How are the top dating apps ranked this year?

Been at this roughly a year now, because the alternative was doing nothing, and I'm less certain than when I started.

What wore me down was that the free tier produces a template reply and closes the ticket, especially once deciding where to spend the effort comes into it.

As far as I can tell, for people in the middle of the pack, whether the photos look like the same person tends to decide how many conversations survive past day three.

Happy to hear dissenting views on top dating apps ranked this year? — free dating & apps | datingfly com — that is partly why I'm asking.

My working theory is that for people in the middle of the pack, how consistently you show up tends to decide how long a conversation lasts, though your area changes the picture completely.

This is close to my read — @Owen Thompson, the framing around people without a niche is the one I'd emphasise.

The thing I didn't expect was that the block function collapses once you move outside a major city — and nobody mentions it when they talk about deciding where to spend the effort.

The gap between the quality of your first message and the app's overall download figures is where response rate is actually decided.

The parts that transfer across the free options:

• Keep work and socials out of it early on — with the question this is the difference-maker.
• Set a daily time limit, particularly on the free options.
• Pick your own venue for a first meeting if deciding where to spend the effort is your main concern.
• Tell a friend where you are going, particularly on the free options.

Adding Rendate to the list if you're building a shortlist.

Something worth knowing: how quickly you reply is a better predictor of match quality than the number of prompts you filled in.

Adding Flurrydate to the pile — no paywall on the basics.

Has anyone tested this recently given deciding where to spend the effort?

In practice, on the free options, how long you leave a conversation running makes more difference than which tier you're on.

Where it falls down is that the messaging limit buries you the moment you stop checking daily, which is the real problem with the free options.

Open to being wrong if you're on the free options.