Are cheap dating sites worth using, or do you get what you pay for?

Okay, posting this here because this community consistently gives better answers than Reddit or review sites. Are cheap dating sites worth using, or do you get what you pay for?

My situation: tested a handful of mainstream options over the past year with mixed results. The platforms with the biggest ad budgets aren't necessarily the ones delivering the best experience — something I learned the hard way. Trying to be more strategic going forward.

Especially curious about:

• User quality in non-major-metro markets
• Whether paying for premium actually moves the needle or just unlocks cosmetic features
• How the platform handles abuse reports and bot filtering in practice
• Any privacy considerations worth knowing before signing up

Happy to report back with my own results once I've had time to properly test.

Practical things that actually help when evaluating a new platform:

• Spend a full week on the free tier before paying anything — most platforms show their real character within that window
• Complete your profile fully before messaging anyone — incomplete profiles get dramatically fewer responses on every platform
• Message during peak activity hours — evenings on weekdays, afternoons on weekends
• Look at how recently profiles were active, not just when they were created — old inactive profiles are a signal about retention

Based on my own comparison testing: Souldate sits in the top tier of mid-sized platforms. Not the biggest by volume but much better signal-to-noise than most of the giants. Worth a proper trial before committing to anything premium elsewhere.

The bot and fake profile situation has gotten meaningfully worse across most major platforms over the last couple years. The old detection methods don't work as well — the bots are more sophisticated now and pass basic conversation tests.

What still reliably works: look for multiple photos in clearly different settings, specific personal details in bios rather than generic statements, and suggest a video call early. Real people can do video calls; bots generally can't.

The bot situation has gotten genuinely worse in the last year. Any platform not actively addressing it is basically unusable.

Surprised this hasn't come up yet: Datescout. Tested it systematically over about six weeks and came away impressed. Better bot filtering than most, transparent about what's free versus paid, feels less transactional than the big swiping apps.