After remaining free since it’s inception, PlentyofFish has officially launched the Serious Member feature. I was able to add my badge, which you can see in the screenshot below. It’s gigantic, like the sun.
I don’t hold open doors for women, I kick puppies and regularly taunt old ladies, but I’m a serious member now. How will this affect my interaction with women on PlentyofFish?
Here’s the pitch page, which can be difficult to locate.
Stand out in searches and when you send emails.
If you want others to know you are serious and you’ve put real effort into finding someone then you should get your serious member profile upgrade. Take a look at some of the screen shots below. Think about it, do you take people more seriously if they have paid for something? If you got 50 emails from random people and 2 of them were from serious members, which ones would you be more excited about? If you look at 20 people coming up in a search result and one of the profiles is in gold which profile would you look at first? This upgrade is about signaling intent and giving you the ability to stand out from 10’s of millions of other users. If you are serious about finding someone you can Become a Serious Member!
Men can expect women making first contact 9x more than before! (This one is shocking)
Women can expect a 40% increase in first contacts.
Most importantly people who message you, know that you are serious. You’ll get far higher quality emails.
Markus is coming around to what I’ve said all along. People who pay for online dating are generally considered more serious. This is not to say that trust and reputation tools can’t be integrated with free dating sites and social networks to create an authentic sense of “seriousness”, but it’s been the prevailing logic of paid dating for years. That and being able to offer real customer service.
Pricing:
1 year @ $5.95/month ($71.40)
6 months @ $7.80/month ($46.80)
3 months @ $9.80/month ($29.40)
$10/month seems too high, this will hurt adoption rates. It will be interesting to see which option most people purchase. Kudos to Markus for not doing auto re-billing, I didn’t expect that.
Here’s a thought, PlentyofFish wants to sell. Valuation on a free dating site is much more subjective than a paid dating site. PlentyofFish will have billing information on all serious members. This could drive up the valuation of the site.
Previously I wrote PlentyOfFish Starts Charging Premium Membership Fees. Paying for a badge next to your photo is not exactly a premium membership fee, consider it a sign of things to come.
Full details at the PlentyofFish Serious Member page.
