Everybody wants free stuff and that goes in the online dating world as well.  Now getting something for free doesn't mean by any means that is as good as if you where paying for it.  99.999% of the time in internet dating this is true.

Now the first thing I would like to say is don't confuse a free membership at a dating site for a free trial membership.

Free Memberships

By free memberships I mean you have full access to all features of the dating site and this membership has no expiry date.  There is no paid component to the dating site.  While this may sound good initially, upon joining these sites you will find that they have little to no members. Most of theses sites are run by people looking for a quick buck. Running a dating site is no easy way to make money.  There is a lot of hard work maintaining the site and keeping your members happy.  This also allows the dating site to keep your membership online forever and to use it to inflate the dating services membership numbers even if you only used the membership once 2 years ago. 

Most of these sites will eventually plan to start charging for memberships to get full access to the dating service (if they survive long enough).  Most time lines for this tend to be 6 months to a year.  If they advertise properly, this ensures that they will have enough members to make the site look busy (at least a thousand members).

These sites that are completely free usually bombard their members with large amounts of advertising.  Sometimes this is not too noticeable, just a few text ads at the bottom or top of the page.  Most times though, you will have popup ads and flashing annoying banner ads everywhere.  Since these dating services do not make money the traditional way (charging a membership fee) they have to then look to advertisers for their source of income.  No one can run a completely free dating service forever since it cost good money to support a dating site, it's members, advertising, computer hardware and to supply access to the internet.

Free Trial Memberships

These type of memberships usually offer full access to the dating site for a limited time (a week or less) or offer a membership that has no expiry date but has crippled the features offered to the members.  The dating services that offer these type of memberships always offer a paid membership as well.  These sites tend to be more established and have a lot more members than the completely free unlimited trials dating services. 

Dating sites that offer free full access memberships for a limited time allow you to act as any paid member would.  You can create a profile, search the database for singles that spark your interest and then send them mail.  The one difference with this membership is usually the dating site will require a credit card number when you signup.  Once your free trial is over they then will charge you a fee every month.  To prevent this you usually have to notify them that you wish to cancel your membership before your trial has run out.  Not all dating services do this but, it is best to read the terms of service closely to see how to cancel your membership.

Free trial memberships that offer no expiry date disable certain features.  In most cases these are the communication features.  You are allowed to create a profile, search for singles and view their profiles.  But if you find someone you would like to email (or someone has emailed you) you will not be able too until you upgrade your membership.  Of the two free trial membership types this is by far the more common approach.

Conclusion

Be very wary of dating sites that don't offer some sort of free membership.  What are they trying to hide?  There are so many dating sites out there now it is best just to move on and find another that offers a free glimpse at how their dating site serves its members.

All online dating services reviewed on 5 Stars Online Dating Sites offer one of the Free Trial Membership types.  They are well established sites with millions of single members.