the last question is in most cases YES.

Let's compare various factors between totally free dating websites and paid ones:

    * The Quantity of Members

      One of the key factors that helps to evaluate the user's chances for success in finding potential dates is the size of the dating site's user base.
      The big commercial sites have millions of registered members.
      The free dating sites don't even come close.

    * The Quality of Members

      Here's a question for you: where will you find more high quality singles?
      Will it be on free sites? Or rather on pay sites?

      The answer to that is pretty clear.
      Usually, people that paid $25, $35 or $50 for their dating site subscription are much more serious about finding a date.
      They actually paid money in order to find other serious relationship seekers.
      They're not looking for "fun" or to kill another hour.
      They want to meet singles that share the same seriousness in finding a partner (unless it's on an adult dating site).

      The type of people you will find on paid dating sites are typically higher quality.
      High quality singles are looking for other high quality singles. They're willing to invest a relatively small fee in order to find exactly what they look for.

      People on paid sites are better looking.
      Compare any free site to any pay site.
      The men and women on pay sites look much better – period.

      Singles on paid dating sites are in a better financial situation
      They can afford a dating site membership and at least some of them look for other singles who also have a decent and stable income.

      Members on paid dating sites are better educated.
      Compare the percentage of MA graduates on free dating sites and paid ones.
      Members on paid sites have better educations.

    * The Risk of Fraud and Scams

      In many cases, free dating sites are virtually a paradise for all sorts of scammers, con artists and dubious characters.
      The problem lies down in the fact that anybody can join a free dating site with no way of identifying who they are such as with a credit card or other means.

      Scammers don't need to pull out their credit cards on free sites, so very little can be done to stop them.
      When they are being spotted, almost nothing prevents them from coming back under a new alias, continuing to scam new victims.
      After all, the free sites are open for everybody.

      Commercial sites are not completely free of scammers. However, the fact that one has to put in their credit card information tends to reduce those who are just trying to scam others.

      Commercial sites have better motivation to protect their subscribers from scammers.
      They don't want to get a bad reputation and they exert a lot of efforts to protect those on their site. Word of mouth is very important when it comes to dating sites, and the paid dating sites want their reputation to be top-notch.


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