What Dating Apps Are Completely Free?

By their own words, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Match and eHarmony all let you join without paying. On each one, free lets you make a page, like or match, and talk to a woman once you are matched. What costs money is mostly seeing who already liked you, unlimited likes, filters and boosts. An app can change what is free, so read its own help page before you rely on any of this.

Across these apps the shape is the same. Free gets you an account, a way to like or match, and a conversation after a match. Paid tiers sit on top and sell visibility and control.

No app is completely free in the sense of giving you every feature, so the useful question is which free version is enough to learn whether the app works for you. The sections below take each in turn.

Tinder's help page says the app is free and that the free version lets a user match, chat and connect. Plus, Gold and Platinum are optional upgrades.

Hinge's help page says the regular version is free on iOS and Android, and that Hinge+ and HingeX are optional. Free members can send a limited number of likes each day and see incoming likes one after another, not all together. They also have a limited undo for a skipped profile. Hinge gives every member a free Rose on a regular schedule.

Bumble's help page says its paid features are optional and that Bumble works great without them. Everyone gets a free Extend each day to give a match more time. Chatting once both people have sent an opening message is not described as paid.

OkCupid says accounts are free, that a man can always see his mutual Likes for free, and that messaging is completely free once two people Like each other. It says paid features are not necessary.

Plenty of Fish says a free member can filter search by gender, location, age, distance and religion, Like members in Meet Me, and see and message his Mutual Matches. Its paid tiers are POF Plus, Premium and Prestige.

That free filter on Plenty of Fish matters to a man who wants to browse by his own criteria and would rather not pay before he has seen who is around.

Match says free members can chat with every match, rate a daily allowance of profiles in the Recommended stack and explore curated profiles. Its paid tiers are Bronze, Silver, Platinum and Diamond, and setting most preferences as Must Haves needs a subscription.

eHarmony's free level is called Basic. On Basic you can take the Compatibility Quiz, look at profiles, trade initial likes and first messages, and see who visited your page. Unlimited messaging and seeing every photo come with Premium.

Look at the paid tiers named above and the same list keeps appearing. A man pays to see who already liked him, to send more likes, to filter, and to boost his visibility. None of those changes how you look or what you write.

That is why paying works best as a multiplier. a dating coach's test for any paid feature is to try it for a short period, watch whether your results change, and drop it if they do not. A paid feature multiplies what you already get, so it does little for an account that gets almost nothing.

a dating coach's advice is to get at least some matches without paying before you think about paying. If a free account is producing nothing, the problem is almost never the missing paid feature. It is the photos and the written answers.

So use the free version properly first. Take clear photos in daylight, write a few specific lines about yourself, and run that same version on two or three of the apps above for a few weeks. If one of them starts producing matches and conversations, you have learned which app suits you without spending anything.

If you then decide to pay, pay for one app, for a short time, and check whether anything actually changed. If it did not, cancel. That is a better use of the money than a long subscription bought on the hope that a feature will fix a weak first impression.