Free online dating site OkCupid has launched a feature that lets users who pay it “promote” themselves across the site. OkCupid has otherwise largely been as democratic as it is possible for a dating site to be — it’s free to use (though users can become “A-list” members, able to view the people who’ve rated their profiles and view the site without ads, for a fee), and anyone can join. Users are currently matched using OkCupid’s algorithm, which draws from personality type, interests, demographics, and the site’s extensive Q&A.
The promotion feature, says OkCupid co-founder and president Christian Rudder, won’t change that. “The idea is that we’re showing you to the same people we would over time, but in a very condensed way,” Rudder told BuzzFeed. “We still only show you to good matches (high match percentage, nearby) — not just randoms.” What the $2 fee gets you, then, is just 10 minutes of promotion, meaning that, for 10 minutes, promoted users’ profiles are pushed to the front of the queue in all areas of the site: QuickMatch, Locals, “People You Might Like,” etc. In tests of the feature, OkCupid found that those 10 minutes give users 30 times more exposure than their profiles would have otherwise gotten in the same amount of time.
