What Are the Best Free Dating Sites for Men Over 50?

The free versions of Match, eHarmony, Tinder, Hinge and Bumble are all worth a look, and none of them is the best for every man. What matters is how far the free version gets you toward a conversation. Join two, use each one the same way for two weeks, and keep the one where your matches answer your messages. Pay only after the free version has shown you real replies.

Free is not one thing. Each service draws the line in a different place, and the lines move, so open the app and see what it allows today.

Match. A free member can chat with all of his matches, rate a daily set of people in his Recommended stack, and browse curated members. Once two people match, they can message each other directly. Some free actions, such as sending Likes, require a picture on your account first.

eHarmony. Basic membership is free and does not expire. It includes the Compatibility Quiz, visiting member pages, and sending and receiving Likes to get a Match. A free trial of Premium appears from time to time, so do not count on one.

Tinder, Hinge and Bumble. These let you sign up, build a page, look at women near you and start talking when you match. Their paid tiers add extras, and what sits on the free side shifts over time. None of them sorts by age for you, so you will see women of every age and set your own range.

SilverSingles. It describes itself as a dating site for singles over 50, with verified members. Our material does not confirm what it gives away for free, so look at its sign-up page before you spend time or money.

On most sites, free gets you into the room and paying gets you more. The extras are things like seeing who liked you, search and filters, read receipts and automatic boosts. Those are conveniences, and they are not required to hold a conversation.

The one worth knowing about is search. a dating coach's view is that Match is better than the swipe apps at letting you go and find women on your own terms, where the swipe apps leave the choice of who you see to their software. On the free version, much of what you see is the stack the site picks for you.

A free week answers three questions that matter more than any review. How many women in your age range are near you? How many of your likes come back as matches? How many of those matches answer?

Write the three numbers down. If all three are decent, the site is working for you, and a paid month might widen it. If the first number is near zero, no upgrade will fix a thin local pool.

a dating coach's rule on paying is that a paid feature multiplies what you already have. He thinks paying is probably worth it in most cases if the price is sane, because services tend to show paying members to more people. He is just as clear that it multiplies nothing if the page behind it is weak.

Most men over 50 are held back by a few fixable things, and none of them costs money.

Use recent pictures that show how you look today, with one full-length shot and one of you doing something real. A man who looks like he did ten years ago loses her on the first date.

Write two or three plain lines with a detail she can ask about, and say what you want in a sentence. Skip lines every man writes, such as "a gentleman who knows how to treat a lady," because she has read them a hundred times.

Open your first message with something from her page and keep it short. Then suggest a coffee on a named day within a handful of exchanges.

a dating coach warns that liking every woman backfires. In his view the app reads a man who likes everybody as less attractive and shows him fewer of the women he wants. Match's free version already limits how many people you can rate each day, which pushes you toward choosing anyway. Like the women you would honestly write to.

a dating coach recommends testing several apps because each has its own algorithm and its own mix of people. A man can do poorly on one and well on another.

Pick two free versions, give both the same pictures and the same lines, and use them regularly for two weeks. Do not run five at once, since you will not write well to anyone on any of them. Keep the one where your matches answer, and ignore the rest.

After 30, you simply run into fewer eligible women than you did in school, which is why an online page helps. a dating coach calls it a nice supplement that works in the background. Add a class, a club or a regular place where people know your face. The free site does the quiet work while you do those.