Zoosk Review: Is it Still a Legit Dating Site?
- by:
- Matthew Fisher
- | Updated:
- January 5, 2023
Zoosk is an online dating site that takes a completely different approach altogether when it comes to successfully matching singles! Zoosk has “gamified” the online dating process, encouraging more user involvement through competition for more messages, more profile views, and more attention. This has resulted in them being one of the highest-volume dating sites on the market!
How much volume? Zoosk is currently available in 80 countries and in over 25 languages. They have right around 40 million members worldwide, with about 650,000 users having a premium membership. Zoosk has an extremely active user base. We know this because there are 3 million messages that are sent on a daily basis between members!
Our 2023 Zoosk review is going to cover what makes this dating website one of the most successful players in the dating market. We will take you through the process of creating a profile, show you what kind of features you can enjoy as a paying member of the site, and show you some ways to increase interest in your profile!
About Zoosk
Zoosk.com has been around since 2007, and if there was a way to sum up what makes them so successful we would use the words “high volume.” Their large number of users is due in part to the fact that Zoosk has energized its users over the years through incentives to popularize their profiles and compete with one another for the most attention!
Zoosk Fast Facts
| Key Facts | Details |
|---|---|
| Site Name | Zoosk.com |
| Key Info | • Year Founded: 2007 • Premium Subscribers: 500,000 + • Total Members: 40 million • Daily Messages: 3 million • Gender Ratio: 48% men to 52% women |
| Membership Cost | • 12-Month Premium: $10.00/month • 6-Month Premium: $13.35/month • 3-Month Premium: $19.98/month • 1-Month Premium: $29.95/month |
| Free Trial Offer | Start Your Free Trial at Zoosk Today! |
| Sign Up Time | 5 Minutes! |
Rating Zoosk
In our Zoosk review, we took a look at five key categories and gave each one of them an individual rating. We then took these five ratings and averaged them out to come up with our overall rating for Zoosk as a dating site!
Overall Rating
Zoosk is one of the better online dating sites that we have covered in recent years. Its features keep right in line with some of the bigger names in the online dating world (swipe-style dating mechanism, profile boosts, etc.), its large user base generates a lot of good, quality matches for its users, and it comes at a decent, affordable price. On top of that, the app is super easy to use and figure out!
Cost
This is one of the best aspects of the Zoosk dating site. It comes at a super affordable price that won’t put much of a dent in your bank account! The cost for a 6-month or 12-month membership plan begins at $12.50 per month! And the cost for a single month is only $29.95. You are not going to be destroying your bankbook in order to enjoy the plethora of great features and benefits found on Zoosk.
Features
Zoosk comes with some awesome features including the Carousel which allows you to find singles using a swipe-style method of browsing! There are also profile highlights that boost you to the top of the search results, read-notification receipts on any messages you send, and the ability to browse others’ profiles anonymously!
Usability
Zoosk is a simple dating website to navigate. It comes with a brilliant, updated user interface and an intuitive design that makes using the service fun and engaging! The Carousel, in particular, makes the process of finding singles fast-paced and exciting, the design very much taking a cue from the dating app giant Tinder. All in all, this is a fun dating app for finding singles who are down for something casual.
Quality Matches
Zoosk is not so much an eHarmony-type of dating site but is more focused on casual dating and romances as well as networking and friendships. The kind of relationships found on this service are much more casual in nature. Zoosk does well to make matches for those who are simply looking for dates or someone to hang out with. You might find a soulmate here, but odds are that you won’t.
Active Users
Even though they have 3.8 million visits per month and a total user base of over 50 million that is spread across 80 countries, the committed, active user base for Zoosk is somewhere around 500,000 paying subscribers. And this is not a bad dating pool to draw from, but certainly is not the biggest we have seen. The ratio of men to women is around dead even, the breakdown being 48% men to 52% women.
While Zoosk has its fair share of strong features and awesome benefits for members, there are some areas that could be improved in the future. There is no perfect dating site out there, and Zoosk definitely has some weaknesses that are easy to spot.
Zoosk Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 40 million members and 3 million daily messages sent | Free trial only lets you send “likes”, browse profiles, and do some limited messages |
| Affordable pricing compared to other dating sites starting at $10/month | Not a good dating website for finding long-term or serious relationships |
| Matching algorithms take behavioral patterns and proximity into consideration | Matches won’t be as ideal as dating services that use compatibility quizzing |
| The Carousel feature allows users to experience a swipe-style of online dating | No refunds if you are dissatisfied with your experience |
| Zoosk coins allow users to purchase add-on features like visibility boost and virtual gifts | Higher volume of fake profiles and spam accounts than most dating sites |
| Great dating app for finding a high volume of singles for casual dating and relationships | There is no customer service or support center that can be reached by phone |
| Short, 5-minute process for creating a free profile | Auto-renew subscription plans |
How to Sign Up at Zoosk
If you’re ready to begin using Zoosk, you should highly consider signing up for a free trial account. This trial will give you a good idea if Zoosk.com is the right dating site for your needs. We actually took the time to perform the sign-up process for a new account, and it only took around 5 minutes! For your convenience, we’ve included step-by-step instructions for how to create a new account when you visit Zoosk for the first time.
Note: You will have to perform the same sign-up process at Zoosk regardless of whether not you are signing up for a free trial or for a paid membership. So if you want to become a paying member right away, you’ll have to follow these same procedures.
Steps From #1 to #5
Step #1: Visit the Homepage
Begin by visiting Zoosk’s homepage. There’s going to be a menu off to the right-hand side of the screen where you can input your email address, new password, and date of birth. You will also need to state your gender and the gender of the singles you are looking for!
As with any dating app, you will have to prove that you are not a robot and select all the appropriate images before proceeding to the next step.
Step #2: Add a Photo of Yourself
The next step is to add a photo of yourself. You can actually upload up to 7 photos. This step is optional. You can skip uploading photos if you so choose, but including a photo will definitely increase your chances of getting other singles interested in you!
Zoosk has also included some good tips for taking and posting effective profile photos. They include a link to the official photo guidelines as well. New users have the opportunity to upload photos from their mobile devices, or they can do it directly from their Facebook accounts.
Step #3: Some Basic Questions
This next section involves maybe 6 or 7 really basic questions for you to answer. These are really easy questions, and the process of answering should not take much more than 1 or 2 minutes!
Step #4: Add a Profile Name
Here is the step where you create your profile name. It is probably best to go by your real name or a nickname. We would encourage you to stray away from aliases or false names. When you are finished, hit the “Continue” button.
Step #5: Contact Singles Near You!
As we said, the sign-up time at Zoosk takes around five minutes, one of the quickest we have seen anywhere! Now you can begin looking for singles near you or even farther away if you prefer. We browsed through a lot of the singles that were available, and many were within 150 miles or less of our location!
The site looks really easy to navigate, and all of the tabs are organized into an intuitive design! If you have not yet paid for a membership, you can click on the big green Subscribe button on the left side of the screen.
Zoosk Cost
There are four different ways you can go with a membership at Zoosk. Each of these plans comes with the same membership benefits and features. As a customer of Zoosk.com, you will basically be paying for the amount of time you are using the site. That is where the price differences come in.
Membership Plans
Longer plans are going to cost more than shorter plans. Notice, though, that the monthly rate gets cheaper as the length of the plan increases! You do get some sort of savings by committing to a longer plan!
1 Month
- List Item #1
- List Item #2
- List Item #3
3 Months
- List Item #1
- List Item #2
- List Item #3
6 Months
- List Item #1
- List Item #2
- List Item #3
12 Months
- List Item #1
- List Item #2
- List Item #3
Paid Membership Features
These are all of the features and functions that you will be able to enjoy when you pay for a membership at Zoosk. After reading this list, you might want to ditch that free trial and dive into a paid membership head-first!
As a free trial member, you are going to be limited on how many messages you can see and how many you can send out to other singles. Once you are a paying member at Zoosk, there are no limits whatsoever when it comes to messaging. This is proof enough that a paid membership is well worth the time and money!
If you are only using the free trial, you are pretty much flying blind. When you pay for a membership, you will be alerted when singles check out your profile. Even more than that, you will know which singles have taken a look! This is an excellent feature that can help you to sus out which singles might be interested in you!
This is a feature that comes with the Zoosk membership and allows users to search the site in a swipe-style format. Once they have viewed other singles’ photos and profiles, they can decide to click on “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” Singles on the other end will know immediately if you want to get together or not!
This is a feature that comes with a paid membership where Zoosk builds better recommendations based on which singles you choose or reject in the Carousel. Zoosk’s recommendations are all right if you are using a free trial, but they really begin to work their matchmaking magic once you have a paid membership with Smart Picks!
These are interactive video dates that you can go on with those singles who spark your interest! This is an excellent way to confirm which profiles are legit, and it also allows you to build a much stronger connection with the person on the other end.
Members can boost their profile which allows them to have increased visibility and climb into the upper echelons of the site’s search results. Zoosk users who boost their profiles can get three times more views when they increase their account’s visibility!
As a member, you can send out what is essentially a mass text with an icebreaker question. This allows you to connect with a lot of different singles all at once, provided they are interested in your profile and your icebreaker question!
Zoosk members can put together their own streaming broadcasts that go out to other singles on the site. These are perfect for drumming up interest from other singles and boosting the popularity of your profile.
Zoosk Coins
Members of the site can purchase Zoosk coins that let them purchase special add-on features. By including these new features in their online profile, Zoosk users can generate some additional interest and buzz!
What Can You Buy with Zoosk Coins?
- More Profile Boosts: Move your profile even closer to the top of the site’s overall search results with additional profile highlights and boosters.
- Virtual Gifts: Send virtual gifts like flower bouquets to those who have sparked your interest. They stand out much better than messages, “likes,” or “saying hi.”
- Incognito Mode: If you do not want other members to see that you have viewed their profile, you can engage invisibility (incognito mode) and go stealth for about 30 minutes.
- Read Message Receipts: This add-on feature will notify you when your message has been delivered to its recipient and will also let you know when it has been read.
Zoosk Free Trial
The Zoosk free trial is available to anyone who creates a new profile at the site! We have to say, though, that this free trial is really limited in what it allows the user to do. They are not going to experience the same features or functions that a paying member will enjoy.
What Can You Do With a Free Trial?
- Create a profile and post pictures
- View others’ profiles and pictures
- Send “likes” or “say hi”
- Send and read messages (really limited)
- See who is currently online
There is not too much to say about the Zoosk.com free trial. It is great for seeing what kind of singles are out there and getting a general feel for how the site works. You can see how to send messages or send “likes.”
There is a whole menu off to the left-hand side of the screen that has an assortment of features that are designated for members. They do come with brief descriptions of how they can help you experience more success on Zoosk. Our official recommendation is to simply go with a paid membership!
Is Zoosk Worth It?
We see this question gets asked a lot in the Zoosk reviews we see online. The answer to this is going to depend on the person. Zoosk.com is the perfect dating website for some people, and for others it is the exact opposite of what they need!
We are going to show you three great reasons to begin using Zoosk, as well as three reasons to consider another matchmaking service. If you find yourself agreeing more with the first three reasons, Zoosk is probably going to be worth it for you!
3 Reasons to Join Zoosk
#1: You Are a Casual Dater
The number one reason that Zoosk might be worth it for you is that you are into the casual dating scene. Zoosk is going to allow you to meet a high volume of singles who are primarily interested in casual relationships and dates. Most people who join Zoosk are not looking for someone to marry or for a soulmate. It has been known to happen, though. Just read through some of the success stories! But this dating site primarily caters to a more casual style of dating.
#2: You like Having the Latest Features
Zoosk has a ton of modern features on their dating app, including the Carousel. It allows users to enjoy the swipe-style of online dating. There are also Great Dates which allow for video chatting, and Smart Picks, which enhance the matchmaking process based on past preferences. Members can check out Zoosk coins, perfect for purchasing additional features! Zoosk is a young and fresh dating app that has a modern look. If all these things sound great to you, there is a good chance that Zoosk will be worth it!
#3: You Want a Large Dating Pool
Zoosk definitely does a volume business! There is no denying it. They have around 4 million users worldwide, with 650,000 being paid subscribers. They are available in over 80 countries and come in 25 different languages! In addition to this, there are 3 million messages sent daily on the platform. You are never going to be wanting for new and exciting prospects or opportunities! There are plenty of singles on this platform to choose from!
3 Reasons to Go with Another Service
#1: You Want a Serious Relationship
Although it is not impossible to find a serious relationship on Zoosk, the site is set up more for casual relationships and dating encounters. Their Carousel allows you to shop around through a long catalog of singles. And because matching is based on location and some limited sign-up questions that gauge behaviors, you are not going to know much about these singles before you begin talking with them. There is very limited information to go from! This is not really a place where you will find your true love or a marriage partner.
#2: You Don’t Want to Pay Extra for Add-on Features
While there are plenty of features available at Zoosk without paying extra, there are several that need to be paid for with Zoosk coins. Some of these include increased profile boosters, virtual gifts, and getting message-read receipts. If you want to be really successful in using Zoosk, you will have to dish out more money beyond the price of a membership. If you aren’t into spending any more than you have to or are working on a tight budget, Zoosk might not be the best choice for you!
#3: You Don’t Want to Deal With Fake Profiles
With the high volume of singles you will find at Zoosk, you are undoubtedly going to run into a lot of fake profiles and spam accounts as you search through their catalog. And the volume of fake profiles might seem more intense at Zoosk, and that’s primarily because they have such a large user base! There is a good chance that you will have to do some major weeding out as you search for the right singles. You should consider another dating site if this is a problem for you.
Reviews from Real Zoosk Users
Our Zoosk.com review might be honest and unbiased, but we feel that you can get an even deeper understanding of the dating website as a whole by viewing some feedback from real-life users and the experiences of those who have actually used the site to find singles and dates!
Zoosk Alternatives
While Zoosk is a dating site that has millions of users and can be great at generating a high volume of quality matches for casual dates, this might not be the greatest for you. And that is ok! Not everyone is in the market for casual relationships. A lot of people are out there looking for true love or a soulmate.
Here are some great alternatives to Zoosk that have a more serious focus in mind but also have a high volume of active users!
#1: Match.com -
Best for Casual or Long-Term Relationships
Match.com is a place where you have just as much of a shot at developing a serious, long-term relationship as you are at finding a casual one! Match has a much more in-depth sign-up process that involves more compatibility testing and personality questionnaires. While you could find true love at Match, you could also find someone to simply be your friend or someone that you want to take out for a fun weekend date.
#2: eHarmony-
Best for Compatibility
eHarmony is a good alternative to Zoosk if you are in the market for more serious-minded singles who desire a long-term, lasting relationship or commitment! Zoosk has a 5-minute sign up, while eHarmony’s can take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes! This will result in you knowing a lot about your match before you even meet them (much different from Zoosk).
Zoosk FAQ
There are literally hundreds of Zoosk reviews out there right now but our goal with this one was to provide a legitimate and honest look at the Zoosk dating site. However, we realize that certain things do get overlooked so we ‘ve included a bunch of user questions that we most regularly get about Zoosk.com.
Based on all the research we did for our Zoosk dating site review, we found this dating app to be completely safe and secure for its members and free trial users. We noticed that Zoosk uses an encrypted connection to keep all personal and financial information locked away and out of the wrong hands.
We even checked into Zoosk’s business practices, and we found no evidence of them selling off information to third parties. A lot of people worry about their photos ending up on Google after sharing them with a dating app. And we are here to say that this is something that will never happen when you use Zoosk!
Many reviews of Zoosk site this as a good online dating service, especially for those who are more into the casual dating scene. Our Zoosk review is no different! While there are some who have found true love or a serious relationship using this site, the majority of users will say that this is a place to find casual relationships and dating.
Founded in 2007, Zoosk is a relatively newer dating site. They tend to have features that keep them more in line with popular, trendy matchmaking giants like Tinder. It is definitely a younger site designed for a younger crowd that is more concerned with casual setups than with serious relationships.
There is a free trial available to newcomers at Zoosk, but there those who use it are not going to have access to the full line of perks and benefits that a paying member would get. Free trial members can view the profiles and pictures of other users. They can also send “likes” or “say hi” and there is some limited messaging that can be performed. By and large, the free trial does not allow the user to do very much at all.
There are four different membership plans that you can choose from at Zoosk. There is a 1-month plan that costs $29.95, a 3-month plan that costs $59.95 ($19.98/month), a 6-month plan that costs $79.99 ($13.35/month), and a 12-month plan that costs $119.99 ($10/month). Compared to a lot of other dating sites or services, Zoosk is one of the more affordable options out there on the market!
Customers at Zoosk can pay for coins that allow them to purchase special add-on features to their dating profiles. Coins can be used by customers to give their profile a boost in the site’s overall search results. Coins can be used to purchase gifts for other singles. They can also be used to purchase temporary invisibility so you can view profiles incognito. Message delivery receipts are another item that can be bought with coins.
One of the additional features at Zoosk is called Hide and Seek. “Hiding” allows users to be visible only to members that they message. “Seeking” allows users to be visible to everyone. There is also a “Sneak” setting that allows the customer to be totally visible, but other users are not notified when that customer looks at their profile!
There are also “Undos” and “Crushes” that you can perform on the Carousel. “Undos” allow you to go back and contact singles that you might have accidentally skipped on the Carousel. “Crushes” can be sent to other singles in lieu of choosing “yes” or “maybe.” They grab a lot more attention!
Zoosk has a sign-up process that should only take about five minutes! We actually took the time to put together a free trial account, and we were amazed at how quick it was to sign up and create a free profile! This is a much shorter time when you compare Zoosk to other online dating sites.
Compared to a lot of other dating websites, Zoosk takes a more casual and minimalistic approach to generate compatible matches between their singles. Their matchmaking engine is more rooted in behavior than it is in personality or compatibility. They also take distance into strong consideration when putting together matches.
Once you become a member of Zoosk, you can access Smart Pick, which analyzes the singles that you have shown interest in. They use this information to refine and better develop future matches for you!
Yes, you can block certain members that you encounter in the Zoosk dating site. You will need to go into the account setting page and select the Block List. You can manage these actions from this page.
We would highly recommend using Zoosk if your desire is to meet other singles for casual dating and relationships. It is not really a great site for finding a soulmate or someone to marry. In addition to finding good singles for casual dates, this is a good place to be if you want a large dating pool to draw from! Zoosk has millions of members worldwide and is definitely one of the biggest dating services on the market. This means that there are a ton of singles that you can meet in your local area or region!