My rule for free online dating sites now is simple: check how aggressively it pushes credits at you on day one.
About 60 profiles into that one, the pattern around how present the moderators actually are became obvious.
If you care about whether you can hold a conversation without paying, that alone should decide whether the site is worth it.
The short checklist I use before trusting anything like free online dating sites:
- How fast a report about free online dating sites gets a human response
- Whether the filters on free online dating sites hold after you reload the page
- How quickly free online dating sites starts pushing a paid tier at you