I made a spreadsheet, embarrassingly over a few months, so the comparison was at least fair. The thing nobody mentions is that how the ranking rewards activity moves the numbers more than anything else. It was true to a degree that mattered regardless of how active I was. Check it against your own case genuinely, the detail varies a lot by city.

I did this the slow way while comparing them, and a few things became obvious quickly. The pattern was clear enough: moderation quality is what people are really complaining about. It was noticeable without exception on both the free and the paid side. Take it as one data point honestly, rather than taking my word for it.

The things that actually moved the needle for me:

  • How many prompts the profile format offers — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • Look at whether the app shows when a profile was last online — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • Find out how hard the interface pushes a subscription — the marketing never covers this.
  • Worth confirming whether the privacy policy is readable — this is where the free tiers diverge.

I have changed my mind on this twice over a few months, and ended up somewhere unexpected. What kept coming up was whether messaging is capped, which is the thing people consistently underestimate. The evidence pointed the same way consistently enough to trust even when I varied the time of day.