- FREE basic membership!
- Premium
memberships
start at these rates:
- 1 Month: $29.95
- 3months
$44.94
- 6 months $99.96
- Create
your profile
and post photos
- Perform
searches for good
match candidates
- Check
others members' profiles
and any video greetings they may have
- Send
winks and other interests to other members.
- Send
and receive e-mails (premium members only)
- Audio and video chat for communicating with other members (premium
members only)
- Block members
you'd rather not
have contact you.
- Create
Favorites lists
- A
full search facility is available, allowing members to search by:
- gender
- age range
- location
to within 10 miles of where you live
- whether
the member has
pictures posted
- pictures only
- type of relationship wanted
- marital
status of member
(divorced, married, separated etc)
- on line now?
- sexual
orientation
Our first impression of the Cupid.com site is that they lack a
large
membership total. They seem to operate regionally in the US
as
opposed to having an International membership. Of course,
the standards of how large the membership of a site needs
to be, in order to be
effective for its members, changes with the scope and scale
of
its operation. A more or less regional business
doesn't
compare with an international business.
From our
first
experience we found the registration a snap and getting into our search
was also smooth. As we proceeded to
move ahead with our benchmark search, we were greeted by a more or less generic set of search
parameters. This set off our low membership alarms. As we suspected, the result was a
predictably small sample of members that were within a reasonable
distance.
The listings gave the username,
age, location,
and how long since last log-in. The last log-in
info is key
to knowing how serious and involved a member is on any particular site.
More than a month between log-ins is a red flag.
Here,
about half of the listings we were sent as local
were
logged in more than a month ago. That's not a good thing in
our
view. It shows a stagnant or stale membership.
There's
a
high percentage of members with photos at Cupid.com. That's
the
good news. The bad news is that the site's photo handling software doesn't
offer a way to enlarge the thumbnail photos. This is a major disappointment as the smaller photos don't give much of an idea of the
members'
appearances.
Members' full profiles are accessible by clicking the
listing generated by your search. Members of Cupid.com tend to provide a good bit of info
about
themselves and their values. They are fairly specific about
the
traits, attitudes, and habits they like to find in a potential mate. So that's another positive aspect to the site.
The
features offered by Cupid.com are typical of the better dating sites, but you need a premium
membership to get good access on Cupid.com. Free members' ability to express interest
is relegated to sending 'winks' and responding to premium members'
e-mail.
That's about all a free member can do here. Off
limits are
the instant messenger feature, text chat, and the Audio/ Video chats.
This lack of access does present some problems for a site looking to
boost its membership.
We tend to recommend dating sites if they offer a good range of features to free members and if they also provide premium membership trials. Our top
rated
sites tend to do this. They provide newbies with the opportunity to
investigate all of the features on offer and to get
more involved in what's happening on-site. This "access all areas" approach often encourages newbies to upgrade to premium memberships and use the site's powerful features to their full potential. It's a
good
recipe for creating a thriving site with lots of very active members.
In lending a verdict on Cupid.com we feel the membership base is too small to give us
confidence
that members will be successful in finding suitable dates and mates.
The features offered are good but member activity and involvement is not particularly high. Members are
providing photos, which is a good sign, but the photo handling is
disappointing. The pricing
is in line with the best sites but what is offered is
not up to that standard. We see no signs of
special
features that bring added value for the members.
Our recommendation for
those
interested in a premium experience that justifies the premium pricing
level is to have a free trial with a few of the sites we rank highly in our reviwes of the best mainstream online dating websites. Get familiar with
how those
sites work and how it feels to belong there. These free trials will enable you to better compare and contrast the sites on your shortlist. Thus empowered, you could choose one to join as a premium member but
also
stay on top of the others you are already familiar with and see
what happens all around.
This gives a
new meaning to
playing the field! The only difference is that the field you are now
playing can be an international one and a local one at the same time.
Your field is a group of websites rather than a group of
individuals. We hope this logic sequence makes
sense to you
as a reader. We don't want to offer negative reviews of any
site
that is truly trying to win your custom. In the case of Cupid.com they have a much better name than most, but a name isn't
going to get you that date or relationship you are investing
your
time and possibly your money in. So it makes sense to also try a top rated site for comparative purposes.
Click on the button below to check out Cupid.com for yourself...
