Is OurTime Free?

Partly. A free OurTime member can join and look around, but OurTime's help center describes sending and receiving emails as a premium feature of a subscription. The one exception is Reply for Free, which lets a free member answer a paying member's email. So you can find out who is on the site without paying, and you pay once you want to start real conversations of your own.

A free member can join and search. OurTime's help article on searching lists options such as Online Now and With Photos, and it does not tie those options to a paid plan.

That is enough to answer the question that matters before you spend anything: are there women near you, in your age range, who look like people you would want to meet? Use the free stage for that and nothing else.

Premium is where the actual contact happens. The help center lists sending and receiving emails as a premium feature of a subscription. It also lists extras that need an upgraded account, which are a highlighted profile, highlighted messages and message read confirmation.

Read confirmation tells you when a member has opened an email you sent. Highlighted messages and a highlighted profile make your messages and your page stand out in a crowd. None of the three is needed to get a date, and the first thing to pay for is the ability to write at all.

OurTime states the plan price when you subscribe, and it changes, so look at the purchase screen. The help center adds that the cost of the plan you choose is charged in one payment at purchase, even though monthly prices are shown so you can compare. You also have to verify your phone by text before you subscribe.

This is the feature that confuses people most.

Reply for Free lets a free member answer a paid subscriber's emails. The subscriber pays for it with an add-on purchase, and then sends an email to the free member. A free member's inbox is split into two sections: Reply for Free, and Subscribe to Read.

A few rules follow. The free member has to sign in on the OurTime website or mobile site to respond. And if the sender's Reply for Free status lapses, the exchange is no longer visible to the free member, who would need to subscribe to see it again.

For a man, this works two ways. If you are free and a woman has paid to reach you, you can answer without paying. If you are the paying one, you are carrying the cost for her, which is a reason to write something worth answering.

OurTime's help center says free trials are occasionally offered to members who are signed up for its promotional emails. It gives steps for checking your settings: open your account settings, find email alerts, and make sure promotional emails are switched on.

Do not count on a trial. Treat it as a bonus if it appears, and plan as if it will not.

a dating coach's advice on paid dating sites is to try a feature once and compare, not to decide from theory. He also warns that paid features multiply what you already have, and a multiplier on zero is zero.

For OurTime, that means a short, honest test. Look at the free stage first. If there are women near you whom you would want to meet, a short subscription is a fair experiment. Write down your starting numbers: emails sent, replies, and dates planned. Check them again after a few weeks.

If you do subscribe, the one thing you are buying is a chance to write. A flat opener such as "Hi, how are you" wastes it.

Pick one specific thing on her page and react to it in a sentence or two, with a little personality, then end on something she can answer in a line. a dating coach's aim is to get from a first message to her number in four to seven messages, with a drink brought up early as a light idea.

Put some work into your own page before you pay. A recent, clear lead photo and a few lines that only you could write do more than any premium extra. A page that looks like everyone else's gets the average reply, which is none.