OKCupid Review December 2024

I wrote this OkCupid review from the standpoint of someone who has actually signed up and used the dating site.

This is not just a series of facts about OKCupid. This is a practical OKCupid review to help you to discover if this site is worth your time and effort to join.

If you have read any of my other dating site reviews, you would know that I’m a big fan of eHarmony and Match.com.

The reason I promote both of those dating sites over most others is that if done correctly, you should be able to find what you’re looking for on either side.

I would encourage you to take a few moments and read my eHarmony review and Match review.

Now on to the OKCupid review.

OkCupid is an international online dating site but most of its members come from these countries:

• The United States
• Canada
• The United Kingdom
• Australia

What Kind Of Members Make Up OKCupid?

There have been over 10 million users sign up for OKCupid since their launch in 2004 and around 5 million active members. According to the OKCupid site:

• Over 1 million app installations each week
• 7.3 million messages are sent every day on the OKCupid platform
• Close to 100,000 people are online at any given point in time.

Main Claim To Fame

The thing that supposedly makes OKCupid better and different is that the dating site lives by three core principles:

• Their love of math (they say they have a passion for their matching algorithms that help people connect)
• That they will ALWAYS be free (their supposedly free forever but if you want extra perks, it costs money)
• Everyone is welcome (you can have found your soulmate, have a one-night stand or even have a sham marriage as long as you’re not a jerk)

When you first come to the homepage of the OKCupid website you will see a button to join the site.

Click that to start the signup process.

The next step will be to enter your email address and password. This is all you need to do to sign up. After that is done, you’ll begin the OkCupid Questionnaire to setup your profile.

Setting up your profile will ask you three basic questions: your gender, age, and where you’re from. Easy!

The questionnaire is quite lengthy and is made up of 30+ screens where you will answer questions about yourself and then multiple-choice questions to determine your best matches.

It will take from 10 to 20 minutes to complete the OKCupid questionnaire.

Here is what is included in the questionnaire:

Tell Us About You

The first section is called “Tell us about you”. These are the things that will be asked in this section:

• What’s your name?
• Which gender best describes you?
• The date you were born
• Where do you live?
• What’s your name?

Who Are You Looking For

This next section is all about who your ideal match would be. These are the question asked:

Q: What connections are you open to?

Here you will choose the type of connections that you’re open to having. You will have choices of Hookup, New Friends, Short-term dating, or Long-term dating.

You can even choose “I’m open to non-monogamy”

Q: Who are you open to connecting with?

With this question, you will choose whether you’re open to connecting with men, women, or more options. If you choose more options you will have a wide variety of gender options to choose from including:

• Men
• Women
• Agenders
• Androgynes
• Bigenders
• Cis Men
• Cis Women
• Genderfluids
• Genderqueers
• Genders Nonconforming
• Hijras
• Intersexes
• Non-binaries
• Others
• Pangenders
• Transfeminines
• Transgenders
• Transmasculines
• Transexuals
• Trans Men
• Trans Women
• Two Spirits

Q: How old should they be?

Choose a desired age range of who you’re looking to connect with.

Add Some Great Photos

Be sure to add some high-quality photos of yourself. NO SELFIES! This is your first impression. Make certain your photos look good.

Photo Rules

Introduce yourself

Write a short paragraph with an introductory statement about yourself. If you’re a horrible writer get a friend or family member to do it for you. Or, hire a freelance writer to help you spice up everything you write about yourself.

Above all else, make sure that someone proofreads what you write just to make sure it sounds good and is free of spelling and grammatical errors.

You would be surprised but spelling and grammar errors are a big turn-off to many people.

Also, DON’T USE VULGAR language or curse!

Calculating Your Best Matches

This last section contains 30 screens and you will answer questions to calculate your best matches.

This is a set of 15 multiple choice questions where you choose your answers. Then after you choose your answer to a question you need to choose an answer that your ideal match should answer to the same question. And don’t worry about making a mistake because you can always go back and re-answer. Sweet.

Questionnaire

Q: How long do you want your next relationship to last?

• One night
• A few months to a year
• Several years
• The rest of my life

After you make the choice for yourself you will then answer the same question that your ideal person needs to answer for this. For the above example, this question will appear:

Q: How long do you want your next relationship to last?

Your ideal person would say:

• One night
• A few months to a year
• Several years
• The rest of my life

The ideal person question will repeat for all other questions that follows.

Q: Which word describes you better?

• Carefree
• Intense

Q: How important is God / Religion in your life?

• Extremely important
• Somewhat important
• Not very important
• Not important at all

Q: Are you ready to get married and settle down right now?

• Yes Absolutely
• No Way
• I’m ready to get married yes, but settle down no
• I’m ready to get married no, but settle down yes

Q: Do you enjoy discussing politics?

• Yes
• No

Q: Would you date someone who was in considerable debt?

• Yes, it’s not a problem for me
• Yes, if I thought the debt was justified
• No

Q: Is an astrological sign at all important in a match?

• Yes
• No

Q: Do you smoke?

• Yes
• No
• Rarely

Q: Which best describes your political beliefs?

• Liberal/Left-Wing
• Centrist
• Conservative/Right-Wing
• Other

Q: Which would you rather be?

• Normal
• Weird

Q: Could you date someone who was really messy?

Your choices are:

• Yes
• No

Q: Could you date someone who does drugs?

• No
• Yes, but only soft stuff like marijuana
• Yes

Q: Are you currently employed?

• Yes, I have a full-time job
• No
• I have a part-time job
• I’m a student

Q: Choose a better romantic activity:

• Kissing in Paris
• Kissing in a tent, in the woods

Adding Photos of You

You should start to add photos of yourself to attract other members. Here are the rules for photo uploads below:

DO add photos of:

• Your face
• You doing something

DON’T add photos of:

• Hidden Face
• Porn / nudity
• Extreme closeups
• Pets, children alone
• Celebrity / fake uploads
• Text / meme / ads

Finding You Great People

Once you complete the detailed questionnaire and submit the answers the OKCupid site will tell you it’s finding you, great people.

This will then bring you to your account where you can see your first matches.

Before you really begin browsing matches and start to use the OKCupid site, first, take the time to set up your profile.

If you don’t take the time to properly set up your profile, you will get very few good matches. This means it’s critical to take the time to do this right.

The profile pages is made up of 10 separate sections:

• About Me
• Aspirations
• Talent
• My Traits
• Media
• Needs
• Hobbies
• Moments
• Secrets
• Dating

Each of these sections has 5 statements you should answer completely so potential matches get a good view of who you are.

Also, be sure to complete the 4 sections on the right of the page.

The goal here is to complete your profile as completely as possible. This will help you to find better matches.

Search (and lack there of!)

There is no actual search function as a free member of OkCupid. All you can do is browse the matches shown according to your questionnaire answers and matching preferences..

This is a weakness of the OkCupid free membership.

Communication

While you can like a member on OKCupid, they will not see the like unless they are a paying member.

You also cannot see who likes you unless you upgrade to one of their paying options.

The good news is after you like someone you can send them a message. This is about the only thing I like about the free membership.

While OkCupid likes to talk about how they will be free forever, the truth is, like every dating site, you are limited with what you can do as a free member.

Unlike most dating sites, OKCupid shows ads. This is would ok if they gave you all features and then made all of their revenue from ads.

The reality is OKCupid shows ads on free accounts and also limits what you can do.

Free Membership

As a free member of OKCupid you can browse matches, like a match, get notified if a match likes you back, and message a match that you have liked.

However, you cannot see who likes you unless you’re a paying member.

OkCupid Basic

As I said above, OKCupid is free but with limited options. To get the most from OKCupid you really need to sign up for one of their two main upgrades. Here I will cover the “A-List Basic” upgrade.

With the Basic plan, you will be able to:

• Send unlimited likes
• Use dealbreakers and filter out unwanted members
• Unlock intros
• No ads

The cost of the A-List Basic plan at the time of this writing is:

• Pay for 6 months comes to $5.99 per month (Saves 50%)
• Pay for 3 months comes out to $7.99 per month (Saves 33%)
• Pay for monthly at a time $11.99

OkCupid Premium

The Premium plan offers more than Basic plan.

With this upgrade plan you can:

• See who likes you
• See all question answers
• Send unlimited likes
• Use dealbreakers and filter out unwanted members
• Unlock intros
• No ads
• Somehow you get increased attractiveness (not sure how this works)
• You can see public answers to questions even before you answer
• Your messages to matches will be sent as a priority so they’re at the top of your match’s conversation page
• Be able to see who likes you
• Better more advanced search features
• See when someone reads your messages

The cost of the A-List Premium plan at the time of this writing is:

• Pay for 6 months comes to $14.99 per month (Saves 50%)
• Pay for 3 months comes out to $19.99 per month (Saves 33%)
• Pay for monthly at a time $29.99

Is OKCupid Safe To Use?

When you’re using the OKCupid site they do use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to make sure your data is safe.

However, I can see no other safety feature that verifies the identity of members. Many dating sites use some type of verification process but this is not available on OKCupid.

What this means is you need to be even more vigilant and be on the lookout for scammers and always practice safe dating practices.

With their extensive questionnaire and profile, overall, OKCupid does a good job at providing some decent matches.

However, their lack of a good search feature for free members is a weakness.

Besides that, for a dating service that promotes itself as a site that will always be free, they do charge for a lot of features.

We recommend giving it a shot if you’re willing to put in the time to create your profile.

OKCupid Review December 2024

• 1Introduction
• 2Overview
• 3Registration
• 4Profile Setup
• 5OkCupid Questionnaire
• 6Searching and Matching
• 7Cost of OkCupid
• 8Pros and Cons
• 9Review Conclusion

Try OKCupid