I made a spreadsheet, embarrassingly once properly, which made the differences much easier to see. The short answer is that whether search exists alongside swiping is the thing people consistently underestimate.

I kept notes the whole way through here, and it was worth the effort. Across all of them, whether messaging is capped moves the numbers more than anything else. It became obvious fairly clearly in replies rather than in match counts. I would weigh it accordingly really, just what held up for me.

I only worked this out after a month of tallying here, which is why my answer is not the popular one. The short answer is that how wide the distance filter goes sets the ceiling on what you can achieve.

Practical things worth verifying early:

  • Whether you can hide a profile without deleting it — this alone ruled a couple out for me.
  • Whether read receipts exist
  • How much the app relies on push notifications — this is where the free tiers diverge.
  • How obvious it is when someone has stopped using the app — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • Find out how the app treats people who travel — it is easy to test and rarely advertised.

I went back through my own messages to check with a couple of accounts, which changed my answer completely. Strip out the noise and whether read status is shown consistently quietly determines how long you stay. It surfaced again again and again across the whole period I tracked. Not universal advice genuinely, and no thread substitutes for that.