Zoosk (March 2023)

SmartPicks™

Zoosk sends e-mails with suggested profiles that they call ‘SmartPick™’ – although they even send these when you have barely filled in your own profile – so just how smart they can be is debatable. In the SmartPicks that we received, we couldn’t identify any basis for which the picks were made.

Unfortunately, the SmartPick system is useless to you if you don’t subscribe for a premium membership. Without one, you can’t even send a like to the users you are presented. Another marketing gimmick to push you to premium? Yes, you bet.

Carousel

Zoosk has a Carousel feature which shows you a large collection of photos of people that perhaps are in your area or in the age range you search for… and you should choose No, Maybe or Yes OR pay to send some Crushes to make you stand out. When you have turned the carousel up to 100% (we think 100 users) they promise to show you the person they think is perfect for you. The person shown was appealing for the test user… and you can send a like for free. However, to send a message you have to be premium.

The carousel was, when we tried this, full of profiles pictures that were either too perfect to be real (and/or people from far out of our region) or very unappealing users. Furthermore, you can only see one photo and the age of the user. How should we possibly know if they appeal to us?

Profile Completeness

Profile completeness is reported. You need to fill out most of the fields, a few prompts and upload at least 3 photos to get 100% completion. Many matching features seem not to work without completing the profile to 100%. This is a good feature to force users into giving more detail. Unfortunately, messages are not able to be sent unless you have a premium subscription or buy expensive message credits.

Photo Rejection – Photo Used on All Other Apps

The photos we use on our test profiles are very good and are used on all apps without any problems at all. But not Zoosk. Several photos were removed and an e-mail sent stating the photos were not within guidelines. One photo had been previously approved and was removed two weeks later only when another new photo was added.

We should mention at this point… our testing profiles are real daters – they all really want to meet someone and are just kind enough to give us feedback on the apps.

The photo rejection e-mail states:

Your photo was removed for not following Zoosk’s photo guidelines. To help your new photo go live…

• Make sure it’s clear

• Be alone in your photo

• Don’t include nudity

Obviously, our photos all meet these criteria. Many of the photos shown to us in Carousel did not.

Search

Now, Zoosk has a section and feature that they call ‘Search’. However, it is not a proper search feature at all, rather you are able to filter the card stack here. But that is all. A proper search feature on a dating site is one where you can enter criteria for your search and be presented with a large result set of all matching profiles.

Zoosk search is just card stack filtering. This is why we have not included ‘search’ as an app feature.

Features

Profile Creation

Zoosk (March 2023) does not feature comprehensive profiles - that is, you are quite limited in what information you can include or filter. This makes matching a lot more hit-and-miss and means you have to get some small talk out of the way with new matches. This might have been avoided if the profiles were more comprehensive.

Profiles at Zoosk (March 2023) include tags and prompts. Tags give you the chance to show a few of your interests or a little about your lifestyle - or learn those of other daters. Prompts can be a helpful starter to get you writing a little about yourself... and of course to find out more about your potential matches.

Searching / Filtering

On Zoosk (March 2023), - depending on your membership type - you are to search through and filter profiles based on your own criteria. This is great because it means you are not limited to just seeing random profiles that you really may not be interested in anyway. The first filter you will likely use is the location filter. Even as a free user, you are able to edit the location that you want to match in.

Once you have found the profiles you are interested in, you are able to view the photos of those members as a free user.

Sending / Receiving Likes

Zoosk (March 2023) operates with the familiar dating app system where you match with other users when you have both given each other a like.Sending likes is free. If you are a premium member, you can see who has liked you.

You can pay to buy packs of super-likes and use them to stand out from the crowd. Boosts bring your profile to the front of the pack for a short time. These are paid for separate from a subscription. Premium members can undo/rewind their like if they accidentally like someone unintentionally or change their mind.

Matching Aides

Zoosk (March 2023) doesn't include any features to aide in matching, such as: Curated Matches, Compatibility Quizzes/Scores or a Question & Answer system.

Messaging

In Zoosk (March 2023), you need to have a premium subscription to send messages and read messages. At OnlineDatingHQ, we don't normally recommend using apps that have this limitation because they are often filled with profiles that manipulate you into paying to read messages - which turn out to be fake users anyway. There are exceptions to this rule but be wary and read some reviews here or elsewhere online first.
Read receipts can be purchased separately.