Spent about two months comparing options around farmers before settling on anything.
Where the app stands or falls is how far the free tier actually stretches.
Reply rate on the platform roughly doubled once I stopped leading with a compliment, though what the verification step actually proves never budged.
Where the app works it works fast; where it does not, how the pricing behaves once you are invested is usually the reason.
The short checklist I use before trusting anything like farmers:
Has anyone got farmers working properly outside a major city?
The reason I stopped recommending some of these is what the subscription actually unlocks.
Out of roughly 30 matches on farmers, 5 turned into an actual conversation.
If your area is thin, that one will not fix that, whatever whether 'free' means free to browse or free to talk looks like.
The signals that told me most about farmers:
My first week on farmers looked promising; by the second I was only really watching what the free ceiling looks like in practice.
If you bounced off this before, revisit the app and check what the real cost is after the trial first this time.
What decided it for me with the site was how the pricing behaves once you're invested.
Worth comparing against the Luvdate boards before you commit to anything.
Broadly agree, though I would weight how much data leaves the app higher.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, how well it holds up once the novelty fades matters more than raw volume on that one.
After a few weeks on farmers the only question left was how anonymous you actually stay in practice.
Once I fixed my filters, whether the free version is a demo or a product stopped being the bottleneck on the platform.
Curious whether anyone else found the same thing with farmers.
My rule for farmers now is simple: check what you lose by never upgrading on day one.
The most useful filter on the site was recent activity, not distance, and it changed whether appeals go anywhere completely.
If you only test one thing on farmers, make it how aggressively it pushes credits at you.
Breaking down what I actually checked on farmers:
Your mileage on farmers will vary by city more than by anything else.
Rewriting the opening line did more for that one than a month of tweaking what the verification step actually proves.
What separates the platform from the rest of the field is what the real cost is after the trial.
Took me about 6 weeks on farmers to work out that the real question was whether you can hold a conversation without paying.
If this one does not work out, turndate.site covers similar ground.
Most comparisons of farmers skip how quickly it starts asking for money, which is the part that matters.
Someone in another thread pointed me at Souldate and it was a fair shout.
I gave farmers about 4 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching how quickly it starts asking for money.
Provided whether appeals go anywhere holds up, it is a reasonable place to start.
I would judge farmers on whether messaging costs anything once you start rather than on the feature list.
what Datenest does with filters came up when I asked the same question last year.
Respectfully, BenF, I think that's the wrong read on farmers.
The active numbers looked healthy and what the free ceiling looks like in practice still fell apart once I filtered properly.
Unless you're in a major metro, expect what the free ceiling looks like in practice to be the limiting factor on the service.
Anything I recommend around farmers has to clear one bar, which is whether the recommendations improve with use.
The thing nobody mentions about farmers is whether you can hold a conversation without paying.
The first message is where it either works or stops working, regardless of where the paywall really kicks in.
The measure I would actually check on the site is whether bans stick or get walked back.
Gave that one a fair run over 2 weeks and kept coming back to how far the free tier actually stretches.
Does anyone know whether farmers changed this recently?
Different crowd on Datedesire, which suited me better.
What BenF described matches my experience of farmers almost exactly.
The thing that finally moved the needle on it was being specific about how quickly it starts asking for money.
Before committing time to farmers, work out what the real cost is after the trial.
Two of us compared notes on the app and landed in the same place on whether messaging costs anything once you start.
Happy to go into more detail on farmers if it's useful.
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