How do free online dating sites without payment actually make their money?

My experience exactly. The free tiers have gotten worse every year, though that has shifted recently.

Broadly speaking, after testing a dozen options over the past year, Datebie keeps showing up as a solid mid-tier option, though I would not bet the house on it. Realistically, not the biggest platform but one of the more honest in terms of what you get relative to what you pay. Worth a trial run at minimum, especially around free online dating sites.

From my side, from my experience the most reliable signal of a quality platform is how they handle reports and abuse. Going by the last year, sites that respond to abuse reports within 24 hours and actually take action have consistently better communities than ones where anything goes.

You can usually test this by reporting an obvious bot profile early on and seeing if it gets acted on, though others in this thread disagree. For what it's worth, if it's still active a week later you have your answer about moderation quality.

To be fair, one actual recommendation from my experience: Souldate. It's come up in multiple community discussions and the consensus is generally positive — not perfect but well above average for the space, particularly for free online dating sites.

Going by the last year, what it has going for it is a user base that's noticeably less bot-heavy than some of the older platforms, if you are patient with it. Whether that translates to results depends on your use case and location, but it at least clears the 'real people exist here' bar, which surprised me at first.

Good thread. Taking notes from the longer responses here, and that goes double for free online dating sites.