Which Serious Dating Apps Are Free?

Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, The League, Coffee Meets Bagel and OkCupid all let a man join and chat without paying. None of them sorts women by how serious they are, so being free or paid says nothing about intent. Start free, use the written parts of a woman's page to read what she wants, and pay only after a limit is clearly holding you back.

Every dating app sorts by attention, not by intention. It shows you people it thinks you will respond to, and it cannot tell whether either of you wants a relationship or a Saturday.

That means price tells you very little. Paying filters for people who are willing to pay, which loosely matches taking it seriously and matches having money just as well. A free app can have plenty of women who want something real, and a paid one can have plenty who do not.

The free core of most apps is the whole path from a stranger to a date. Free app features change, so treat this as a starting point and check what the app lets you do today.

• Hinge is free to use on iPhone and Android. You can like, match and send messages, and the paid tiers are optional extras. It says it is designed to be deleted, and its pages carry prompt answers you can read.
• Bumble lets a man swipe, match and chat without paying, with a daily like allowance.
• Tinder lets you like people, match and chat, and the paid tiers add extras on top.
• The League says a subscription is optional. The daily Batches, matching and messaging are free.
• Coffee Meets Bagel is free to join for adults, and liking, passing and chatting with your suggested matches costs nothing.
• OkCupid lets a free account send and receive Likes and Intros, see mutual Likes and message matches.

eHarmony works differently. Joining is free, and the free Basic version gives you suggestions, Smiles, Icebreakers and Greetings, plus replies to a first message. Premium adds unlimited messaging, enhanced search and the photos of all your matches.

It is a site that asks more of you up front, which can suit a man who wants a relationship and does not mind a questionnaire. Just know that the free version lets you look and react, and writing freely is where the payment begins.

The limits are volume and reach. Free accounts usually cap how many likes you can send in a day, and they may show you to fewer people. a dating coach's explanation is that dating apps are businesses, and the people who pay are the people they work hardest to keep happy.

He is just as firm that paying blindly is wrong. Test any paid feature for a short time, and drop it if your results do not change. If you never run out of likes before you run out of women you want, you do not need it.

The strongest filter is her own writing. Choose apps and pages where she has written real sentences, and read them before you spend an evening.

Then do two things. Say plainly what you want in your own page, because the women who want the same are far more likely to reply to a man who said it out loud. And ask in the first few lines what she is hoping to find on the app and what she is like when she likes someone. Those questions are hard to answer vaguely.

Nothing on a page tells you whether she wants what you want, and the chat only narrows it. A first evening tells you more than three weeks of writing. Move toward a plan within a handful of messages, and pay attention to whether she asks about you and whether the future comes up naturally.

Pick two free apps and use the same photos and lines on both for two weeks. Count the women you liked, the ones who answered and the plans that came out of it. Keep the app where real conversations happen, and put money in only when a limit is the thing standing between you and more of them.