Yes. An OkCupid account is free, and you can send and receive Likes and Intros, see your mutual Likes and message the people you match with without paying anything. A few features are kept for subscribers, including seeing who Likes you before you Like them and sending unlimited Likes.

What a free account includes

The free version is a working dating app, not a teaser. You can:

  • Send Likes to women you are interested in, and receive Likes from women interested in you
  • Send and receive Intros, the one opening message you can send someone after you Like her
  • See your mutual Likes, the women who Liked you back
  • Message anyone you match with

That covers the whole path from noticing someone to talking to her. Plenty of men meet women on OkCupid without ever paying.

The mutual Likes are the part to watch. Every woman there has shown interest in you, and you have shown interest in her, which makes her the easiest conversation you will find on the app. Check them whenever you open OkCupid, and write to anyone new the same day.

What you need a subscription for

Two things stand out on the subscribers' side of the line.

The first is seeing who Likes you before you Like them. On a free account you find out about mutual interest once it is mutual. A subscriber can see the interest first and decide who to answer.

The second is unlimited Likes. Free Likes are not unlimited, so a free account asks you to be choosier about where you spend them.

Neither of those stops you from getting dates. They change how much control you have and how many women you can reach in a sitting.

Why free works better than men expect

Many men assume a free site is full of women who aren't serious. a dating coach sees it differently. Part of what he likes about OkCupid is that it costs nothing to join. That draws in a lot of women who wouldn't necessarily sign up for a paid site, including plenty of very attractive ones.

He also rates OkCupid's statistical matching, the questions and the Match % that come out of them, as genuinely good. For a free account, that matters a lot. It means the app is doing real work to point you at women you are likely to get along with, and you aren't paying for it.

Spend your Likes as if they're limited

On a free account they are, so treat each one as a decision.

coach has coached men who showed interest in almost every woman they saw. When they got selective, they sent far fewer Likes and got far better results. The same logic applies here. Save your Likes for women you would genuinely be glad to take on a date, and skip the ones you are lukewarm about.

Before you Like someone, look at all of her photos and read what she wrote. If nothing on her page gives you something to say, that is usually a sign the spark isn't there.

Make every Intro count

An Intro is your first message to someone, and on a free account it is one of your most valuable tools. It lets you say something before she has decided about you.

Keep it short. React to one specific thing on her page, ideally with a bit of humor, and leave her an easy way to answer. My aim with any opening message is attention first. Women are ignoring far more men than they answer, so a generic "hey" or a comment on her looks disappears into the pile.

From there, his method is to move steadily toward meeting. He brings up the idea of a drink early, as a light suggestion, so that asking for her number a few messages later feels like the natural end of the conversation.

When paying makes sense

coach is not against paying for dating apps. His view is that sites are businesses that want to keep their paying members happy, so their paid features are usually built to be worth the money. Of all the things you can pay for, the ability to reach as many women as you like, instead of waiting for the app to ration it, is the one he rates most highly.

But he adds a condition. Paid features multiply the results you already have, and a multiplier times zero is still zero. So use the free account properly first. Get some mutual Likes, have some conversations, go on a date or two. If that is happening, a month of a paid plan is a fair test, and you will see quickly whether it makes a real difference.

Keep the test clean. Change nothing else during that month, so that if your results jump you know the plan did it, and if they don't, you can drop it without wondering.

If nothing is happening for free, a subscription won't fix it. Look at your photos, what you wrote about yourself and the messages you send.