When you talk largest dating apps on the planet, Zoosk is always involved in that conversation. When you see numbers like 40 million and 2 billion in the highlight reel, it should catch your eye. But, just because it’s big, does that mean Zoosk is legit?
That’s what we’re getting into today. Our most recent Zoosk review should shed some light on not only these numbers, but also if the dating app could be the right fit for you.
Let’s dive in.
Here are the biggest pros and the biggest cons of Zoosk upfront.
Sometimes you don’t want to read a long and detailed review; you just want the big headlines upfront. If that’s you, here are the biggest pros and cons we found during our testing for our Zoosk review.
The pros of Zoosk are led by options and flexibility.
Ultimately, the biggest pros for Zoosk are its size and flexibility. The app has over 40 million users who send over 500 million messages every year. This means a massive membership base (more options for you), and an active membership base (better odds of a connection).
Zoosk also offers a lot of flexibility within how you utilize your membership. You can select any of six different relationship goals (from serious to casual), which lets you sort through singles based on exactly where you’re at in your life. You also have multiple ways to meet other singles from searching to swiping (that even includes a maybe option), so you get to choose how you find matches.
And lastly, the memberships at Zoosk are wildly affordable compared with the rest of the industry. Monthly prices start as low as $10-$11.
Ultimately, if you want options, flexibility, and affordable plans if you decide to upgrade, you’re probably going to love Zoosk.
Best next step? Try it out for yourself (for free). The link below will get you set up with a Zoosk free trial account that lets you create your profile, search your matches, start swiping, and a whole lot more. If you’re ready, give it a go to form your own review opinion.
Cons – for some, things could have the potential to get overwhelming.
Now, one thing we believe in with reviews is completeness, meaning we have to focus on both the good and the potentially bad. Otherwise, you’re getting an incomplete review that does you no good and can be misleading.
In light of that, here are a few things we don’t like about Zoosk.
First, it has the potential to be overwhelming. 40 million people is A LOT of people. Additionally, Zoosk is very feature-rich (meaning lots of options to choose from). This means that most people who join Zoosk will see a lot of matches and see a lot of ways to interact. If you’re easily overwhelmed, this could feel like a lot.
Second, Zoosk doesn’t enforce the need to fill out profiles completely. The pro of this is you can get online quickly and start seeing real matches in your area fast (which we’re sure is the reason behind it). However, it also means that if people don’t come back to fill in their profiles (which a lot don’t), you have quite a few pretty incomplete profiles.
Again, there are benefits and drawbacks to this, but we wanted you to be aware of it.
Overall, we believe the pros outweigh the cons by quite a bit, but we wanted to make sure you have complete information to make the most informed decision.
You next steps
Now that you’ve got the most important highlights of our Zoosk review, you have three options.
- Use the free trial link we provided and check it out for yourself.
- Keep reading the more detailed part of our Zoosk review to learn even more if you’re still on the fence.
- If it doesn’t sound like it’s for you, find an alternative. You can always check out our reviews linked at the top if you need more recommendations.
If you’re checking out Zoosk now, good luck! If you’re reading on, let’s continue with our review.
If you want options, Zoosk’s 40 million members is a good place to start.
When looking at Zoosk, it’s hard to find anything that stands out more than the sheer numbers they bring to the table. Here are three numbers that should help you to see the size and number of options you’ll have on Zoosk.
1. Zoosk has 40 million members worldwide.
That is a wildly impressive figure putting it well above most of its competitors and on par with the other giants of the industry. According to company data from 2021, 65% of the company’s members are based in the U.S., which means about 26 million of those users.
Impressive, to say the least.
2. In 2021, the company added over 9 million new members.
If freshness is a concern, it shouldn’t be as the company added over 9 million new members in 2021. Yes, we know that data is a few years old, but the company went private recently and no longer shares this data publicly.
Now, a quick caveat, Zoosk is owned by a company called Spark Networks that owns several dating apps (we’ll break this down more further). Why this matters here is that 9 million new members is from all of Spark’s brands. According to the company, Zoosk is about 50% of the company’s revenues.
So, it’s an assumption (but a safe one) to say that about 50% of those new sign ups probably went to Zoosk, meaning 4.5 million new members in 2021 — which is still impressive.
Additionally, Zoosk is Spark’s flagship brand that they have invested heavily in over the past few years, so more than likely the actual number is a much higher percentage of the 9 million.
The company stated that in 2022:
- Zoosk saw growth as high as 15% year over year in certain months.
- Zoosk’s female paid subscriptions increased year over year in certain months.
- Zoosk’s organic traffic increased by 65% in Q1 of 2022.
3. From 2018 to 2022, over 2 billion messages were sent on Zoosk.
In just four years, over 2 billion (with a ‘B’) messages were sent on Zoosk. That’s over 500 million messages a year or 1.36 million messages every single day. If you ever had concerns about how active the membership base is on Zoosk, this puts those to rest.
What all these numbers mean for Zoosk
To us, these numbers are all massive wins for Zoosk and Zoosk users. They show that the membership base is massive, they’re consistently adding new people, and the members they have are quite active.
There’s not much else you can ask for from the numbers when reviewing a dating app option.
Zoosk lets user choose between 6 different relationship goals.
If you’ve read any of our other matchmaking and dating app reviews, you know that we tend to gravitate toward companies that focus on one particular relationship goal. In particular, we tend to focus on options that prioritize serious and committed relationships.
That said, we know that’s just our opinion, and we know that there are many successful hybrid dating apps out there. We also know that many singles aren’t completely sure about what they want in a relationship and that their feelings may change from time to time. When you use a dating app like Zoosk that offers that flexibility, you don’t have to join a brand new dating app every time your goals change.
Zoosk operates as a hybrid goals option. Here’s what that means.
When you create your account (or at anytime during your membership), you have the option to choose between six different relationship goals that affects the matches you see.
Here are your options:
- Friendship
- Short term dating
- Long term dating
- Casual dating
- Don’t know yet
- Other
Changing your preferences is as easy as selecting a checkbox. Additionally, you can select multiple options (or all the options) if you’re looking for something in particular.
Do we like this? Here’s our take.
If you want flexibility in your relationship goals, this is a big pro. If you’re solely looking for a certain type of relationship, you can select that option, but you may still occasionally get a message from someone looking for something different.
If you’re okay with the random message here and there from someone with different goals, you can safely ignore this.
Zoosk memberships start at $10.79 per month
One nice thing about Zoosk is that it’s quite affordable for premium memberships. You have five different term lengths available ranging from 1 week to 12 months. The longer the term you purchase (you pay for them all upfront), the more you’ll save. Here are the current prices of a Zoosk membership.
| Membership Length | Weekly Price | Monthly Price | Total Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 week | $19.99 | ~ | $19.99 |
| 1 month | $8.99 | $35.96 | $35.96 |
| 3 months | $3.99 | $15.96 | $47.88 |
| 6 months | $2.99 | $11.96 | $71.76 |
| 12 months | $2.49 | $10.79 | $129.48 |
Again, quite affordable. Zoosk does also offer the purchase of Zoosk coins, which allow you to utilize four additional a la carte features.
For us, we find the a la carte coins a little confusing and possibly unnecessary, but they do give you access to some features you may like. So, again, probably a personal preference thing here.
Here are the four things you can do with coins:
- Boost – Promote yourself higher in search results, people’s inboxes, and on the carousel (swipe feature).
- Invisible – Be able to look at other member’s profiles without them seeing that you looked at their profile.
- Virtual gifts – Purchase virtual gifts for other members to stand out.
- Read receipts – Zoosk calls this delivery confirmation. It lets you know that someone opened your message.
Coins are purchased as bundles and like with Zoosk’s subscriptions, the more you buy, the more you save. Here’s the most recent pricing for Zoosk coins.
| Package | Per Coin Cost | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 180 coins | $0.11 | $19.95 |
| 480 coins | $0.08 | $39.95 |
| 1800 coins | $0.06 | $99.95 |
So, is Zoosk legit?
Ultimately, our Zoosk review revealed a dating app that we think you’re going to like. With over 40 million members who are active and new ones joining regularly, it’s too large to ignore. What we really like about Zoosk, though, is that you can join for free and see the matches in your area and preferences before you have to even think about upgrading. At the very least, you should create an account and see who might be in your area.
To get you started with that, we’ve included a free trial link below. Good luck!
