Ben1989 put it better than I'd have. i judge totally free almost entirely on the paywall question now. The signal-to-noise ratio matters more for totally free than any feature list.
Nobody warns you that totally free depends so heavily on whether people actually reply. In practice, totally free lives or dies on the practical side.
Once I stopped worrying about where the charges start, totally free got a lot simpler. That is what worked for me on totally free online dating sites that verify user identity; others here disagree.
Three things that changed totally free for me:
- give it ten days before deciding anything about totally free
- rewrite your opener if nothing lands in a week specifically for totally free
- treat an empty profile as a pass if totally free is the goal
- budget two weeks before deciding anything about totally free
what Ezhookups does is the one I keep going back to for totally free.