Free vs paid dating sites
There's nothing like a free lunch (or so they say!) You get a service that you need and you pay nothing for it. This is the silver bullet of the free dating sites (we'll talk about their disadvantages in a minute). The bottom line is nothing beats getting something for free. It is never better to pay for something than getting it free of charge.
But do we get the same thing? Do we indeed compare apples to apples? Are there any major, serious, real differences between free dating services to their commercial competitors? The answer to the last question is in most cases YES. Let's compare various factors between totally free dating websites and paid ones:
The Quantity of Members
One of the key factors that helps to evaluate the user's chances for success in finding potential dates is the size of the dating site's user base. The big commercial sites have millions of registered members. The free dating sites don't even come close.
The Quality of Members
Here's a question for you: where will you find more high quality singles? Will it be on free sites or rather on pay sites? The answer to that is pretty clear. Usually, people that paid £25, £35 or £50 for their dating site subscription are much more serious about finding a date. They actually paid money in order to find other serious relationship seekers. They want to meet singles that share the same seriousness in finding a partner.
The Risk of Fraud and Scams
In many cases, free dating sites can be a virtual paradise for all sorts of scammers, con artists and dubious characters. The problem lies down in the fact that anybody can join a free dating site with no way of identifying who they are such as with a credit card or other means. Scammers don't need to pull out their credit cards on free sites, so very little can be done to stop them. When they are being spotted, almost nothing prevents them from coming back under a new alias, continuing to scam new victims. After all, the free sites are open for everybody.
Commercial sites are not completely free of scammers. However, the fact that one has to put in their credit card information tends to reduce those who are just trying to scam others. Commercial sites have better motivation to protect their subscribers from scammers. They don't want to get a bad reputation and they exert a lot of efforts to protect those on their site. Word of mouth is very important when it comes to dating sites, and the paid dating sites want their reputation to be top-notch.
Most good paid online dating sites allow you to 'try before you buy' anyway these days. What I mean by that is that you can easily create a free profile for yourself and have a look around if you are curious. Then when you are ready you can upgrade to the paid servive when the time feels right for you. Have a look at our UK dating site reviews and see why so many people are now finding love online.
