Plenty of Fish does not publish a daily number of likes for free members. Its help center only says that unlimited likes come with the paid tiers, starting with POF Plus. So a free member should assume a ceiling exists, even though nobody tells him where it sits.

The better question is how many likes you should send, and the answer is fewer than you think. Likes are cheap to send and almost useless when you send them at random.

What a like is on Plenty of Fish

A like is how you tell a woman you are interested. In Meet Me, the swiping area, you tap the heart or swipe right. In search, you open her page and tap the heart there.

If she likes you in Meet Me as well, the two of you become a Mutual Match. From that point you can write to her as often as you like. The like is the key and the Mutual Match is the door, so what matters is what you do once it opens.

What the help center says, and what it leaves out

The help center says the first paid tier, POF Plus, includes unlimited likes. POF Premium and POF Prestige include everything in Plus, so they carry unlimited likes too.

It says nothing about a specific number for a free account. Any figure you read on a forum is somebody's guess, or a number from a version of the app that has since changed. Apps change these limits often, which is why a number printed here would go stale.

What you can count on is the structure. Free members have something less than unlimited, and paying removes the limit.

Why a hidden limit is a reason to be picky

When you do not know where the line is, the sensible move is to spend your likes as if each one counts. That habit is also the one that gets you better results.

A man who likes every woman on the screen gets a stream of mild interest from women who were never going to write back. A man who likes the thirty women he would actually be glad to meet gets a shorter list of people who reply and show up. The second man never runs into the limit, because he is not trying to burn through it.

Likes also tell you something when you pay attention to them. Keep a rough count of how many you send in an evening and how many come back as Mutual Matches. That ratio is your real score, and it tells you more about your profile than any single day's total.

Your profile decides how far each like goes

A like is only an invitation to look at your profile. If the profile is weak, the invitation goes nowhere, however many you send.

Women who see your like open your page and decide in a few seconds. A clear main photo of your face, two or three photos showing what you do on a Saturday, and a few honest sentences about yourself are what turn a like into a like back. If your profile is thin, sending more likes will not fix it. It just shows the same thin profile to more people.

So before you ask how many likes you get, check what each like shows. Open your own page the way she would and ask whether you would like it back.

First Contacts are a separate limit

A like is not the same as a First Contact. A First Contact is a message to a woman you have not matched with in Meet Me. The help center says that if you run out of First Contacts for the day, POF Prestige gives unlimited ones, or you can buy extra First Contacts one at a time. You also need a profile image to send one.

So there are two doors on Plenty of Fish. Likes get you a Mutual Match when she agrees. First Contacts let you skip the match and write to her directly. Most men use the first and ignore the second, which is a mistake when a woman's page clearly suits you and you have something specific to say about it.

When paying makes sense

Unlimited likes are worth paying for in one situation: you are getting results on the free account and the cap is what stops you each evening. If you hit the limit and keep getting Mutual Matches, more likes will give you more of what already works.

If your likes are not coming back, the cap is not your problem. Paying would only let you send more of the same thing to more women. Fix the photos and the profile first.

A simple test for one week

Pick a week and send a small, steady number of likes each day, only to women you would want to meet. Write down how many come back as Mutual Matches and how many of those reply when you write.

Then change one thing, such as your main photo, and repeat. If the return rate climbs, you have found what moves the numbers. If it stays flat, change the next thing. Testing one change at a time beats guessing at a limit the app never publishes.