1. C-date review: in brief

America gets its own version of the C-date platform that has proved so popular across the pond. C-date solves a real problem, offering casual style online dating, but in a very restrained manner. No explicit material here (and perhaps this is why C-date is such a popular model with the ladies). Rather an adult only place for getting together without being crass about it.

We checked this new US offering to see if it was everything it has been cracked up to be.

2. C-date Snapshot Test

The C-date test rigorously checks all aspects of C-date. To acquire an overall overview of the product we set up a profile on the platform and used it like a standard user (man seeks woman). Next we browsed all the features on the site and kicked off some first communications.

We also checked C-date’s reputation, scouring through customer reviews and forums to get an idea how customers respond to the product.

First ideas about C-date

From the get go, several characteristics of the service are obvious. Firstly, that it is a website focused at the erotic and casual end of the market. Second, that the site has a stylish and up market feel and thirdly that it focuses on putting you in touch with people who are interested in the same sort of meet ups as you. The philosophy of the brand is summed up by the tagline of the brand ‘Erotic adventures with class’. This is a nice statement and shows an awareness of the fact that a lot of singles are out looking for both of these things.

Picture: Match list view - C-date

From the start of the registration process, one is asked to select the types of encounter that you are seeking. Is it ‘Meeting Singles’ or ‘Games’, for example. This idea goes right through the product and you are requested, in different ways, to declare a) what type of single you are and b) what type of adventure you are looking for.

Activity Test

To secure a view of how many members there are online, we carried out a activity assessment. Dating services come in countless assorted configurations, but always the most noteworthy problem for the customer is how many connections he or she has. How many individuals get in touch and how many people respond to messages. Our ‘reach’ ranking develops a score against this essential metric for every web site we look at. C-date did extremely comfortably in this test. There were a lot of members online and it looked like a good distribution of users across the land.

What the profiles look like on C-date

Overall the profiles looked intriguing and definitely encouraged further activity and messaging. The downside of C-date’s privacy arrangements are that many of the women choose not to make their profile pictures public. This means that you often have to judge a profile just by the words at first. When we messaged women on the site, one of the first things we did was to ask them to release their photos for us to view. About half of them were happy to do this. These women were quite pretty.

Are there many scammers or fake profiles on C-date?

People pretending to be other people is a problem for all dating services and often the test of a service is not whether they have fake profiles on their books, but how many. Our impression of C-date was very positive in this regard. C-date maintains a really robust routine of profile approval and mostly the profiles gave the impression of being genuine to us. 

3. C-date Features and Profiles

The focus of the C-date product is on customer preferences and discretion. There are lots of different opportunities to express what and who you are after and to choose who sees your information.

Registration with C-date is super simple. The process can be over in less than three minutes and all you really need is an email address and a nice looking picture of yourself. Once you’re signed up you can add further details and preferences in your profile section if you wish to. Either way, you’re free to browse through the women in your area – though to really communicate with them you will have to upgrade to full membership.

Photo Release

Photo release on C-date puts you in charge of your photos. As you load pictures onto your profile, you can say if you want the picture to be public or if you only what to show it to specific matches.

Picture: Picture Upload - C-date 

My Erotic Type

To help their customers express their desires and fantasies there is a section on the platform called 'My Erotic Type'. Here you can choose from an extensive array of images (bananas, flowers, handcuffs etc). Pick your top five to add to your profile show your matches what you like.

Picture: Erotic Galllery - C-date

Sexual Preferences

As C-date is a causal service, it does concentrate on the sexy part of dating and has a large part of the profile section where you can define exactly what you are looking for sexually. Whether you are into bondage or dressing up, you can state that in the Sexual Preferences section and expect to get matched with people interested in the same things.

 
Picture: Choosing your sexual preferences - C-date

4. User Friendliness C-date

Customer friendliness is a very significant issue with online dating sites. The extent to which sites address and solve the fears and problems their customers have, changes hugely between sites. How straightforward is it to get hold of customer support? How swiftly do they deal with customer enquiries. Does the firm run automatic renewal of subscriptions and how easy is it to cancel this?

Reaching the Customer Care service at C-date

The site has a good FAQ section that answers a lot of procedural questions well. The response times when you e-mail customer services are acceptable (48 hours). There doesn't seem to be any phone service available. However, this is pretty standard for dating services. Overall then a reasonable if not stella level of customer support is available on C-date.

Look and feel of C-date

C-date looks every bit as stylish as it claims to be. Its styling is a bit lounge like and the concept is all about creating a mildly erotic feeling rather than having lots of explicit material. It's also an easy site to use and understand and doesn't overload its product with lots of features or toys.

Picture: Registration pages view - C-date

The C-date App

There is no real C-date app, but despite this, good functionality on tablets and other mobile devices. The website automatically switches to a mobile friendly version if you use a mobile browser. This is well developed and makes use of the C-date site very manageable on even the smaller screens.

5. Is C-date worth the money?

Most dating services start with a - free of charge - introduction to their product, but to get full use of the site and communicate with other users you nearly always have to pay for a Premium Account. C-date is no exception and to talk with your contacts, you are going to have to pay a fee. We wouldn’t quibble with the need for this. Customers will always need to pay up if they want to use a useful service. Rather, we focus on how C-date scores on a ‘value for money’ calculation. Is it good value?

*these prices were current at the time of writing, but may change

We advise you choose the six month offer. It’s a significant initial price, but once that’s out of the way you’ll be able to relax and use the service well.