Reviewed On: 5/22/2009

Price/Period: $24.99/30 days



GayCupid Members Area

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Reviewed by Cupids Reviews Staff

GayCupid.com has limited popularity, but there's probably a good reason for that. It's always a bad sign to me when certain areas of a website with a very specific market in mind have not been tailored to its surfers. It reeks of cookie-cutter design when there's a lack of attention to detail. Such is the case with this online dating site. You'll find that in many places it mentions both genders, despite its gay male membership.

The profile process has a few required fields. There are also sections where subscribers must write a text-based description of themselves and whom they're seeking. You can't choose bisexual or transgender as an option anywhere in the dropdown menus. That makes Gay Cupid less than sensitive to the inclusive aspect of the gay community, which may not be an issue for some, but it doesn't seem ideal to me.

"Even if you don't upgrade, you can have limited access to chatting if you add a photo to your profile."

Speaking of which, you have access to basic and advanced search options without paying. I will explain how local searches work on this site. You can use zip or postal codes because you don't supply that info when you create a profile. Instead, first you do a basic search based in country, state or province and then you scroll to the bottom of your results and filter them from a dropdown menu of select cities. Depending on what you search, you may or may not find the city you seek.

It's free to reply to emails or instant messages from premium subscribers. What might surprise you is that you can send 40 free emails each day without upgrading. If you write a paid member, you can customize the entire message. When writing to a free member, you can only use a prewritten subject line and the main body of text can only be read by the other member if he/she upgrades. Paid members can send up to 250 messages.

Paying members also have full access to chat rooms. Even if you don't upgrade, you can have limited access to chatting if you add a photo to your profile. You also need to receive some emails from other members interested in you. If you pay for the more expensive of two membership options, you'll enjoy voicemail and video mail. It also lets you post your own and watch video introductions from other members.

A community section has links of interest to gay and bisexual men. One link is supposed to include user-submitted content. I noticed it on my last visit to the site over a year ago, but even now, this area still states: "This section will launch soon." Gay Cupid isn't the most popular gay site, but it does offer quite a bit for free.

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User Rating 6/100

Comments by: marc
Not really a good site

Ratings
Overall	78/100
Popularity	2/20
Local Search	15/15
Last Login	15/15
Free Contact	15/15
Profiles	10/10
Cost	6/10
Trust Rank	5/5
Chat Board	5/5
Instant Mes.	5/5
Rating Criteria