La-Date Dating Review: Registration, Communication, Prices
La-Date is a new online dating website, but the thing is, it now has over 200,000 monthly visits, and that’s more than many old platforms have. That seemed pretty interesting, so our team decided to join the site and buy some credits to find out if it’s worth the money. We analyze all of the benefits and drawbacks, as well as the pricing policy, in our La-Date review.
La-Date overview
| 👍 Things we liked | 👎 Things we didn’t like |
| Fast and free registration | You can’t watch profile videos for free |
| User-friendly modern site | There’s no video chat |
| You don’t have to pay immediately after you sign up | We’ve run out of bonus credits pretty soon |
| Search works fast enough | |
| We couldn’t find any fake accounts with stolen photos |
Who is the La-Date dating site for?
- Singles who consider the idea of finding a partner abroad
- Men who don’t know what type of a relationship is the best for them and want to communicate with multiple women
- Single people who have difficulty finding a partner in real life
La-Date costs
| Price | Credits |
| $2.99 | 20 credits (only for new customers, the price is $9.99 for regular members) |
| $19.99 | 50 credits |
| $44.99 | 125 credits |
| $69.99 | 250 credits |
| $149.99 | 750 credits |
Top alternative dating sites in other regions
| Site | Region | Sign up |
| EasternHoneys | best website in Asian region | Free |
| JollyRomance | best website in European region | Free |
| UkraineBride4you | best website in Slavic region | Free |
Getting started: Creating an account on La-Date.com
The name of the site refers to Latin dating as it was designed for Latin women and men who want to date them, and as we’ve noted before. After doing some research on La-Date and its niche, we moved on to signing up for the site. Well, that was a regular procedure (there were no red flags like asking to provide your payment details when creating an account), but there were a few surprising things—for example, we could skip literally any stage except for providing basic information like email address. We decided not to do so, though, as we needed to use our profile to communicate with members as a real user seeking new relationships. That’s why we did the following:
- Filled in the registration form on the site (provided a valid email, entered a username, indicated gender and date of birth)
- Answered some questions about ourselves, our online dating experience, hobbies, and interests
- Then we were offered to share our preferences and answer a few questions about our ideal partner (we answered all of them to see if the site suggests really good matches)
- Uploaded one profile photo (we could skip that, too)
After that, we saw some matches we could like but couldn’t view the profiles (which was pretty weird) and got access to the site with all the features. It took about 7 minutes, some questions seemed interesting, some seemed useless, but we got our new profile pretty easily, and most importantly, for free.
Tips on how to create a good profile on La-Date
- Only basic info like age, education, and occupation will be displayed in your profile, so don’t skip such questions.
- Other questions are rather for fun—we can assume the system uses it just to collect statistics.
Upload a photo, at least one—it really makes the profile work better and attracts the interest of other users.
Free & premium features
On La-Date, there are two sets of features: features available to all members and premium tools that can be used only by paying members. We used the site as a free member and then upgraded our account to find out if La-Date really makes a good value for money, and here’s what our experience has shown.
Free features
Our free membership plan granted access to the following features:
- Search and People. Both are just the types of search—advanced filters let us find someone who met specific criteria (from age to education and habits) while the People feature was just a fun way to discover random matches.
- Viewing profiles. We looked through hundreds of profiles of female users not only to find matches but also to analyze the overall quality of accounts. If this was a premium feature, we’d probably spend hundreds of dollars on it. Fortunately, it was free, and we could access all the information and files except for private pics and profile videos (a user can view private photos only after contacting a member, and watching videos is a premium feature).
- Following others as if it was a basic version of Instagram. All members of the La-Date community can also view posts on the Newsfeed for free and follow the users they like to see new photos they publish. We followed a few members, and though people don’t post something as often as on Instagram, it’s still a fun feature for a dating website.
- Using free communication tools. In fact, sending winks was the only way to contact others without paying. We could also like profiles and add them to Favorites. Winks worked well, but not all female members contacted them after getting notified that we were interested in further conversation.
- Support. There’s no live chat on La-Date, at least for now. Members can only send emails to [email protected] and describe the issue. We tested this service, and well, though we had to wait for the responses for 5+ hours (maybe it’s because of different time zones), we still received them.
Premium features and how much do they cost?
So, we couldn’t buy a premium plan and just enjoy unlimited messaging—that’s not how La-Date works. Members can control their spending instead by buying credits (there are a few packages available) and paying for different premium features. Prices are different—the more credits you buy, the less a credit cost, so we decided to buy the most expensive (and at the same time the cheapest) package—750 credits for $149,99, $0,2 per credit, respectively. We spent them all during a month (we contacted a lot of women, though), and here are the features we’ve been using more or less often:
- Live text chat—10 credits ($2) for 5 minutes. This was definitely our favorite tool just because 1) we mostly contacted women who were online 2) we prefer to write and read tons of short messages instead of writing/reading long letters 3) it was more cost-effective for us. The chat itself works like a regular messenger—you can not only type your message but also send stickers and various media files (most ladies sent us photos (regular ones, no explicit content) when we asked for them, by the way).
- Mails (long emails, 3,000 characters max)—30 credits ($6) per Mail. Members who, unlike us, prefer to write and read long letters instead of typing 10 messages per minute, can use this feature and test the service for a lower price—our first Mail cost us $4 instead of $6.
- Watching profile videos—50 credits ($10) per video. This feature is pretty expensive considering it’s not a video chat, it’s just a profile introductory video that lasts a few minutes. Still, we’ve watched a few of them and decided that’s probably a feature for men who want to make sure a woman is real (all ladies we’ve checked looked exactly like their pictures, some were just smiling, and some told us a bit about themselves).
- International gift delivery—prices vary and start from about $80 for an item. Again, this is rather a feature for those who’ve already met someone special on the site and want to surprise her with a cute gift. We didn’t test it but asked the support about how it actually works. Your gift (flowers, device, food basket, whatever) will be delivered pretty fast right to a woman’s doorstep (we suppose the company has a supplier in Eastern Europe).
- Contact and real meeting requests. Contact requests are free, but a member can’t send them without spending 3000 credits on interaction with one member. After that, if a member accepts the request, these users will be able to chat for free. Of course, we didn’t reach this limit—our goal was to contact a lot of different women. As for meeting requests, they cost 625 credits (about $125) and can be useful only for those who’ve already met someone special and are ready to meet this person in real life.
So, what we learned from using the La-Date dating website is that you should spend your credits wisely—otherwise, it can turn into a high-end platform to find a Latin girlfriend. Still, we could develop a strategy (as we’ve noted, we made messaging our main communication tool) that probably saved hundreds of dollars for us and made a few very attractive ladies (we’ll talk about our experience on the site in more detail below).
How to look for matches on La-Date?
We tested all types of search on La-Date:
- Basic search with only two filters—age and online status
- Extended search with plenty of filters including age, education, marital status, habits, and more
- People—swiping feature that lets you find random matches
How good is each of them? For us, the People feature was the best one just because we weren’t looking for someone who’d meet our specific criteria. Still, we tested advanced and basic search, too, and the basic version works pretty much like a swiping feature—after all, there are only two features. An advanced search is a great tool—the results were more than satisfying as we could find pretty many people who met all our criteria. The only complaint we had was that we couldn’t look for women by appearance, for example, only blondes or ladies without tattoos, etc.
Profiles of female users
Speaking of attractive female members, most of them share a lot of information, and most importantly, upload high-quality pictures. Most profiles we viewed (and as we’ve said, we viewed hundreds of them) contained the following:
- A profile photo and all other public pictures of a user on the left of the page.
- Chat window right under the profile picture and some basic details like age and location (basically, that means that you can contact someone without knowing much about this person, but we preferred to learn more about members just because it saves time and money).
- Basic information like education, children, marital status.
- The About Me section with self-description written by women (this section is actually what makes profiles unique, so we paid special attention to it.)
The good news is also that we saw immediately if the profile is validated (profiles have those validated badges).
How to interact with members on La-Date?
So, there are winks, likes, and favorites, but live chat and Mails are still the main communication tools on this website.
- Chat is available almost on any page of the site, whether on search results, in a personal profile, or when using the People feature.
- As we’ve noted, we could send stickers, media files, and emoji using chat (note that sending a media file is not free—it costs 10 credits per picture.)
- As for the Mails, they can be sent only after viewing a member’s profile (there is a Chat/Mails section under the photos and basic details). Members can also go to Mail after clicking the Messages link on the Main Menu at the top of the homepage.
- As for the winks, members can send them only after viewing a profile (in the Chat window) or when using the People feature.
What makes La-Date stand out
We’ve been using and testing many dating sites, and here’s what was special about La-Date:
- Following members and the Newsfeed. We could follow everyone who seemed attractive to us even without viewing a profile, just when using the People feature. Women post photos of their pets, their pictures, and that can really help one learn more about the real life of a woman he likes.
- Contact requests. The very fact that you can stop paying for communication at a certain stage is inspiring—a man can be sure that if he meets someone special, he’ll be able to have those long conversations with her for free.
- Real meeting request. La-Date is a dating platform created for people with different relationship goals. But if one finds a soulmate, he can take a relationship to a new level and finally meet his perfect match in real life.
Our user experience
We talked to a lot of women, most of whom were from Colombia. Testing different communication features was one of our priorities, but as we’ve mentioned, live chat was definitely our favorite tool, so we chose ladies who often were online. Who were they? Well, all the women were different—each had her own stories, goals, and interests, and to be honest, we don’t remember them all (even though most were very attractive). We were inspired by the story of a woman from Venezuela who remained so funny and positive despite all the difficulty she experienced in her home country, a mature lady from Leticia, Colombia, who emphasized that she wasn’t looking for a nice guy (not a benefactor) and hated it when men were trying to buy her (yes, that’s not what most men expect from ladies on dating sites).Another pretty young lady from Colombia said she was dreaming of entering the university in the United States and staying in this country to meet someone special and build a career. Overall, the experience was more than satisfying—what we know for sure that La-Date is not one of the online dating sites where messages are auto-generated, but we also must emphasize that it’s also not one of the sites where people have similar goals, so asking a woman what exactly she’s looking for is necessary to find out whether you should pay for further conversations with her or not.
The verdict on La-Date—Our experts’ opinions
“La-Date.com is one of the regional sites that doesn’t promise you to find a soulmate—it just provides dating services and lets people interact in plenty of different ways. The only serious drawback is that video chat is not on the list, at least for now, but as for the rest of the features, they all work pretty well.”—Sarah Wright.
“I always appreciate it when a dating site tries to be something more than just a dating site. La-Date also works as a social media platform, and that’s one of the things that makes it stand out.”—Paul Bloom.
How to use La-Date properly—Tips & recommendations
We spent over a month on the La-Date website, and here are the tips we wish we could give ourselves before starting using the site:
- There are welcome complimentary bonuses on La-Date, and the best way to spend them is to chat with someone online or send 2 Mails.
- Follow all women you like and view their posts regularly—that’s how you can learn more about the member without starting a conversation (and therefore, without paying) and make sure that you’d really like to spend some real money on talking with her.
- Women on La-Date do read men’s bios pretty carefully, so make some effort to make your profile look good—add some photos and mention your relationship goals. Again, that just saves time and money both for you and female members.
