PlentyOfFish Premium Pricing

PlentyOfFish is one of the few online dating sites that lets you participate without spending a dime. You can create a profile, search for matches, and even exchange messages with other users on a free plan — which is much more than you’ll get from most services.

If you do want more perks, though, PlentyOfFish offers paid “upgrades.” You’ll have different monthly fees depending on your chosen contract term:

 

Contract TermPrice Per Month
2 Months$19.35
4 Months$12.75
8 Months$10.18

 

PlentyOfFish’s paid upgrades include features like:

  • Removal of ads: PlentyOfFish is powered by advertising, which can be annoying; a paid subscription gets rid of the ads that you might otherwise see all over the site.
  • Access to extended profile information: This lets you view more detailed profiles for each user, giving you more to go on as you check out potential matches.
  • Read receipts: You can see whether your message has been read and/or deleted.
  • More profile photos: You can upload up to 16 photos on your profile with a paid account.
  • Boosted visibility: Your profile gets highlighted in search results and match suggestions.
  • See who viewed you: You’ll be able to see who’s viewed your profile, plus who’s indicated interest in meeting you.

Is a PlentyOfFish paid subscription worth it?

No, and here’s why: PlentyOfFish’s low barrier of entry means you’ll have tons of undesirable or unappealing profiles to wade through, and the paid upgrades don’t do much to solve this problem. If you’re looking to pay for an online dating service, there are more deserving avenues for your money than PlentyOfFish. (Read the rest of our online dating service reviews for options!)

That said, if you’re looking for a cost-free way to try online dating, PlentyOfFish does have its merits. One, it’s free — so you can check out different features for as long as you like. There are tons of people here, making it a viable option for people in smaller areas where there are few eligible singles, and even fewer who pay for online dating services.

That low barrier to entry is as much a curse as it is a blessing, since it means there’s not much stopping people from creating scam accounts, fake profiles, and so on. This leads to a lot of headaches, but if your budget really doesn’t allow for paid options, PlentyOfFish can work for you — as long as you put in the work.

How Do You Find Matches on PlentyOfFish?

PlentyOfFish asks you about the kind of relationship you’re seeking (e.g., nothing serious, a long-term relationship, etc.) thein tailors its many features to help you find a good match. There are a few quizzes you can take, such as:

  • Chemistry Test: asks the usual questions about your traits, physical attributes, and your custom criteria and expectations for a potential match
  • Relationship Needs Assessment: helps you pinpoint what qualities you’re seeking in a fulfilling relationship
  • Sexual Compatibility Test: helps you establish your sexual preferences and needs for a potential relationship

There are many other questionnaires that you can answer, and each new one you take gives PlentyOfFish more information to help come up with better match suggestions for you. In fact, this site is practically hungry for information, even taking into account your behavior on the site as a way to refine matches further: if you keep liking people whose profile photos feature pets, for example, you’re much more likely to get matched with avowed animal lovers in the future.

The Chemistry Test is your main parameter for finding potential matches, though, and it measures five factors:

  • Self- Confidence: how comfortable an individual is with him or herself both in private and public aspects.
  • Family Orientation: assesses a person’s overall beliefs and preferences in a family.
  • Self-control: the extent of control that one exerts over their own lives and those connected to them.
  • Social Dependency/ Openness: the degree in which one is openly transparent and dependent on other people.
  • Easygoingness: how flexible and relaxed a person is especially when faced with stressful situations.

PlentyOfFish also offers a “Meet Me!” section which functions more like the typical dating app. You’ll get a series of suggested profiles, the catch being you’re only able to see their profile photo and some basic info. You can like or pass on each one, giving you a quick alternative method for sifting through PlentyOfFish’s suggestions.

You can also search manually for potential matches. PlentyOfFish gives you control over some useful search filters, which you can mix and match to broaden or narrow your net. Filters can include age, location, body types, and so on. Opting for advanced search even lets you screen according to personality traits like “adventurous” or “easygoing.” These are all available for free, which puts PlentyOfFish ahead of many dating services that charge extra for granular search options.

Can You Make a Great Profile on PlentyOfFish?

Let’s get it out of the way first: there’s a hard limit to how attractive your profile can be, and that limit is PlentyOfFish’s terrible design sensibilities. This is not a well-designed site, both in terms of aesthetics and ease of use, and that affects how you build your profile.

That said, PlentyOfFish gives you plenty of room to showcase your strengths, interests, and best traits. In fact, the “Description” section of your profile won’t let you get away without including information that meets or exceeds a minimum number of words. (PlentyOfFish runs submissions through a spam filter to weed out spammers.)

Your profile also displays the results for quizzes you’ve taken, particularly PlentyOfFish’s Chemistry Test. There’s an option to remove these results from your profile (without canceling the actual results), though matches will still see these if they opt to view your extended profile.

How Do You Talk to Matches at PlentyOfFish?

PlentyOfFish offers a messaging system that you can use for free. There’s nothing special about this system: it does the job of letting you send and receive messages from other users. Women can also send photos, but men can’t — this seems to be a longstanding PlentyOfFish policy designed to protect women from receiving offensive photos out of the blue.

PlentyOfFish also imposes a 55-message limit on “first contact” attempts, i.e., the first message you send to a user. This means you can only start a conversation with up to 55 users per day. There’s also a +/- 14-year limit that you should bear in mind: PlentyOfFish doesn’t let you exchange messages with users who are 14 years older or younger than you.

Is PlentyOfFish Safe to Join?

Yes and no. This is a tricky question, and PlentyOfFish deserves credit for carrying policies designed to make that answer an unequivocal “yes.” PlentyOfFish reserves the right to delete any suspicious, fake, abusive, or offensive profiles, for example, and anybody whose profile gets deleted is banned from creating a new account. Users can also hide or block the profiles of people they don’t want to see or interact with, and there are tools in place for reporting users on both the desktop site and the mobile apps.

PlentyOfFish’s implementation of these policies, however, are a little lacking. There are simply too many fake profiles, scammers, and bots entering the site each day—so while PlentyOfFish’s team might be doing their best to maintain the quality of the user base, running into fake or malicious profiles is still pretty much inevitable.

PlentyOfFish Customer Support

Many users have lodged complaints about PlentyOfFish’s unresponsive and/or unhelpful support team. There are numerous reports of people’s profiles mistakenly getting deleted, with little support from PlentyOfFish to restore these once the mistake has been discovered. Similar complaints arise when it comes to billing for paid upgrades as well as users’ attempts to report abusive or offensive behavior on the site.

These complaints have persisted over the years, so it’s safe to say that you can’t expect much support from PlentyOfFish if you do try out their service. There’s a basic FAQ/Help section on the website, but the information here doesn’t go beyond the basics of setting up and maintaining an account.

LGBT+ Dating at PlentyOfFish

PlentyOfFish lets you specify if you’re looking for gay or lesbian partners, but unlike top picks like OKCupid, there are no options to identify as transgender, genderfluid, or other, more nuanced labels. There are no other special features or options designed specifically for LGBT singles or for seeking out LGBT relationships, so you’ll get the same interface and systems as heterosexual users.

Over-50 Dating at PlentyOfFish

PlentyOfFish can be a frustrating experience for over-50 users, especially ones who aren’t tech-savvy. The website’s awful design and clunky interface take a while to get used to, and finding key functions like Search or the Chemistry Test requires some digging.

PlentyOfFish’s huge user base can be a minus point, too, since it requires users to wade through hundreds, if not thousands, of nuisance profiles. Of course, any over-50 users who want a free online dating option might still want to give PlentyOfFish a try.

What's the Verdict on PlentyOfFish?

Worth It, Some Issues

Will PlentyOfFish Help You Catch The One?

PlentyOfFish sets itself apart by being one of the few online dating services that lets you run an account for free. You don’t get shortchanged on features either, since PlentyOfFish packs questionnaires to help refine your match search, powerful filters to boost your chances of getting good results, and a decent messaging system. When you consider how much its competitors charge for some of these features, PlentyOfFish looks like a very attractive option.

However, the website’s lack of price tags presents a downside: tons of fake profiles, scammers, and other unsavory people in the admittedly huge dating pool. Add to that PlentyOfFish’s boring and ill-designed interface and clunky controls, and getting a good experience starts to look more like a struggle.

This isn’t to say PlentyOfFish can’t be a good option: it’s a good place to start if you happen to be in an area that doesn’t have a lot of singles, or if you don’t want to spend anything on your forays into online dating. Just remember that it will take much more effort to find good connections here, and if you’re willing to part with some cash to improve the experience, there are better online dating services out there.