LoveHowTo Dating Directory: General Interest
These sites have fewer than a million US members but still plenty to choose from and lots of special features, like psychological profiles, background checks and hot photos. Prices are comparable to or less than Top Dating Services.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian Pricing
Try Psismic Taking some lessons from Facebook, some from Flickr and some from eHarmony, Psismic (sounds like seismic, for whatever reason), this new Canada-based service aims to take members' required posts (they ask for at least three) and use them as the basis for making matches. If you like to share your pictures, videos and thoughts with an anonymous - and these days who doesn't? - this one's for you.
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Frumpy types need not apply - check out those photos! Here's where to meet men and women who like to strut their stuff. Be prepared to submit three photos, including one full-body shot. Members vote on whether you are “hot enough” and 25 votes plus a minimum score of 6.0 must be maintained to be awarded site access. (Photoshop anyone?) HotEnough is comprised of two age groups - 18-39 and 40+ ("Baby Boomers"). Members 18-39 have access to all members regardless of age. Members 40+ have access to all 40+ members as well as members 18-39 who have elected to be viewed by members 40+.
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Audience & Features: million+ members, straight, gay, lesbian Pricing
Try FriendSearch The main issue with this one is that, more than other sites that play this game, it claims to be "free" but in fact is quite expensive if you want to do more than browse profiles and rate photos in a "hot or not" style. Other than that, a wide variety of members, and a very international crowd. Around since 1997.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian, BBW Pricing
Try Cupid.com As an unpaid member you can send "Eye Contacts" (Cupid.com's version of a Flirt or a Wink) to let someone know you're interested. But you can't send or reply to messages, other than those sent by Gold and Platinum Members. Register and you'll receive a private email when Cupid makes a match for you. Other features include photo rating, blogging and real-world speed-dating (see our Event Services directory).
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian Pricing
Try Love City The focus here is truly on the city, since that is the primary way searches are conducted. Ages come only in ranges (18-30, 31-40, etc.), which seems unnecessarily limiting, but that's a minor quibble. Of greater concern is that most profiles are only barely filled out, with lots of "This member has not completed this portion of their profile"s and "Prefer not to say"s. Also some glitchiness and an overly long profile approval process that prevents you from truly engaging with the service.
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Claims 500,000 members and 10 years in business. Specializes in many different demographic groups. Probably not the best marketing idea: juxtaposing stock images of beautiful couples on the left with photos of "Actual Members" on the right side of the home page.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian, couples Pricing
Try IWantU.com Formerly LoveDiner.com. Search results seem completely nonresponsive in the categories of age, geography. Also has intimate/sex and BDSM sites. There's just something weird about it all.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian Pricing
Try DatingDirect It's "the UK's largest dating service" (although it's owned by a French company) but does have a US presence, as their ads on Gray's Anatomy indicate. Post a profile and you'll be inundated with responses - but not from anyone who lives near you. It's a nice group of people, but the site isn't really focused on finding someone in your own backyard.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian, couples Pricing
Try The Onion Personals 400,000 members (down from 1 million). This same database is found on other sites. About 4000 members have blogs of varying quality on the subject of dating and life in general, although many are only accessible to paid members. Owned by Various LLC.
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Audience & Features: straight, speed Pricing
Try HurryDate The online dating portion of this site relies on a profile questionnaire that limits what you really get to share - it would be much better to let people use their own words. But the main focus of this site isn't online, it's real-world speed dating - see the LoveHowTo Event Services directory for details. Owned by Spark Networks.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, lesbian Pricing
Try YesNoMayb.com Claims to learn your taste and present you with increasingly appropriate matches. You look through a series of international photos and brief descriptors ("healthy," "tardtastic," "good sendse [sic] of humor"...], saying yes, no or "mayb" to each one. If there's someone you're interested in, you can elect to have your photo sent to your potential date. Get a thumbs up and you'll be notified by email or text that it's a match.
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It's new and sparsely populated with an emphasis on the Florida market, where the company is based. There's no way to search by geography or any other variable besides age, very few members have photos, and the site is frustrating to use with limited functionality. Despite the focus on safety inherent in its name, only a small fraction of SaferDates.com members are Level 1 verified, meaning they've had background checks to validate their identity and lack of police record. We couldn't find any members who had gone through Level 2 verification, which involves fingerprinting. Really, if you're that paranoid, online dating isn't for you.
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Just plain creepy.
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Audience & Features: straight, gay, intimate Pricing
Try DreamMates.com A frustrating sign-up process that forces you to enter a phone number and opt out of third-party offers. Once you get in, the offerings are plentiful, but it's not the brightest crowd: probably more typos per capita than any other site - and that's saying something! Tries to be all things to all people, but the "intimate" side can't begin to compete with the dedicated intimate sites (see our section) and the lesbian members haven't been on in more than a year - guess they've moved on to other places. Owned by Vintacom Media/The Relationship Exchange.
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Alternate name for DreamMates.com (uses same database of members, same pricing)
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Alternate name for DreamMates.com (uses same database of members, same pricing)
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This site charges a fee to validate your profile, then is free to use. They makes introductions for you. You can browse member profiles, but you won't find everyone that way because many profiles are hidden. Browsing allows you to contact (and be contacted by) people who are not technically perfect matches. So you're taking your chances that way! (Unlike the other way?) You can have up to five introductions at a time. You must match the other person's requirements as well as their matching yours, so site-generated matches can take awhile. One more note: SantaMatch really milks that Santa metaphor: Beware the ho ho ho's and references to the northern sky.
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Audience & Features: million+ members, straight, gay, lesbian, intimate Pricing
Try EasyFlirt This international site claims 11 million+ members worldwide; it's not clear how many of those are in the U.S. The English is a little tortured (to sign up, you click a button that says "I become a member"), but it's an interesting crowd and definitely worth a try.
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Audience & Features: straight, events, mobile Pricing
Try EliteMate.com Elite? Not so much. You'll have to scroll through dozens of weird and spam-like ads during your signup process (a Pamela Anderson type pitching a diet shake, a stock newsletter, Smithsonian Magazine, religious joke site, a Christian dating site AND sex sites). And BEWARE, signing up leads to an instant influx of spam.
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