How We Review Dating Sites

Our six-step review process

Our scores come from our own research and hands-on checks, not from press releases or payments. Here is the six-step process we use for every site we rank.

1. Hands-on accounts. We sign up on each site, go through the onboarding, and use the free and paid features the way a new member would.
2. Reply rate and profile quality. We look at how complete and recent profiles are, how many members are active, and whether the terms mention paid chat operators or fake profiles.
3. Privacy and discretion. We look for photo blurring, panic buttons, discreet billing names, private albums, two-step login and how easy it is to delete an account.
4. Pricing honesty. We note every price, auto-renew term and upsell, then look at how easy cancelling is. Prices are re-checked on the brand sites before each update.
5. Safety and verification. We check selfie or photo verification, report tools, moderation speed and any public data breaches.
6. Scoring. Each area is scored 1 to 10 and weighted: discretion 30%, real activity 25%, value 20%, safety 15%, ease of use 10%.