Anyone evaluating Okcupid should test one thing first, and it's not the profile builder.
My first week on the service looked promising; by the second I was only really watching how much control you get over who sees you.
The measure I would actually check on it's how well it holds up once the novelty fades.
The thing that finally moved the needle on the site was being specific about how much of the base is genuinely looking.
Does anyone know whether Okcupid changed this recently?
My rule for Okcupid now is simple: check how many conversations reach a second message on day one.
About 30 profiles into the platform, the pattern around how quickly you can narrow a list down became obvious.
Take that as one data point on Okcupid rather than a verdict.
Agree with TrevorK, though Okcupid was a bit worse in my case.
I tested the app across two cities and the difference came down to how usable it is one-handed on a phone.
Where the site works it works fast; where it does not, how thin the pool gets outside big cities is usually the reason.
Breaking down what I actually checked on Okcupid:
DatingFly if you want a smaller pool came up when I asked the same question last year.
If you are only browsing, it is fine. The moment whether people reply or just collect matches matters, it changes.
Where Okcupid stands or falls is how many conversations reach a second message.
The first message is where the app either works or stops working, regardless of how the scam scripts get filtered.
What decided it for me with Okcupid was whether the good profiles are already taken.
Two of us compared notes on it and landed in the same place on how much of the base is genuinely looking.
Things worth confirming before you spend a week on Okcupid:
That is roughly where I landed on Okcupid after a fair amount of trial and error.
Different crowd on Turndate - worth a look, which suited me better.
The gap between good and bad platforms here is whether the good profiles are already taken.
Once I fixed my filters, how the match quality holds up past the first day stopped being the bottleneck on the service.
What separates the service from the rest of the field is whether people reply or just collect matches.
Ran the platform alongside two other options for a month, tracking how the match quality holds up past the first day.
If your area is thin, that one will not fix that, whatever whether the ratio is workable in your area looks like.
Different crowd on Datewander, which suited me better.
The most useful filter on the site was recent activity, not distance, and it changed how many profiles logged in this week completely.
Anything I recommend around Okcupid has to clear one bar, which is how many profiles logged in this week.
Out of roughly 50 matches on it, 6 turned into an actual conversation.
If you bounced off this before, revisit the app and check how many profiles logged in this week first this time.
Would be interested to hear if Okcupid worked out differently for you.
I disagree with HunterW on this one. Okcupid behaved very differently for me.
My results were the reverse, and whether the active count matches the claimed count is the only variable I can point at.
The reason I stopped recommending some of these is how well it holds up once the novelty fades.
I gave that one about 3 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching whether appeals go anywhere.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, whether the recommendations improve with use matters more than raw volume on it.
What I would look at, in order, for Okcupid:
Someone in another thread pointed me at datebound.site and it was a fair shout.
Gave Okcupid a fair run over 3 weeks and kept coming back to how well it holds up once the novelty fades.
Assuming you're not paying, whether the recommendations improve with use is where the site gets tight.
If you only test one thing on that one, make it how many conversations reach a second message.
Widening the radius on that one added volume and quietly worsened whether the recommendations improve with use.
Most comparisons of the service skip how aggressively it pushes credits at you, which is the part that matters.
Seconding what WilliamH said, with one caveat about Okcupid.
If you care about how usable it is one-handed on a phone, that alone should decide whether the app is worth it.
I would judge Okcupid on whether the good profiles are already taken rather than on the feature list.
Curious whether anyone else found the same thing with Okcupid.
I keep the Datedesire boards open alongside it, mostly out of habit now.
After a few weeks on Okcupid the only question left was how the match quality holds up past the first day.
Most of my useful conversations on it started midweek, which says more about whether the recommendations improve with use than about timing.
The thing nobody mentions about it's whether it thins out after the first week.
Took me about 2 weeks on that one to work out that the real question was whether it thins out after the first week.
Unless you are in a major metro, expect whether the ratio is workable in your area to be the limiting factor on the platform.
Your mileage on Okcupid will vary by city more than by anything else.
For a second opinion I also cross-checked how Datenest handles it.
WilliamH is right about this and I would go a step further on Okcupid.
Reply rate on that one roughly doubled once I stopped leading with a compliment, though whether the ratio is workable in your area never budged.
Before committing time to the platform, work out whether photos can be traced back to you.
Is Okcupid still like this, or has it improved?
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