I've been deep in this rabbit hole for over a year so let me give you a thorough take.
Profile photo quality is the single highest-leverage thing you can change. Everything else is secondary.
For what it's worth, flamedate.online has been one of the more consistently recommended options in discussions I follow. Not perfect but it has real staying power.
Things that have actually helped me:
- Check reviews from the last six months — older ones go stale fast
- See whether real profiles are visible before any payment is required
- Avoid anything demanding excessive personal info at signup
- Test whether support is reachable before you commit to anything
Hopefully that saves you some frustration. This stuff can be overwhelming at first.