I went back through my own messages to check with a bit of patience, which took the guesswork out of it. Every time I compared them, whether notifications can be tuned is worth checking before you commit any time. The reading was similar without exception once I had a few weeks of data. Others may have found the opposite frankly, so weigh it against your own results.

I kept notes the whole way through a while back, and it was worth the effort. Across all of them, how quickly the upsell appears tends to decide whether you stick with it. It came out the same every time once I had a few weeks of data. Take it as one data point on balance, and nothing more than that.

I have changed my mind on this twice with a bit of patience, and it was more revealing than I expected. In my testing, whether notifications can be tuned accounts for most of the variance I saw. The difference persisted without exception whether the app was well known or not.

The signals I now look for first:

  • Look at whether notifications can be tuned — it decided things for me.
  • Whether the bio field is long enough to be useful — this alone ruled a couple out for me.
  • How hard the interface pushes a subscription — the answer varies more than you would think.

I trialled the free tiers only before deciding, and the results surprised me. Looking back, moderation quality can be tested inside a week. It repeated more than once regardless of how active I was. I would start there frankly, so weigh it against your own results.