Who are we?

For over 15 years, Dating Scout regularly tests well-known online dating websites and mobile apps, and the latest, up and coming online dating platforms. Read more about us and how it all began on this site.

Online-Dating for 15 years

You can read about what moved us to always move forward in our mission through time...

2021: Online-Dating for Dummies Book is published by Author of Datingscout.com

Chris Pleines, our dating expert on Dating Scout, wrote the book Online Dating for Dummies. It gives singles lots of help and tips how to navigate the Online-Dating jungle and where to have the highest chance to find the date you're looking for. Online Dating for Dummies is available on leading bookstores and online stores like Amazon.

Online Dating für Dummies

And now?

Coronavirus remains an ongoing burden. Despite lockdowns and contact restrictions, singles are still looking for a partner online. Thus, we continue to expand our services to other countries. We are now also helping readers to find love in Italy, France, Sweden, Brazil, and Finland. Many countries can rely on the recommendations of the dating experts from Dating Scout.com in the future, as we are still planning to expand.

2020: Coronavirus Pandemic and Online Dating Boom

The global Coronavirus pandemic presented us all with new challenges and was a burden on dating. In the first few months, travel and contact restrictions due to the fear of infection were also expressed in online dating. Singles preferred to stay safe at home and don’t go out on dates and meet new people.

Dating services around the world reacted quickly and provided risk-free dating alternatives such as video chats. Yet, after weeks of isolation, many no longer want to be alone and start looking for a partner online.

Online dating booms and we grow too. We now help singles in Denmark choose the right dating site and give tips for searching the right partner.

Since this year, we are the first and the only online dating comparison website that is able to show real-time data charts about each dating site’s number of new members and member activity in comparison to other dating portals that are within the same category.

2019: What do online daters look like worldwide?

We want to know and collect a unique data set of singles worldwide to analyze using artificial intelligence. The world's first study of this kind, it examines and explains various profile photo characteristics – from facial expressions, backgrounds, hobbies, accessories to dating intentions. The study is based on more than 24 million profile photos.

Of course, we don’t only collect data from the United States. In fact, we gathered data from a total of 16 countries. We constantly update our studies so that we do not miss any photo trends and tips.

Dating Scout is now launched and made available in Spain.

2017/2018: We continue to expand!

Our comparison portal continues to grow globally: We launch in the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

2016: Expansion and Facebook study

LMU Logo

Our dating site comparison portal is becoming increasingly popular. We are expanding into our neighboring countries Switzerland and Austria. The team is growing as we face new challenges.

Finally, in cooperation with the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, we publish our second large Facebook study with over 10,000 profiles and 4.2 million data records.

2015: DatingScout.com in Silicon Valley

We participate in the German Accelerator startup program of the German federal government, which gives German startups the opportunity to learn from the "really big" ones in California's Silicon Valley.

Here we study the American dating market on site over a period of several months. We learn a lot here, as a lot of dating sites are being developed in the USA and we are there right at the source.

2014: Expansion of DatingScout.com

Online dating can become a trap: confusing layouts, hidden costs, and well-organized scammers can quickly spoil your flirting fun. Our mission is to warn against these traps and to recommend secure dating sites – the best ones. Other dating reviews and comparison sites present information about online dating platforms that are either out of date, incomplete or hard to comprehend.

To counteract this, we expand our blog with helpful content – offering test and experience reports, and start to plan studies on the subject of online dating in order to provide the best answer to the simple question: “Which dating site best suits ME?"

2008: The Dating Guide

Our blog is attracting more and more visitors as we regularly testing new dating sites and apps. Our knowledge of online dating and the intents of dating site users become more and more well-founded. From this, we make our blog articles and reviews more and more diverse to accommodate what our visitors want to know.

2007: The Blog

Computer science student and single?
This is the rule in our circle of friends. The high demands of the course, combined with the blatant lack of women in the computer science course, hardly allows getting to know people outside the university for quick flirting.

Online dating seems like the perfect solution to us. However, the industry is still far from being as diverse as it will be 12 years later. The dating agencies that exude seriousness and promise real success are not priced for students. Besides, we are not willing to pay for something that we cannot count on having absolute success.

Still, we don't give up hope and soon have a brilliant idea about how we can use dating sites without losing money. We build our own blog where we present and compare the various online dating sites available in the market. In return, we receive free demo accounts.

Our Mission

Our mission is to help people all over the world navigate the trenches of online dating to find whatever type of relationship they're looking for. Our job is to make it easier for you to find a partner online.

We at Dating Scout see ourselves as independent and objective observers of the single market. We test online dating providers for their quality, efficiency and reliability - i.e. the price-performance ratio.

We don't just want to make the single market, which is growing every day, manageable for you, we also want to pass on very practical tips on how to maximize your personal success in online dating. Above all, we want to protect singles from losing a lot of money and time.

Our site is divided into four areas:

I. Test and Comparison of Dating Sites

We want to show you the different options for finding a partner online – the difference between personals, dating agencies, dating apps, and other types of platforms – ultimately, for you to find the best option. Each online dating provider offers different features and price tiers and has its own strengths and weaknesses. We dive deep into testing and reviewing each online dating platform so you can register with a clear conscience and get your money's worth.

online dating tips

II. Online Dating Tips

In the articles we publish, we explore the subjects of flirting, relationship, and everything about online dating. Our range touches on tips on creating a good profile, choosing the best photos to upload, and other tips to set up the tools for online dating success. We also write articles on how to behave in dating sites and the best ways to interact with other members – with the ultimate aim to bring you success in meeting new people and finding romance in online dating sites.

Click here for the dating tips!

III. Online Dating Studies and Press

  1. Dating Scout publishes studies about the American scope of online dating. We have a recent 2024 study analyzing over 22 million online dating profile pictures from 11 countries where Artificial Intelligence was used to get insights about online dating users behavior, self-portrayal, and sexual orientation. This is the first study of its kind – download it for free.
  2. Dating Scout has been a reliable source and contributor to famous press outlets such as Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, Bustle, and more. Check out our press influence here.

IV. User Experiences

In order to fulfill our mission, it is important to be more transparent in the online dating market, so your feedback is essential.

That's why you can rate every dating site with us and share important information with other readers. Or, you can also browse through the reviews of other users in a similar way such as when you visit TrustPilot. You can find the user experiences on every test review!

Of course, you can always contact us if you have any questions or if you want to suggest a new site to test.

Credits

In 2014, we participated in the start-up program German Accelerator in Silicon Valley, where we gained an in-depth view into the US and international online dating market.

All our studies are published in cooperation with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Lastly, we like to give credits to the press, like Women’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Bustle, UpJourney, etc. who has helped us gain a wider audience reach. We have international TV appearances (Good Morning Germany, BR Television, etc.) and had international radio guesting (The New Wave, Deutschlandfunk, etc) for interviews. The press knows us very well. As dating experts and with our study, we have already been referenced as a source over 300 times. You can view our press coverage here.

Dating Scout founder and Dating Expert, Chris Pleines, has also been invited to be a Key Speaker at one of the biggest Online Marketing Conferences in the world, iDate. You can view replay here.

Dedicated to Online Dating Success

The team at DatingScout.com is constantly expanding and is dedicated to providing you with the best possible information when looking for a partner and a clear overview of the jungle of online dating.

This website is supported by you, our dear readers. If you register with a dating site via some of our links, we will receive an affiliate commission. This is important in order to be able to offer free, extensive test reviews and to pay our editorial team. There are no additional costs for you if you choose to sign up using our links. With many sites found here, we do not receive any compensation at all. However, this does not affect our rating. 

Furthermore, we do not receive any commission if you choose to cancel your subscription to the dating app. Therefore we have no incentive to recommend something that does not satisfy you. ;-)

We wish you every success on the way to your great love :)

We are already there for you in these countries: