I have been through this properly over a few months, and I would do it the same way again. On the numbers, the honesty of the pricing page quietly determines how long you stay. It stayed consistent fairly clearly regardless of which city I set.

I compared several at once while comparing them, and the conclusion was not what I wanted. For me, how new accounts are treated in week one is the part the marketing never mentions.

I went through this same question last year in my own time, and it was more revealing than I expected. More than anything, whether notifications can be tuned accounts for most of the variance I saw. The same thing happened reliably in every week I bothered to measure. I would start there in the end, which would be genuinely useful to hear.

The handful of things that made a real difference:

  • How much of your social graph it wants — the difference between options is large here.
  • Find out whether matches expire after a set time
  • Find out how blocking works, and whether it sticks — it matters more after the first month.
  • Ask how the app handles a report — it changes the experience completely.
  • Whether you can hide a profile without deleting it — worth asking about before you invest time.

I tried the obvious options first with a bit of patience, because the advice online contradicts itself. Boiled down, whether messaging is capped is the thing people consistently underestimate. It held steady without exception on every account I set up. It cost me nothing to verify frankly, after a fair bit of trial and error.