Zoosk Senior Dating Review

About Zoosk

Zoosk is an online dating service that claims they’re one of the top dating sites for the 50+ crowd. They are owned by Spark Networks, which owns other dating sites including EliteSingles, SilverSingles, Christian Mingle, and Jdate. So, you’re in good hands.

Though open to all ages, many visitors to their website are in the 55 to 64 year old age group according to SimilarWeb.1 We found many over-50 possibilities as we test drove the site, so that seems to be true.

We liked that Zoosk emphasizes their diversity. According to their website and promotional materials, they have 40 million singles on their site. Their dating service is available in more than 80 countries and in 25 languages. They also have lots of dating and relationship advice, tips, and articles.

We read one of their blog articles that claimed they have over 3 million active users, which is a good number.3 Their Facebook page says they have over 1 million authentic singles. Whatever the true number (which is almost impossible to verify on most dating sites), it doesn’t really matter. Because Zoosk is definitely wide-reaching and popular!

How Do You Use Zoosk?

We found Zoosk to be like other dating sites, but this one emphasizes matching singles from all over the world, so if you’re open to travel or living in Europe, this could be a great site for you.

You might want to use the Zoosk mobile app, as we found it very helpful. Its push notifications alert you on your phone about new messages and matches. With the app, you can also use “Super Send” to send the same message to multiple people at once. That can be helpful if you’re contacted by lots of admirers.

We noticed that the app also offers preselected icebreakers to help you start conversations. For those who are new to online dating and nervous about how to start a conversation, this can be a great feature. The app also makes it very convenient for connecting with others while you’re out and about and on the go​.

Having used multiple dating sites before, we found this site was not as easy to navigate as others like SilverSingles and OurTime. Nor does it appear as modern in appearance. But for seniors who may be getting their feet wet with dating again and not concerned about those things, it’s a great site.

Seniors will also appreciate that Zoosk has a blog called Zoosk Seniors, which is all about online dating for older adults and the benefits of using Zoosk.

Sign-Up Process

Using their freemium model to sign up, we started by picking our gender and who we were interested in meeting (choosing from men, women, and “both categories”). We added our birthday, email, and created a password.

Zoosk touts throughout the process that they have diverse employees and a global platform that is open to anyone, which we really liked and found to be different from other senior dating sites.

They also required our birth date and ZIP code to match us with singles in our area. You can also sign up through Facebook or Google. This is all pretty standard procedure for dating sites.

Entering our information to sign up for Zoosk

Setting Up Your Profile

For a free trial, it’s easy. You begin by choosing a username and adding one or more photos. You can then fill out more information about yourself under My Story, Ideal Date, and Perfect Match.

With the free option, you can test the waters and view lots of photos and profiles. We liked that you could also flirt by sending unlimited likes and smiles. After clicking on a person we were interested in, we did not see a way to send him a like or a smile as a trial member, though, so maybe we goofed somehow.

Finding Matches

It was fun to browse and get a feel for the site. We received a message notification, indicated by a red icon above Messages in the screenshot below. But when we clicked on Messages, Zoosk said, “You don’t have any messages that match this filter.”

Reviewing our messages on Zoosk

We didn’t realize that we couldn’t access messages because we weren’t paying members. So, remember that you can only see and answer messages from your prospects after you subscribe.

Like other dating sites, you can manually search for people based on certain criteria. We liked this, as SilverSingles and eHarmony don’t offer you an easy way to search; you pretty much only receive matches.

On Zoosk, you can filter preferences like age, religion, education, etc. If you’re testing out the site as an unpaid visitor on a trial basis, note that Advanced Search is locked. You’ll need a paid account to search by age and distance, which is kind of disappointing. See our screenshot below.

Searching for matches on Zoosk

Zoosk Features

Zoosk has a lot going for it. Once you take a personality test (it’s much shorter than the questionnaire for eHarmony), the system knows more about your compatible matches. Then it goes further with its features.

Zoosk’s big selling point is their technology used in SmartPicks. SmartPicks suggests potential matches. We really liked this feature as it used our behavioral data (which profiles we liked and disliked before), as well as our personality assessment results and other interactions we had on the site or app to customize its recommendations. But the best part? It improved over time as the algorithm learned from our choices.

Carousel was another feature we enjoyed that Zoosk created to compete with other popular swiping apps. During the free trial period, we’d view a photo with the person’s age listed. Then we could choose to click an X for don’t like, a checkmark for maybe, or a star for like. Then a new person would pop up. This is another way that Zoosk’s technology learns more about our preferences so the system can recommend more on-target matches.

Zoosk Pricing

Zoosk pricing offers seniors a very affordable way to start dating online. Both SilverSingles and OurTime cost more. If you’re interested in a membership, choose from a three-month membership or a six-month membership.

You can join for a minimum of three months, which breaks down to $13.32 per month or a total of $39.95. Or you can pay for six months at $10.83 per month for an up-front cost of $64.95.

In comparison, to join OurTime, you’ll pay around $15 per month for six months. For eHarmony, you’ll pay $19.90 for 24 months, and for SilverSingles, you’ll pay $24.95 for 12 months.

Like most dating sites, you’re incentivized to join for a longer period of time and then pay less per month. Also similar to other dating sites, your Zoosk subscription will automatically renew unless canceled beforehand.

Safety and Privacy

Zoosk offers photo and cell number verification, or the option to verify yourself through Facebook or X. This enables Zoosk to show that users are real and to protect them.

As seniors are often the victims of scams on dating sites, as criminals like to go after seniors’ retirement savings, it pays to be cautious about dating site scams. Many seniors might not realize this, but Zoosk, like most dating sites, does not screen or do background checks for the people on their site.

They do, however, give general safety tips about taking precautions with your personal information, meeting in safe places, and not giving money to strangers. Zoosk also allows you to block members and report suspicious behavior.

Zoosk Reviews and Testimonials

Zoosk has 2.4 stars on TrustPilot, which isn’t a terribly high rating.5 Many recent reviews complained about fake profiles. While these ratings are low and worth noting, remember that people are often more likely to leave negative reviews than positive ones.

Many reviewers complain of bots and fake profiles, but that is common nowadays on most dating sites. A consistent complaint is not being able to contact or hear back from anyone in customer service, especially about being erroneously charged. Other common challenges include that users are matched with people far away.

On the flip side, another reviewer said she found her man on Zoosk, they’re getting married, and they “have been together for over three years.” We liked that Zoosk also has a success stories section.

How to Cancel a Zoosk Subscription

Sometimes we are busy and want to take a break from dating. If you want to pause your subscription with Zoosk and not necessarily cancel, you can do that. OurTime, for comparison, doesn’t offer this feature. Your subscription will still be active and you won’t have to worry about losing everything when you pause. Your profile, connections, and message history will remain.

But your profile will be temporarily hidden and not shown to other Zoosk members. You won’t receive any communications from other Zoosk members during this period, but you’ll still get Zoosk messages regarding reactivating your account and subscription renewal.

To cancel your subscription, follow these steps from Zoosk below.

Canceling your subscription from your computer:

1. Log in to zoosk.com.
2. Click on “Settings” in the menu on the left side.
3. Select the menu “Subscription” on the right side to get to your subscription page.
4. Select “Cancel Subscription” on the bottom part of the page.
5. Click on “Unsubscribe” and select a cancellation reason.
6. Please remember to confirm your cancellation after selecting the reason. If the cancellation was successful, a confirmation screen will appear with the end date of your subscription.

Canceling your subscription from your smartphone:

1. Log in to zoosk.com.
2. Tap the 3 lines in the top left corner.
3. Tap the gear icon on the top to go to your “Settings.”
4. Tap “Subscription.”
5. At the bottom of the screen tap “Cancel Subscription” and follow the instructions.

For those who want to deactivate or remove their account from the Zoosk service after you cancel your subscription, Zoosk suggests you go to their article on deactivating or removing your account from Zoosk for instructions.

Zoosk vs. Other Dating Apps for Older Adults

Here’s a quick comparison of four popular dating sites you might consider joining. Note that Zoosk is a fairly straightforward site to use. Zoosk has some nice features, the ability to pause membership (which isn’t common), and is a good value for the price. It is one of the cheapest dating sites we’ve reviewed; however, it isn’t designed specifically for seniors.

To learn more about how Zoosk compares, check out our hands-on reviews below:

• SilverSingles review
• OurTime review
• eHarmony review

Final Thoughts on Zoosk

We liked Zoosk’s free trial and the ability to browse through members at no charge. We also appreciated that there wasn’t an extensive questionnaire we had to spend hours working on. (eHarmony is known for its extensive number of questions!)

We also liked the global emphasis and the very affordable price to join. Once we joined, it was easy to connect with people.

One big pet peeve was regarding responses. Most gave snippets as answers to questions. Great for those new to dating again, but maybe not ideal for users who want to know more about a prospect’s background and values. Or for those of us who are well into the dating life.

What do we mean by snippets? Typical answers were that someone liked going to the beach, their ideal date was at a nice restaurant, and their perfect match would enjoy playing golf. Perhaps there’s a happy medium between questions that elicit a few words and those that generate novel-length essay answers.

Ultimately, this isn’t a dating site solely for seniors, and it garnered low ratings and many complaints. But it trends as a popular site and seniors are certainly connecting on it. One of our team members even had a promising date after meeting someone on Zoosk!