Zoosk Review

Thursday, January 23rd

2025 Dating Site Reviews

Zoosk

• Pricing from $10 to $29.95 per month
• 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month plans
• Free to join and meet
• Upgrades for extra likes
• Inclusive with some genders
• Link with Facebook for photos
• 4.2-star average from reviewers
• "A-” rating from the BBB

Zoosk is a dating site headquartered in Germany claiming to be the "#1 grossing online dating app” in the Apple App Store, though we're not sure this is accurate. Founded by Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh in 2007, the company was recently acquired by Spark Networks. Zoosk is based on behavioral matchmaking technology, with recommendations that include your listed preferences and how you've rated other matches on Zoosk in the past. In other words, this dating site learns from your activity.

Sign-up takes just 10 steps

When you first sign up for Zoosk, you'll be asked if you want to sign up through Facebook, Google, or through your email. You'll need to have your location services on to proceed, as Zoosk will automatically read your location from your device (desktop or mobile). Your first step will be to choose your gender and the gender of those you want to be matched with. Then, you'll be asked to upload a photo. Finally, you'll be run through the basic questions:

• Do you have kids?
• What's your highest level of education?
• What's your ethnicity?
• What's your height?
• What's your religion?
• Do you smoke?
• What kind of relationship are you looking for?

The entire sign-up process is just 10 steps and can be completed in a matter of minutes.

Basic filters, but nothing special

Zoosk allows you to match with men, women, or everyone depending on what you're looking for, but there aren't more detailed features of other sexual orientations or gender identities. You'll have access to filters for age, education, and religion for free, but additional filters are blocked by the paywall. There is also a "Carousel” mode which allows you to swipe through potential matches nearest to you, and Zoosk asks you to vote on if you like or don't like them (which informs Zoosk's algorithm).

Add your photos directly from Facebook

Zoosk makes it especially easy to upload photos, as you can import them directly from your Facebook profile. Whether you signed up with a Facebook account or not, you can easily link your Facebook and upload up to 6 photos to create your ideal profile with photos you already love. This is a great feature for those who agonize over which photos to use, since you can rely on your most-liked Facebook photos to do the work for you.

Pricing from $10 to $29.95 per month

Zoosk offers its upgraded features in 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month payment cycles. The premium membership includes access to unlimited messaging, the Hide and Seek feature (so you can conceal your profile if you want), and a boost to make your profile more visible. The prices include $29.95 for 1 month, $19.98 per month for 3 months, $13.35 for 6 months, and $10 per month for 12 months.

Not a lot of detail on its success rates

There are over 40 million members on Zoosk worldwide. Most of the members range from 25-34 with a pretty equal presence of men and women. However, we couldn't find any success stories for Zoosk more recent than 2020. Further, there aren't really any analytics on how often likes and matches turn into dates at Zoosk, so its effectiveness is a pretty big question mark.

Zoosk seems to be getting worse over time

The reviews for Zoosk are mixed, with an "A-” from the Better Business Bureau (from its parent company, Spark Networks) being its highest rating across the web. On third-party review sites, the average rating is just 2.2 stars out of 5, with customers complaining that the membership doesn't help with visibility and there are too many fake profiles on Zoosk. There are also concerning claims about customer service, where users are unable to get into accounts or get hacked and have no support from Zoosk itself. Now, on the mobile apps, Zoosk is doing a bit better with an average rating of 4.2 stars out of 5. On the Apple Store, customers praise the number of singles and note that while there are some bad ones in the bunch, the overall app experience was solid. However, like with the success stories which were out of date, we could only find one review from the last year, and it was just 1 star.

Not a standout dating site

With ratings falling the closer we get to the current year, and missing analytics on how successful Zoosk is, we feel like this dating site is a little behind the pack. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any standout features, and the prices are about average. With mixed reviews (despite an "A-” rating for its parent company), Zoosk earns a lower rating in our review since it just doesn't stand out compared to the rest of the dating sites on the market.