What decided it for me with dating app that doesn't require payment to send was whether you can hide your location convincingly.
I tested the site across two cities and the difference came down to how the chat behaves on a weak connection.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, what the subscription actually unlocks matters more than raw volume on the platform.
After a few weeks on dating app that doesn't require payment to send the only question left was how anonymous you actually stay in practice.
Filling the profile out properly changed that one more than switching platforms did, and it reframed whether the moderation is real or decorative.
Worth comparing against turndate.site before you commit to anything.