Zoosk, which began as one of the first integrated Facebook apps back in 2007, aims to be one of the easier dating apps to start using. In fact, all you need to do is connect your Facebook or Google account before searching for love. The problem is, who wants to just give their personal info away in this day and age? More to the point, Zoosk also doesn’t force you to make especially deep profiles, which makes finding compatible matches difficult. New virtual dating features bring Zoosk up to modern standards, but technical issues prevent it from truly competing with the category’s top apps. If you’re really looking for love, we suggest heading over to our Editors’ Choice dating app, Match. Its monthly subscription price is more than you’ll pay with Zoosk, but the entire ecosystem better sets you up for meeting “the one.” If you’re a mobile user in a hurry, our other Editors’ Choice pick, Tinder, is the dating app for you.
Getting Started With Zoosk
Zoosk is available as both an Android app and iOS app, as well as via web browser. Whatever you platform pick, the app prompts you to sign up with Facebook or through your Google account, an option many rivals don’t offer. You can choose to not link either account, but that means you start with a bare-bones profile. After you tell Zoosk your age and who you’re looking for, the service prompts you to upload a photo and fill out a short self-assessment that includes body type, parental status (no specifics needed, just if you have kids or not), education, ethnicity, and the all-important smoker-status question.
After providing that surface-level information about yourself, you’re ready to browse. Other apps, such as eharmony, OkCupid, and Match, require a more extensive profile-building process to make sure you’ve revealed enough about yourself to snag a proper match. Our other Editors’ Choice, Tinder, is geared more toward the hookup scene and prioritizes photos over soul-searching profiles.
While you’re searching, Zoosk regularly prompts you to add more profile information and confirm your email. Once your email is confirmed, you’re allowed to select a display name and add a profession, income, and marital status (you’d think this would have been important enough to ask in the initial round of questions), along with some tappable interest tiles reminiscent of Facebook in the late 2000s. For example, the Media tile lets you call out your favorite bands, sports, books, and even people you like. If you want, you can also add essays about yourself, words about your perfect match, and your ideal date. This is a more free-form profile construction, as compared with the extensive personality quizzes that eharmony and OkCupid use to find your ideal matches.
Zoosk’s search function is at least quick and easy to understand. There’s no swiping left or any other way to discard profiles that don’t interested you. You just scroll past them one by one. Scroll down to see a new profile; if you find a potential match, you scroll right to see photos and profile information including location, age, physical characteristics, interests, and so on. Scroll back up if you think you bypassed someone you might be interested in. Most apps, including Tinder, make you upgrade or pay to see someone you’ve already rejected. The priority here is clearly on profile pictures and not on personal info, but for a quick, simple search function, it’s effective.
If you want that Tinder-esque experience, Zoosk also offers a separate Carousel search function that lets you tap a red X or a green check mark to indicate your feelings toward that member. Unlike Tinder, Zoosk doesn’t let you go any deeper into a user’s profile once you’ve made that choice. In addition, Zoosk wants you to pay extra (more on that in a minute) if you change your mind.
On a technical level, Zoosk’s interface felt a bit snappier compared to the first time we tested it. We didn’t encounter as many crashes, either. Unfortunately, the more we tested, the more we experienced lag when switching between parts of the app, making our search for fast love painfully slow.
Interface and Profiles
Zoosk’s interface is pretty basic. You mostly swipe through profile photos, and review the basic personality details required by the signup process. Want to learn more? There’s a prompt to read someone’s story, which includes their personal bio and details on their perfect match and ideal dates. If you want to express interest in a fellow member, you can tap a smiley face (indicating friendship) or a heart icon (indicating…more than friendship). You can also write your own message or send one of Zoosk’s pre-written icebreakers.
You’ll still encounter profiles that couldn’t be bothered to fill out a name, “A Zoosk Member,” but many profiles are clearly real. For extra credibility, you can verify your profile using a photo, your phone number, or Twitter. This slaps a green check mark on your profile to prove you’re legit. You also won’t encounter quite as many ads. Don’t get us wrong, you’ll still see more ads while swiping through profiles compared to other dating apps, but compared to past versions of Zoosk it’s much less aggressive.
Zoosk sends you a daily email that highlights a person who may be a good match, which takes some of the work out of searching. The potential dates seemed like they were good fits, which demonstrated that Zoosk is at least paying attention to your wants and needs. Speaking of which, Zoosk uses an algorithm called “Behavioral Matchmaking” that claims to learn more about what you’re looking for in a match. This very well could have been the reason why the email recommendations seemed on point.
Premium Extras
Compared to eharmony and Match, Zoosk’s premium subscriptions are reasonably priced. Unfortunately, they don’t give you many additional features, the descriptions are not abundantly clear about what you actually get, and the service still doesn’t surpass the similarly affordable OkCupid, which lets you contact members for free. A one-month Zoosk subscription costs $34.99, while a one-year subscription costs $149.99 per month. The paid plan grants you the freedom to send messages, unlock who’s viewed your profile, access the Great Dates virtual dating functionality, and use SmartPicks. The SmartPicks feature offers a more guided search of profiles that closely match profiles that you’ve liked in the past, and removes profiles with info that matches profiles you’ve previously declined.
There are plenty of other ways to spend money on Zoosk. For example, you can also sign up for a monthly $9.99 Instant Crush membership. The service is poorly explained, but Instant Crush gives you unlimited Carousel “redos,” pushes your profile into other users’ Carousels, and sorts your sent messages to the top of the receiver’s inbox with a big, yellow star.
Zoosk Coins are another option. These let you Boost your profile, and they cost $19.99 for 180 coins or $99.99 for a big bag of 1,800. Boost raises your profile’s visibility, a feature offered by many other dating services, but this one lets you vary the amount of Boost and can top out at 100 coins (meaning your $20 purchase quickly disappears). Coins can also be used to browse anonymously (30 coins for 30 minutes) if you feel like creeping on other users. You can also give coins to other members who’ve viewed your profile, which just feels dirty.
One free feature you get is called Super Send. It’s more or less dating app spam—you can pick a Zoosk-prepared message or write one yourself, then send it to “a large group of people in your area and age range.” At that point, “interested people respond and you can start chatting,” but it seems more like dating via a shotgun blast. You are limited to just one per 15-hour period, but it’s tough to imagine why anyone would respond to this.
Social Distancing With Zoosk
Zoosk’s best upgrade is its pivot to virtual dating, something that other apps adopted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can broadcast yourself to the Zoosk community or watch other trending live streams. The video feeds are not unlike what you’d find on Instagram Live or a video game live streaming service. Given Zoosk’s other technical issues, these streams are surprisingly smooth.
For something more intimate, premium users can also take advantage of the creative new Great Dates virtual dating feature. During your video date, you and your potential match will not only talk to each other, but also virtually explore romantic locales like Greece, Japan, and Italy from the comfort of your own home. Suggested questions help keep the conversation going.
For more virtual dating, turn elsewhere. Bumble, eharmony, Hinge, Match, POF, and Tinder all have built-in video chatting. Clover’s livestreaming communities surpass what you’ll find on Zoosk. Editors’ Choice pick Kippo gives gamers an entire social metaverse, with audio chat, for online romance.
Dating Basics
Zoosk’s interface isn’t as responsive as competing apps, and it serves too many ads as you search for the right person. Your profile only needs to be surface deep, and you’re allowed to browse potential matches after giving very little information about yourself. Plus, there are just too many ways to spend money. That said, Zoosk has an effective search tool, clever video dating features, and offers daily email match recommendations to try to keep you focused. However, if you’re really looking for love, for all time or just for the moment, we recommend Match, Kippo, and Tinder, our Editors’ Choice picks for dating apps.
