Online Dating Showdown: Match.com Vs. Tinder Vs. OkCupid

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Match.com, Tinder, and OkCupid are looking to find a soul mate wherever you are. Whether you are looking for a long-term romance or just acquaintance, in this multitude of showdowns there is sure to be one service that is right for you .

Applicants

Online dating platforms make it easy to meet people in your area without having to dive into a bar. In fact, all three services allow you to do everything from your smartphone, so you can seek romance just about anywhere you go. All you have to do is upload some photos, describe yourself and your interests, and each service will try to find matches for you. We’ve selected three of the most popular online dating platforms for comparison:

  • Match.com : Match.com aims to find their soulmate through a dating service and is known for attracting older people who are more serious about finding true relationships. It is one of the most used dating websites and also one of the oldest since the launch of the beta in 1995. It is owned by the media and internet companyInterActiveCorp (IAC).
  • Tinder : A location-based dating platform only available as a mobile app. Tinder doesn’t try to match you to others using unusual algorithms or compatibility questions, but instead helps you instantly find people in your area who want to chat or meet. It has also earned a reputation as a network connectivity app. It was launched in 2012 and is also operated by IAC.
  • OkCupid : One of the most popular free online dating and social networking platforms on the internet. OkCupid is known for appealing to young people, but it can be used to forge serious relationships in addition to more carefree meetings. It launched in 2004 and is also owned by IAC …

Each service tries to match you based on your personal preference, plus some sort of swipe left if no swipe right if yes quick matching algorithm or system. This is great for anyone with a busy schedule or for someone (like me) who works from home and rarely meets other people. Plus, these services are great for people who like to experience the water a bit with someone before they dive into their first date, so you can separate the studs from the gimmicks.

Availability

Match.com is available in 25 countries and more than eight languages. Tinder is practically available worldwide (assuming you have a service or Wi-Fi) and can be used in 30 different languages. OkCupid is available in many languages ​​and in different parts of the world, including Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America.

If you are in the United States, all three services are available almost everywhere. If you’re not in the US, all three services are … well, still widely available. Of course, just because a service is available somewhere does not mean that many people use it. The more people in your area, the more likely you will find new faces when you verify your account.

By subscribing

Registration is slightly different for each one, but luckily it is very easy to do no matter which one you choose. To register on both OkCupid and Match.com, you need to provide your date of birth, country of residence, zip code and email address. You will also be asked from the beginning if you are a man or a woman, and if you are looking for a man or a woman for both. And, of course, you choose a username that suits you and ideally hides your identity a little. After all this, everything starts to be different.

OkCupid

OkCupid goes straight to you, describing itself in the bio section and answering a couple of random questions so you can start comparing to others. Then, when you “like” the profiles of several people, which will help identify your type, your profile is ready to use. Sure, you’ll want to upload some photos to your profile and complete all the other sections of your profile so people can learn something new about you, but otherwise you might find someone that interests you.

Match.com

However, instead of going off the beaten path right off the bat like OkCupid, Match.com tries to get more information from you before pointing you in the right direction. It will ask you what age range you are looking for and what net width you want to cast in terms of distance. Then you have to answer many questions that detail yourself and what you are looking for in someone else. The questionnaire includes everything from your religious beliefs to your preferred hair color that suits you. After you’ve finally gone through a somewhat tedious questionnaire, you’re ready to explore. It’s still wilderness, but at least they give you a compass. (OKCupid has it all too, but you can answer any number of questions at your leisure.)

Tinder

On the other hand, Tinder doesn’t do any of this. To register, you need to connect your Facebook account. If you are like me and almost never use Facebook, this is terribly annoying. If you do use Facebook, it can still be frustrating because it uses whatever images you set on your Facebook profile. If you want to add new images, you must add them to Facebook. It might not seem like a big deal, but if you wanted to add a photo that was a little more engaging , you’d have to jump over hoops to add it to Facebook and prevent it from appearing in all feeds. Of course, most people probably won’t have this problem, but it’s an annoying and seemingly arbitrary limitation. OkCupid and Match.com also let you sign up for their services with Facebook if you prefer, but they at least give you the option to use email only.

The bottom line is that Tinder is easy to sign up for, but Facebook enforcement can be a problem for some, especially if you’re trying to be a little more careful. OkCupid and Match.com use similar registration methods, but one is more attractive if you like being free and the other more attractive if you want to narrow things down before getting down to business.

Pricing

The price of each service is where things get a little tricky, especially for Match.com. While all three services are technically free to use, the free versions of Tinder and OkCupid are much more functional.

Match.com allows you to sign up as a “Member” for free and view your daily matches, view profiles such as profiles, send “winks” (which is essentially a Facebook wink), see who winked at you, and favorite someone profile. so that you can easily find it later. However, you can not see who was looking, like it or add to favorites your profile, and you can not send anybody any messages (if they do not write, first to you and do not pay for the add-on subscription, which allows you to use your own answer “Reply”). free »incoming). Of course, you are still teased with notifications and emails like “as a warning – someone nearby is interested in you” and “So-and-so sent you a message.” I suppose if you are very lonely it almost always leads to a subscription. You can of course turn off notifications, but the bottom line is that you have to pay and become a “subscriber” to actually get something from Match.com. Here’s how their subscription prices are currently split:

  • For a three-month subscription, it will cost $ 27.99 per month.
  • A six-month subscription will set you back $ 24.99 a month.
  • The annual subscription will cost you $ 21.99 per month.

But let’s say you just want to try it for a month to see if you like it. Hold on to your asses – a one-month subscription costs a whopping $ 42.99 (and it repeats if you remember to cancel it). At that price, you’d better scrape together a few more dollars and buy Fallout 4. The menus and systems will be just as confusing, and you’ll probably get a longer relationship. But that’s not all. Match.com also offers subscription add-ons (as I mentioned earlier). Here’s a screenshot of them:

Even if you opted for a plan that is discounted at $ 21.99 per month, adding all the add-ons to it will end up costing over $ 60 per month. Sure, pricing can help deter some scammers and less serious people , but OkCupid lets you do most of that for $ 0 a month (with ads). Without paying a cent, you can create a profile, post images, answer matching questions, view other profiles like other profiles, and send messages to other users (this is arguably the most important component of any online dating platform). With Tinder, you can also create a profile for free, download images from Facebook, flip other users’ pages, and send messages about your matches.

Of course, OkCupid and Tinder have their own subscription plans too. With OkCupid, if you want to see who liked your profile, see who read or didn’t read your posts, and view profiles without notifying them, you have to subscribe to an A-list. Its prices are distributed as follows:

  • A one-month subscription will cost you $ 19.95.
  • For a three-month subscription, it will cost $ 14.95 per month.
  • A six-month subscription will cost you $ 9.95 per month.

OkCupid also has several subscription add-ons. For “incognito mode”, where your profile will only be visible to people you like or send messages, this is the same price breakdown as an A-list subscription. For “sign up for a raise” where more people will see your profile during peak hours every day, this is also the same breakdown of prices (you can also buy custom promotions for about $ 2 each). If you went all-in with each subscription for six months, you would be paying about $ 30 a month.

Tinder’s subscription plan is called Tinder Plus. This allows you to send more “super likes” to people you are really interested in, you can rewind the last time if you change your mind, turn off ads and change your location in the app without physically changing your location. Here’s the Tinder Plus pricing structure:

  • A one month subscription will set you back $ 9.99 per month.
  • A six-month subscription will set you back $ 5.83 a month.
  • The annual subscription will set you back $ 4.58 per month.

Not a bad deal if you’re an experienced Tinder user, but it doesn’t add much functionality to an already bare platform. When it comes down to it, OkCupid is one of the most popular dating sites out there , and for good reason. In terms of what it has to offer users for free, it is impossible to beat. When it comes to subscriptions, it seems like there is more to offer for less money. Tinder’s subscription service is cheaper, but being able to rewind a swipe hardly costs money.

Use of the Service

All three dating platforms work great. You can view other people’s profiles, show them that you like them, and send messages to them. However, each of them has its own subtleties and rules that accompany them.

OkCupid

OkCupid’s bread and butter are the questions he uses in his matchmaking algorithm. This is not “what is your hair color?” questions like, but more revealing: “Do you take any hard drugs?” or “do you like making noise in bed?” type of questions. Some of them may sound a little silly, but many are down to the core and can help you weed out incompatibilities that you might not even have thought of. There are hundreds of questions you can answer, and the more you answer, the more accurate your matches will be.

Browsing your matches is effortless and you can use filters to customize your search. Some of the filters include minimum and maximum height, ethnicity, language, religion, the type of relationship they are looking for, and you can even view them based on people’s vices (drinking and smoking). Messaging is also pretty simple and works like text messaging or any other instant messenger.

However, creating your profile may take some work. Uploading photos is easy enough, but there are eight separate sections that you can only fill out with text about yourself. No flags that can be set, there is no drop-down menu to select a popular hobby / keywords such as “movies”, and there is no way to know too if you much or too little are writing about yourself . It would be nice if OkCupid simplified the profile heading. It’s hard enough to ask yourself what you do in your life, but writing it in an interesting way for other people to read can be tricky.

Setting up an OkCupid profile does, however, do one thing that is very useful and is probably my favorite concept in all online dating. The last section on your profile is “Email me if”. This section, while some use it as a flimsy joke, can make things more effective for many people. For example, you can write in this section “… you liked my profile and you hope I write to you first.” I won’t. ” or as negative, like “… you are not just looking for acquaintances and you want a real relationship.” This will help you get a clear idea of ​​what you want and how someone might impress you in their posts.

Match.com

Assuming you’re using the full-featured, paid version of Match.com, messaging and browsing works similar to OkCupid, but with a few different twists. You can search for profiles based on your match, which is determined by matching your preferences with someone else’s. For example, someone with 100% mutual match means that you meet all of his desires, and he matches all of yours. You can also search backward, which is based only on what the other person is looking for. Anyone you see in your back-match pool is looking for someone like you, but it might not be what you are looking for. Ideally, you want to shoot on a mutual match, but it’s nice that they also provide an opposite match. Finally, you can search across communities, making it easy to find other people who like the same sports teams, brands, and goals. In addition to these three search functions, each has filters that you can use to narrow down your questions.

Match.com also gives you “daily matches”. Every 24 hours you will have 10 or 11 profiles that Match.com will select especially for you, depending on your and your preferences. They’re different every time, and it’s fun to see who you get every day, so it’s a great excuse to check them back regularly.

While Match.com does some things right, there are many strange quirks and UI issues. For example, Match.com makes things too complicated by not only having “Views” and “Likes”, but also “Winks” and “Favorites”. If you’re not digging through forums or blogs, knowing how and when to use each one correctly is a fun sitcom scene in the making:

“Okay, they seem cool. Should I like them? “

“No, wink at them first.”

“Okay, she winked back. Do I love her so that she knows that she is one of my favorites?

“No, you don’t want to move too fast and scare her. Now you may like her. If she likes you, you can send her a message. “

“Okay, she liked me too … Oh, and I liked her!”

“Shit, no, that’s bad. This is the end. She’s too intrusive. “

There just seems to be no reason to have so many ways to generate notifications on someone’s phone.

Plus, when you view someone’s profile, Match.com immediately shows you what they’re looking for, in addition to how they match your preferences. This may only bother me, but I feel like it can take away your interest in this person when you see that you are not consistent with only one of his preferences. For example, let’s say you’ve found someone who suits you best. You start looking at their profile and then you see that they are specifically looking for someone 6’2 “or taller, with an athletic build and fit, but you are only 6’0” with a skinny build. You can immediately feel that they shouldn’t even wink, and it would be nice if things like this were a little more off-screen (or at least they could be hidden). Finally, Match.com’s layout and site design is awkward to navigate and vaguely reminiscent of 2006’s MySpace. However, their mobile app is much simpler and more convenient.

Tinder

While signing up for Tinder can be frustrating for non-Facebook users, it’s incredibly fun and easy to use. Once you’ve linked your Facebook profile and selected multiple images, you’re ready to flip through them all day and night. If you see an image you like, you can touch it and learn (a little) more about it before making the all-powerful swipe decision. Swiping to the left is “no thanks,” and swiping to the right is “I hope they swipe me to the right, too.” You can also Super Like someone by clicking the star or swiping up. Super Like essentially lets someone else see that you like them before they decide to swipe your image left or right. After you swipe to the right someone who also swiped to the right, you can send messages to each other.

The dual subscription messaging system is especially good for girls who seem to receive an endless stream of disgustingly rude messages. I’ve heard countless horror stories of men who are creepy and aggressive towards women in their online dating posts, so this is a welcome approach. Tinder may not be able to completely prevent these messages from appearing, but at least you know ahead of time that you have approved everyone who speaks to you.

It’s important to note that Tinder is very different from Match.com and OkCupid. You don’t get nearly as much information about the people you are watching, and there is no fancy matchmaking algorithm that actually tries to find your soul mate. All in all, this is a completely different experience and you will either love it or hate it. If you just want to see what’s going on there and have some fun, that’s great, but not ideal if you’re trying to find a serious relationship. That being said, Tinder is very easy to use and is alarmingly addictive. When I’m bored, I often flip through just for fun and catch myself thinking, “Okay, I need to stop … after another swipe to the right.” Again, given how little this is, there is no reason it shouldn’t be fun or easy.

It’s all about what you’re looking for

After using all three services for some time, it becomes clear that each has its own place in the online dating world. For readers like you , Match.com is a more mature, serious dating platform focused on relationships. Match.com also seems to lean towards a slightly older audience (mostly in their 20s and 40s) and those very interested in finding people who share their beliefs. The Match.com subscription price helps weed out those who aren’t serious about making a real connection. You can dig into Tinder and OkCupid as much as you want because it won’t cost you anything, but when you pay for Match.com, you’re probably much more inclined to try and make a real connection.

On the other hand, Tinder seems like the complete opposite. Its user base is mostly young people (mostly between teens and 20s) who just want things to be casual and have a good time. While it obviously works differently from Match.com and OkCupid, you still can’t ignore the fact that everyone is literally being judged at face value, and to some it might seem like a very superficial approach to online dating. Tinder recently updated to show more information on your profile, but it’s limited to your current job and previous education. Both are, again, in a way, superficial ways of judging people as you wade through the masses. For others, however, it can be a great place to find people and chat, especially if you just want to have some fun. Think of it as a virtual bar that you can browse anytime, anywhere.

OkCupid is the sweet spot for all three, and perhaps this is the intention of IAC as a platform. Its users are mostly young trendy people (20 to 30 years old), and you can use OkCupid to find serious relationships or dating if you like. You also get the most bang for your buck, and the mobile app and website are very easy to use. If you want to find your other half, OkCupid’s question-based algorithm is considered one of the best. If you’re just looking for something everyday, you can find it too. OkCupid has also been voted the most popular dating by Lifehacker readers.

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