• Members:4.5 million Australian users
  • User base:Men and women from 18-55+ split into around 40% women, 60% men
  • Best for:Straight male & female singles looking for authentic relationships
  • Recommended age:Majority of members are 25-34 but caters for all ages

For Australian singles seeking real-life romance, take a look at our latest POF appraisal for the latest on what’s hot! New features, real-life dating app experiences, and everything you need to get your next dating journey off to a banging start.

What Is POF?

Pros / Cons
  • The highly active and engaged user base
  • Specific about what members are seeking
  • Immediate responses to messages
  • Free sign-up process
  • Sending and receiving messages is free
  • Dating profiles are detailed
  • User-friendly interface
  • Male members make up 20% more of the user base than females
  • Automatic location tracking on the app
  • It takes around 10 minutes to register including the personality questions
  • Presence of some fake users
  • Signs you out if you are inactive for a while
  • Has quite a few ads
  • Advanced features require an upgraded subscription

Membership Base

While POF caters to singles of all ages, you’ll find the majority of Aussie singles using the dating site between 25-34, so of the large user base, you may still find limited compatible matches if you fall outside of that age range.

There are far more men on the site than women, so that bodes well if you are looking for a guy, but not so much vice versa!

Plenty of Fish is aimed at straight relationships, so while it doesn’t exclude gay singles, you’ll likely be better off with more widely inclusive dating sites if you are looking for anything other than a straight match, or a more casual relationship without the strings.

Profiles

Our Plenty of Fish review found that dating profiles are reasonably detailed, although you might only be able to see a minimal amount of information unless you pay for an upgrade.

Some dating profiles we came across consist almost solely of photos, which made us doubt that the site is as suitable for users to have genuine relationships as it claims to be.

The site continues to grow in membership numbers, although these tend to be very much in the younger age range, making it less accessible to other daters. We found that sign up questions quite simple and easy to answer, although there are about 20 questions altogether, so it’s wise to set aside some time to work through them all.

Search Features on Plenty of Fish

When conducting our POF dating review, we wanted to check out the search features. The POF dating site search founded promising, and you can filter by several different criteria.

However, it feels like your search results are limited, and the only real way to find a decent number of compatible dating matches is to upgrade to use an upgrade service like the Ultra Match or matchmaking features.

Messaging

POF Australia allows you to send messaging for free – these look a bit like text messages, so it isn’t the most engaging of formats. There aren’t any limits on the number of messages you can send, but men are prohibited from sending picture messages!

For some reason, that means only female users are permitted to share photos, and even then can only do so through private messaging. You’ll need to watch out using the POF messaging function, as it automatically bans copied and pasted images, and anything that it deems inappropriate.

POF Pricing

If you’re wondering is Plenty Of Fish free – the answer is, sort of! There are features and functions you can use on a free account. However, the reality is that to access the better dating services, and have a realistic chance of meeting someone, you will have to pay for the upgrade.

Free vs Premium

Free services:

  • Registering and creating your account
  • Sending messages
  • Viewing limited profiles
  • Seeing who is online
  • Viewing nearby users
  • Downloading the dating app

Premium services:

  • Being top of the Meet Me feature
  • Viewing full profiles of users
  • Seeing whether your messages have been viewed
  • Removing ads
  • Seeing who has viewed your account
  • Ranking higher on search results
  • Sending up to three gifts per day

With so many dating users in Australia, it is hard to get noticed, and you find that so many people are paying to feature first in the searches that you won’t stand much of a chance using a free account.

POF App

The POF app works well, and although it is free to download, you’ll find the same as with the website; you have access to limited features unless you go premium.

You’ll find the same functionality on the app as on the website, and it is available to download through the App Store, Google Store and Windows Store.

The only downside to the app is that it is a little more basic than the desktop version, so it is easier to use the site through the mobile web page, rather than using the app and having to login later on a desktop to finish doing something.

Verdict

We had high hopes for our POF review, but it seems that given the fast growth of the app, the free services are far less attractive than they are made out to be. When browsing and looking through accounts, the constant pop up ads and prompts to upgrade do quickly got annoying!

There is a large user base, but if you don’t choose to upgrade, you don’t have much opportunity to be noticed, so the site is only really worth a go if you have the money to spend on a reasonably high subscription cost.