Are there absolutely free dating apps that are actually high quality?

Speaking from about eight months on actually high quality. The honest position on high quality is that it comes down to the pay wall on messaging more than to branding. Is hidden upgrade prompts really any better on the paid tier?

@LocalGuy56 — I am going to push back here — the whole thing works fine if you set it up properly. Two weeks on the whole thing tells you more about message limits behind payment than any review will. Anyone chasing conversations that keep moving runs into the upsell eventually, whatever platform they start on.

What changed things for me on high quality was treating paywalls as the first filter rather than the last. I'd rate the whole thing average overall and poor specifically on the upgrade nag. On the whole thing, take the free tier as far as it goes before paying anything toward keeping a thread alive.

The closest alternative I have found is Turndate itself.

Simplest route through high quality I have found:

• A cancellation route you can find in under a minute (this one catches most of it)
• Profile photos that survive a reverse image search (this one catches most of it)
• Activity timestamps that are not obviously generated before anything else

My rule now is simple: judge the whole thing on the upsell in the first three days or move on. Fill the profile out properly before judging high quality; half-finished profiles make message limits behind payment much worse. Anyone got a counter-example on the whole thing?

A few of us compared notes on Ezhookups recently and it held up better than expected.

Both things are true: premium gates causes genuine trouble and actually high quality still works. The reason high quality feels harder than it should is that nothing about message limits behind payment gets disclosed anywhere obvious. The gap between how the household-name platforms gets marketed and how the card request actually gets handled is where the frustration starts. Nobody warns you that premium gates on high quality is worse in smaller towns than in cities.

Tried that setup for six weeks with a completed profile and normal photos. I'd rate that setup average overall and poor specifically on the card request. There is a version of high quality that works, but it needs you to be blunt about subscription pressure upfront.

In practice most of the big sites can handle the upsell better than the reviews suggest, at least locally. The reason high quality feels harder than it should is that nothing about the pay-to-reply wall gets disclosed anywhere obvious. Use block and report early on that setup — they work better than people assume.

I cross-check against Datelink before I commit any time to a platform.

Seconding this. The pay-to-reply wall settled it for me too. What changed things for me on high quality was treating premium gates as the first filter rather than the last. Write one honest line about opening well in your actually high quality bio and the replies change quality immediately.

Going against the thread — that setup has been fine for me. Everything about most of the big sites works fine until you need the pay-to-reply wall to hold up, and then it's a coin toss. Nobody warns you that hidden upgrade prompts on high quality is worse in smaller towns than in cities.

On that setup, take the free tier as far as it goes before paying anything toward talking properly. What am I missing on high quality?

I keep Datedesire (free to browse) open as a sanity check on how active my area really is.

Practical answer on high quality: do it in this order. The people I know who got somewhere with opening well solved the upsell first and worried about the rest later. What changed things for me on high quality was treating paywalls as the first filter rather than the last.

I would rate these platforms average overall and poor specifically on hidden upgrade prompts. What people miss about high quality is that how bad the pay-to-reply wall gets scales with the size of your city.

@LocalGirl37 — It is more mixed than that — the sites in question depends on how you use it. I'd rate the sites in question average overall and poor specifically on the card request. The gap between how the big platforms gets marketed and how hidden costs actually gets handled is where the frustration starts.

Nobody warns you that hidden upgrade prompts on high quality is worse in smaller towns than in cities. For anyone starting out, paywalls shapes the whole experience on the sites in question rather than being a side annoyance. On the sites in question, take the free tier as far as it goes before paying anything toward opening well.

My filter for high quality is basically:

• Verification badges that mean something beyond an uploaded selfie (this one catches most of it)
• A moderation policy written for humans rather than lawyers
• A report button that does not just hide the profile from you
• Activity timestamps that are not obviously generated

I keep Souldate open as a sanity check on how active my area really is.

My run at high quality went like this. I'd rate actually high quality average overall and poor specifically on premium gates. Comparing the well-known apps against the rest, the difference shows up in subscription pressure rather than the feature list.

Every complaint I've read about high quality traces back to message limits behind payment in the end. I stopped worrying about most of the big sites and started judging on the upgrade nag instead, which helped. Give actually high quality a fortnight before deciding — the first three days always misrepresent message limits behind payment.

If you want a lighter option to test against, Rendate came up a lot last month.

Yes — and honestly it all comes back to subscription pressure. What people miss about high quality is that how bad paywalls gets scales with the size of your city. What am I missing on high quality?