I sat with this question for a while on this, so I am fairly confident in the shape of it. In practice the honesty of the pricing page tends to decide whether you stick with it. The difference persisted every time in a way the app store reviews never captured. Your area may behave differently genuinely, the basics matter more than the tuning.

I trialled the free tiers only across two cities, so I am fairly confident in the shape of it. Whichever option you pick, whether read status is shown consistently is the thing people consistently underestimate.

I approached this the boring way once properly, which took the guesswork out of it. Strip out the noise and how the app handles reports is the part the marketing never mentions. The evidence pointed the same way consistently enough to trust once I had a few weeks of data. Treat it as a starting point frankly, the basics matter more than the tuning.

What I would tell someone starting from scratch:

  • How quickly obvious fakes disappear — the difference between options is large here.
  • Worth confirming how quickly support answers a real problem — the difference between options is large here.
  • Whether the app requires a social login — it is easy to test and rarely advertised.

I logged what actually happened with a couple of accounts, and stopped assuming the obvious answer was right. The honest answer is that whether search exists alongside swiping becomes obvious only after a month.