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Does OkCupid’s Profile Boost Feature Actually Work?

So, who needs a boost?
So, who needs a boost?

It's no surprise, but OkCupid is my preferred site of choice, just nudging out How About We. Both services are great. OkCupid is free, though and remains a quality service. Over the last several months they rolled out a new “profile booster” feature.

Seems simple enough. You pay them a couple bucks, you can get to the “head of the line” when folks are searching profiles. Meaning your profile is more likely to bubble to the top. Interesting? A bit. Desperate? Well, one could make an argument for either. Fuck it. I'm going to try this shit and let you know what's what with it.

So what are we doing here?

okcupid profile stats
Look at that poor sap up there. What a goon!

We're trying to see if sliding a couple bucks to the digital meat-market, known as OkCupid, would help visibility and ultimately get me a date. I'm not bragging here, but I do okay where it comes to getting attention on my profile. Certainly, I don't know what is considered to be a “good” figure on OkCupid, so I'm just going to assume my number is ‘par-for-the-course.' That is, I'm average and my number without the boost is about 150 to 170 on a daily basis.

I'm guessing that a boost would double or quadruple that figure in a far shorter amount of time. The value here is that more attention may equal more interaction and more dates. That's a sound assumption, no?

Aaaand what happened next?

11-14-2013 3-08-47 PM

So I forked over two bucks for 15 minutes of getting boosted. There's also 10.99 and 5.99 options, for greater sustained boosts. So more stuff for more money and not anything additional… yawn.

Once my payment was received and processed OkCupid got to work and started showing me stats live of folks that had visited and “seen” my profile. Meaning that they saw my face in search results and, again, that potentially makes me a more clickable target.

OkBoost! Does it actually work?

I haven't the foggiest, I see numbers and I see shit. The number of folks that saw me ended up around 1646, or an increase of 900%… Again, yawn. I suppose if I was a little more dashing in my appearance that might have drawn more interest. As it stood, I got five visits, one like and one message. For two bucks is it worth it? I guess it depends. I could see this offering being more compelling, if you're just tired of sifting through profiles, or are just too damn lazy to search around online (in that case, what the fuck are you doing on an online dating site, putz?). In any case, I'm not sure that this is something I'm inclined to try again. The low cost to try it is, by itself, compelling; so I imagine OkC makes a few pennies on their boost feature

Is it desperate? Nah. I don't think so. I think it's one of those things that's easy to do and further put yourself out there, without any hassle. I'd recommend giving it a go and see how your results vary. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Have you guys tried OkCupid's profile booster? How did it work for you? Tell us below in the comments.

Author Profile

Alex is the founder and managing editor at the Urban Dater. Alex also runs: DigiSavvy, for which he is the co-founder and Principal. Alex has a lot on his mind. Will he ever get it right? If he does, he'll be sure to write.

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22 Comments

  1. The number of people that supposedly saw my profile was 6550. Out of that total only about 10 actually viewed my page and less than half sent a message. I personally do not believe the feature works as advertised…there was no real boost of activity my account & the numbers from a mathematical standpoint do not add up. I’m an attractive young successful female & my average daily views are higher than the “boost” I paid extra for. I would not recommend anyone use this feature. There are better ways to spend your $2 or $10 whichever u choose, like going out for coffee or a light brunch and actually boosting your own chances of meeting someone in person.

    1. @TXGirl – I’m an attractive young successful female – In YOUR opinion, but quite clearly if you were that attractive and young you would have guys beating down your door. Think about it!!!

    2. It’s always funny seeing women boasting about how they are “independent and successful” is not attractive for a lot of guys. Men and women seek different attributes in a mate.

  2. I suppose providing my profile name would have better supported my point: BrownSkin0917. The boost feature did not work for me as advertised..as stated my profile was moved to the top of over six thousand searches with only ten views and four messages. Sounds fishy.

    1. Maybe so, maybe not. At the end of the day, you’re in front of more eyes; theoretically that means more people could visit you or hit you up. I know that my stats are pretty low for what I saw, but seemed to work nonetheless.

  3. The visitor section says I have 11 visitors per week in average (I’m in a city with 120.000 people). One boost generated just one additional visitor with a medium percentage match. But for the messages, men don’t receive first messages anyway and so I’m not sure whether this feature is useful. It’s probably more useful in bigger cities because high percentage matches would not already know each other!

  4. Does it continue to work/finish the boost if you go offline during it, or does it suspend things, maybe? It always seems to give an extra 45 minutes free, for 15 paid– maybe because I live in a tiny village? So-so.

  5. If you’re unattractive or have cagey photos (like your main profile pic is your head turned to the side wearing sunglasses partially in shadow, etc.), or gross photos (like stuffing your face or your dog macking on you) nobody will bother clicking on you, boost or not. This goes for men too. Men think “women aren’t visual.” You are WRONG. Women like young, fit, attractive men. Boost all you want, thinking your witty profile will get you noticed. No. You need to be attractive with CLEAR photos that show it. Not blurry, far-away shots of your back standing on a cliff, or on your motorcycle wearing a helmet (sure sign dude is ugly and short). Figure it out.

    1. @Bree – you don’t know shit. And you certainly don’t speak for all the females out there. You sound like a bitter and twisted old bitch!!

  6. Normally I only get 1 visit every couple of days. Wasn’t expecting the boost to do much but I got 12 visits in 15 minutes, shown to 2671 people. It worked but it more made me think how poorly my profile normally must show up in standard searches.

  7. I was told that I was shown to 5,058 people and netted six visitors and three likes. That’s less than I normally get in an hour in terms of visitors and less than I normally get in a day in terms of likes.

    Other misgivings: I actually watched the scroll of the people I was allegedly being shown to. I can’t tell you how many duplicate pictures I saw, so unless tons of guys out there have multiple profiles and are using the same main pic in all of them, I wasn’t actually shown to as many users as they claim (unless those profile pics are just generic placeholders). Also, I saw some women’s photos go by, which means they’re showing me to people who don’t match what I’m looking for. So I don’t know — unless this is something that pays off over time, as in some of these users will see me later when they run searches, I don’t think it’s worth it.

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