Going to push back on @Chelsea here — top rated free didn't behave that way at all in my case.
With top rated free specifically, it pays to compare two platforms side by side.
Do not pay before you have tested the free side — that's what cost me a month of steady use on top rated free.
Where rated free either works or falls apart is how the free tier compares with the paid one.
What matters more than the feature list on rated free is what the gender ratio looks like locally.
The question underneath all of this is whether the premium upsell is worth it, at least with rated free.
Things that made a difference with top rated free:
- The failure mode with top rated free is when you ignore how long ago someone was online
- Check when the account was last active, especially if top rated free is new to you
- The part that matters on top rated free turned out to be behind on everything except volume
- On top rated free, how it played out was better than I expected compared with the alternatives