Is There a One Message a Day Limit on Plenty of Fish?

Not for the women you have matched with. POF's help center says that once you and another member both swipe right on each other in Meet Me, you are mutually matched and can send that match unlimited messages. Replies to conversations that already exist are unlimited too. The cap applies to a different kind of message, the First Contact.

There are two places where POF puts no limit on you.

The first is a mutual match. When you swipe right on a woman in Meet Me and she swipes right on you, you can send her as many messages as you like.

The second is a conversation that already exists. POF says you have unlimited replies, so once a woman has written to you, or you have written to her and she answered, you can keep going back and forth.

If a limit is stopping you in either of those places, something else is wrong. A separate article covers messages that will not send.

The limit is on messaging someone you have not matched with. POF calls that message a First Contact.

A First Contact lets you write to a woman before the two of you have matched. POF's help center says a new first message to someone can be limited by your membership, so how many you can send depends on what you have.

What a membership allows can change, so no figure is quoted here. Check the app for the number that applies to your account. When you run out of First Contacts for the day, POF Prestige gives unlimited first contacts.

Once you have used up the day's First Contacts, you have three honest choices.

You can wait. The allowance is a daily one, so it comes back, and the pause costs you very little if you have been choosing carefully.

You can buy extra First Contacts as an a la carte feature, without upgrading your membership.

Or you can move to POF Prestige, which gives unlimited first contacts.

Before you pay for either, look at how your free ones performed. If you wrote to a dozen women and heard back from none, more First Contacts will buy you more silence. A paid feature makes the result you already have bigger. Good results are worth multiplying. A result of zero is not.

A profile image is required before you can send a First Contact or message other members at all.

If your messages will not send, check that first. An account with no picture can look around but cannot write. Add a clear photo of your face, with nobody else in the frame, and try again.

A limit changes how you choose. When each First Contact counts, you stop writing to everyone and start writing to a few women carefully.

Pick women whose pages give you something to work with: a clear photo, a few written details, an interest you can comment on. A page with one blurry picture and nothing written gives you nothing to open with, so save the message for someone else.

The best use of the limit is not to hit it. a dating coach's approach is to be selective, because an app that watches a man swipe right on nearly everyone concludes he has no standards and shows him fewer of the women he wants. A man who picks carefully rarely runs out of anything.

Put the order of the day in your favor. Start with the conversations that are already open, since replies are unlimited and a woman who wrote to you is the warmest lead you have.

Then look at your matches and write to the ones you have not messaged. Spend First Contacts last, on a handful of women you chose deliberately, and stop when they run out. Ending the session at the limit is a fine thing, not a failure.

Since matched conversations carry no cap, they are the best use of your time. A woman who swiped right on you has already said yes to talking. Answer her the same day.

Pick one real detail from her page, say something about it, and end on a question she can answer in a line. Then do not let the exchange run for weeks. After a few warm replies, suggest a specific place and evening.

Unlimited messages are only an advantage if they end in a plan. A man with a hundred messages in an inbox and no date has the same result as a man with none.