Why Is OkCupid Premium So Expensive?

OkCupid does not give a reason for its prices, so nobody outside the company can say why Premium costs what it does. What its help center does say is what the plan bundles. You get everything in the cheaper Basic membership. You also get the full list of women who have Liked or viewed you, some free SuperLikes every week, and a look at how your matches answered questions you have not answered yet. The total you see can also be higher than the listed price, for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan itself.

OkCupid's help center describes Premium as the highest tier of its memberships, with Premium Plus sitting above it.

Premium includes all the perks of Basic. Those are Dealbreakers, seeing all your Intros at once, unlimited Likes, unlimited Rewinds and no ads. On top of that, Premium adds the full list of members who have Liked you or viewed your page. It adds some free SuperLikes every week. And it lets you see how your matches answered their public questions even if you have not answered them.

Premium Plus adds Priority Likes, unlimited read receipts, more weekly SuperLikes and a monthly Rush Hour Boost token. OkCupid says Basic is not available to new buyers, so the entry point for a new paying member is Premium.

A bundle priced as one plan will always look expensive next to a single feature. A man who wants only one or two of those perks still pays for the whole bundle.

OkCupid is free to use. You do not have to pay to create an account or to talk to your matches.

That changes how to think about the price. You are not paying for access. You are paying for extras that speed things up or give you more information. If you have not yet used the free account properly, with good photos and a fair number of answered questions, the cost is hard to justify.

A Boost is an a la carte feature. It shows your page to more people at once, and it is sold separately from the memberships.

That is worth knowing before you compare plans. Premium Plus includes a monthly Rush Hour Boost token, while on Premium you buy a Boost on its own whenever you want one. Add up what you would really use before you decide which version is the cheaper one.

OkCupid shows prices in your local currency where it can. Where it cannot, it shows US dollars, because the company is based in the US.

If you are paying in dollars from another country, your bank may add conversion fees, and your government may add taxes on the purchase. Read the final total on the purchase screen, not just the headline number.

If you subscribe through the iOS app, Apple manages the billing. OkCupid says it cannot change auto-renewal or issue refunds for that purchase, so any change goes through Apple. Know that before you tap, so you do not discover it at renewal.

a dating coach's view is that dating sites are businesses. They make their money from paying members, so they build paid features to be worth paying for, and he thinks that most such features are worth trying. He warns against the extremes, such as paying a very large sum for a matchmaker, and says a price can reach the point where it is just not worth it.

His method is practical. Try the feature for one period. Compare it with a period without it. Drop it if it makes no real difference.

He also points out that paid features multiply what you already have. A multiplier on a good result helps. A multiplier on zero is zero.

The honest way to judge the price is by what it adds. My example is a man who goes from one date a week to three. If a paid plan did that, the cost would be small next to it.

So count before you pay. How many Likes and conversations did the free account give you in a few weeks? How many dates came from them? After a month on a paid plan, count again.

If the numbers go up, the plan paid for itself. If they do not, the problem is probably your photos or your first messages, and a plan will not fix either. Put the effort there first, and come back to the question of price afterward.