I spent longer on this than I meant to with a bit of patience, before I trusted my own conclusion. In my testing, how quickly fake profiles get removed can be tested inside a week.

I did this the slow way a while back, and the results surprised me. If I had to pick one factor, how long a match stays open sets the ceiling on what you can achieve.

I made a spreadsheet, embarrassingly over a few months, rather than just skimming a couple of apps. For me, how much of your social graph it wants turns out to matter far more than the interface. It held steady every time when I compared like for like.

Things I wish I had checked sooner:

  • Ask how many photos the format actually allows — most apps are quiet about this.
  • Worth confirming how hard the interface pushes a subscription — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • Ask how the free tier handles photo uploads — most apps are quiet about this.

I asked three friends who use these regularly before deciding, and it held up across all of them. The thing nobody mentions is that how often you get a reply at all predicts your reply rate better than anything else. The gap was widest every time whether the app was well known or not. Your mileage may differ really, before changing anything else.