What is the real response rate for an initial email on online dating?

[bobsmith76]

I read somewhere that the response rate for an initial email on online dating was 33% I have some reason for believing that but I have other reasons for not believing that. The reason why I do believe this is because if I were a woman, I would realize that you just can't determine if you strike a good rapport with someone by an online profile so you just have to go out and meet. Unfortunately, I don't think many woman think that way. The reason why I don't believe this is because I've heard a lot of women say that roughly 90% of the emails they get are flat-out ridiculous. And although I don't get many emails (probably 1 or 2 a month if I log in a lot) 95% of the emails I get are from incompatible women.

 

I've been doing online dating since 1997 and to me the response rate has been 5% for those with whom I have one thing in common and 25% for those with whom I have a lot in common but I only find someone with whom I have a lot in common after looking through 200 profiles. And the ratio of an initial email resulting in a date is between 1% and 2%. Sad but true. I should also add that I am one of the few that personalizes every initial email.

 

I am afraid I'm just going to have to face the bitter truth that real response rate is 5% and I'm going to have to suck it up and write out all those tedious emails.

[bobsmith76]

Ok, I found this chart and it does say that response rate from women is 4%

 

Likelihood Of Getting A Response In Online Dating: Men Vs. Women - Business Insider

 

Oddly enough, women respond better to younger men.

[joseb]

However, my personal experiences with OLD lead me to conclude that it is mostly useless unless you are just looking for a string of undateable women for something to do on a Saturday night.

 

Yeah,thats not far from the truth in my experience.

 

Im sticking to real life, with tinder as a background amusement, and ditching the traditional OLD sites.

[edgygirl]

Yes I do think I can determine rapport from someone's online profile, and I don't think the more people I meet the more chances I have of finding someone compatible. I am picky, because of experience.

 

I am extremely detailed in my profile and a lot of messages I get are from people who did read my profile and saw compatibility. Still I probably only respond to about 5% of messages. But it's not about numbers of course. It consists of 3 basic things:

 

1. Guy writing a personalized/witty message explaining why he thinks we would be compatible and catching my attention/brain

2. I like the things he says in his profile and we seem compatible

3. We have similar goals in life

 

It's hard to get the 3 things above in the same guy. Hence my 5% response rate.

 

A lot of guys write thoughtful messages but I can tell we won't be compatible so it's not really worth for me responding :/ I feel bad but it's just hard, time-wise, to do that.

[Philosopher]

I once read on OkCupid's blog that the average reply rate for males messaging females was 27%. I can't remember what the reply rate for females messaging males was, but it was definitely higher. At the time I thought these figures where a bit high, however this was a few years ago, so maybe things have changed now.

 

I have tried both OkCupid and Match for online dating. I estimate my reply rate is about 20% to 25% on OkCupid and 10% to 15% on Match. A lot of the replies I get on OkCupid however are of the sort that clearly are not going to lead anywhere. For example quite a few women would reply with very short answers in which they would not ask any questions or answer the questions I had asked. On Match on the other hand if they replied it was usually obvious they wanted to continue the conversation further. I suspect this is because as OkCupid is free a lot of people are there just for a bit of fun and have little intention of meeting people off the site, while on Match the fact you have to pay means most are pretty serious about dating.

 

Of these replies I get a date out of it about 25% of the time on OkCupid and 40% of the time on Match. Therefore in my experience the overall initial message to date ratio is similar on both OkCupid and Match.

 

I have been doing online dating for a while now so I know what sort of things to say in a message and what sort of women to message to give me the best chance of a reply, so I doubt I can get my response rates much higher.

[Toodaloo]

Ok, I found this chart and it does say that response rate from women is 4%

 

Likelihood Of Getting A Response In Online Dating: Men Vs. Women - Business Insider

 

Oddly enough, women respond better to younger men.

 

Here are some of my observations from my time on OLD and listening to mens stories and my own experiences.

 

1. Many of the people who are on OLD really shouldn't be. They are hurting, fresh out of relationships and looking for someone else to make them "happy". This goes for both men and women.

2. Many of the women are derogatory, nasty or just plain weird. They have no intention of meeting up with men as they have read 101 stories about how men on line do terrible things to you and they want to protect themselves.

3. Many of the men just want fresh boob pictures or a texting buddy. They have been bitten too many times and are fed up with it. They like the ego boost of women being attracted to them but baulk at the idea of actually having real life sex and real life relationships...

4. In amongst all of that somewhere are the odd gems. The ones who are looking and who are serious but finding them before they get jaded is a mission.

5. People forget that its is another person on the end of that message and treat others as disposable, thats when you get the fade outs, the bitterness and anger. Those who take regular breaks and don't log on all that often are probably the most sane.

 

As for younger men. I think I have mentioned it before, I have found that the younger men are far less likely to be as bitter, hurt and jaded. They are far less likely to have so much baggage and are far more likely to remember to treat you with little things like dignity and respect. I actually prefer to date older as a preference but I know that a younger man is probably going to make me much happier in the long run... Also older men I have found tend to be fresh out of relationships, convinced that time is running out and living with their Mum. Many of them are not even divorced yet and have only been single for 6 months... Not a good bet if you want something lasting and serious. Fine if you just want a quick lay.

 

Responses. I do occasionally send out messages. I stick with reading the profiles and make an effort. In general I do get responses. There are a few who don't respond. The messages I respond to are the ones that are crafted around my profile or have something quirky and interesting about them. The ones I do not respond to are the ones where the person does not have much if anything in their profile, where they have clearly not bothered to read my profile at all and are just going by my pictures or the classic "Hey" or "Hi", or they make it clear they are still married and/ or just after sex.

 

Reasons I do not respond

1. Too far away

2. Too young or too old

3. Opening message was awful

4. Very bad profile

5. I just don't fancy him or can't see any way in which we would get on

 

I know men who get fixated on pictures of women and think that she must be the most lovely thing because she looks good in make up. These women can have sod all in their profile and be boring dull women. I know women who do the same.

 

Personally most men I have met look better in real life than their pictures so I tend to look to get an idea of who I am meeting but go with an open mind.

 

The ones who are serious put effort into both messages and profile.

[Siquijor]

Online dating for 18 years and now you've resorted to number crunching. OLD isn't for you, I reckon, OP.

 

 

2+2=4

[joseb]

I am afraid I'm just going to have to face the bitter truth that real response rate is 5% and I'm going to have to suck it up and write out all those tedious emails.

 

Or you could just focus on meeting people in real life.

[Toodaloo]

Why not do both?

 

Why not put effort into meeting people both on line and off line? Doubles your chances???

[madjac74]

My god if you are banking your dating on OLD email success rate then you really have no chance. I can only laugh about what you will discuss if you actually get a date.

 

"What part of my email best lured you in?"

[d0nnivain]

I think there are too many variables -- age, location, looks, etc & even if there is an "average", YMMV.

 

 

When I was on OLD -- which granted was 10 years ago & only for 90 days -- I was apparently an anomaly because if I got an email, I responded to it even to say No Thank You. Here on LS I was told that was mean of me because when a guy saw my response in his box, I got his hopes up & to read my decline hurt even more. Who knew? I was trying to be nice & thought a clear response was better than silence apparently I was wrong.

 

 

One of the reasons I didn't care for OLD was I felt like I experienced too much rejection, more so then I appreciated IRL. I was on EH & would get 3-5 notifications per day telling me I had a "match" but maybe only about 25% of those men resulted even in a communication. In the 3 months I ended up meeting 3 men; all were unsuitable & not people I would have agreed to a 1 on 1 with if I had met them IRL.

 

 

bobsmith76, I agree with the person who said since you have been on OLD since 1997 perhaps you do need to consider another method of meeting people because OLD doesn't seem to be working for you.

[joseb]

Why not do both?

 

Why not put effort into meeting people both on line and off line? Doubles your chances???

 

Yeah he could do that, it just sounded like the op was getting disillusioned.

 

Personally, I found using OLD gave me an unrealistically negative view about how I am perceived by women, and kind of damaged my confidence and enthusaim a bit.

It also made it seem that there were few if any attractive women available. Where's nothing could be further from the truth if you go out and look.

[TheBathWater]

My response rate varies, but on average, it must be higher than 33%. I use really interesting photos, a clever username, and my profile really pulls for an audience that is looking for an LTR/attractive/successful - and these are the women I date. Having said that, the longest online relationship I've ever had was 3 months, and the longest relationship I've had in general is 5 years. So, yeah.

[Toodaloo]

Yeah he could do that, it just sounded like the op was getting disillusioned.

 

Personally, I found using OLD gave me an unrealistically negative view about how I am perceived by women, and kind of damaged my confidence and enthusaim a bit.

It also made it seem that there were few if any attractive women available. Where's nothing could be further from the truth if you go out and look.

 

It does skew your view if you read too much into it.

 

If I find myself worrying I just refuse to log on fr a while and leave it alone. Concentrate on the real people around me who soon renew my faith.

 

Reality is so so so much better than t'internet. But it just seems to be the "way" these days?

 

I don't want to end up a sad lonely old woman but it looks like its going that way. At least I can control the sadness bit myself and do something about that myself...

[Gary S]

Response rate depends on a lot of factors..... such as your profile, and particularly how good your pics are and how hot you are. Also depends on the site.

 

Rates might be anywhere between 60% to less than 1 percent. It depends.

 

At the end of the day, if you aren't getting all the dates you can handle, improve your pics and your profile......workout, and message more women......to some extent, it's a number's game for men......you never know who will find you attractive.

[carhill]

OP, I started using OLD back in late 1995 and, historically, during that period until I got married a few years later, and again when we were divorcing more recently, my response rate, meaning positive responses which ended in first meetings, far outpaced women agreeing to dates in real life when asked. It was easily over 50%. Perhaps that's outlier. OTOH, I was selective in whom I contacted and never sent a canned contact, rather personalized. Closest positive result was, eh, 25-30 miles away and furthest was about 6000 miles away. Dated them all.

[Jules Dash]

My general strategy is to not be the first one to send a message to someone online and just wait for those interested in me to message me. With this strategy, I get about 2-4 messages per day except for Fridays and Saturdays which I usually receive no messages. I believe this is because the women usually want to seem like they are too busy to respond on the weekends because it picks back up nicely on Sundays. The most initial messages I have received in one day probably has not been more than six.

 

I have not been the first one to send a message for most of my interactions on online dating sites and I would say that when I am the first one to send a message, only about 10% of women will respond. I have been using one site exclusively for the past 3 years or so and had limited use of others before that.

 

My last 4 or 5 relationships have been with women I met on OLD sites if you count my shortest relationship which was about 2 months. I have also "messed around" with some women that actually did not turn into relationships. Matter of fact, I am just returning home now from a coffee date with someone I just met online last week. My most recent relationship ended about one month and a half ago. We dated for almost one year and we met on a dating site.

 

Most of the initial messages I get online are not people that I would actually date or have interest in meeting up with.

 

So I consider myself to have a good but somewhat uncommon experience for men on dating sites but I consider myself mostly successful. Considering this, even I rarely get a response from women if I am the first one to send a message.

 

The one thing I can emphasize here is what has been stated many times across the internet is that good pictures are crucial. Now good does not necessarily mean professional photos or ones that has good lighting and I will get back to that point in a bit but I will first say that my online profile is short, vague and I have not changed it all since I created it over 3 years ago. However, right before my most recent ex approached me about an exclusive relationship, I changed some of the pictures in my online profile even though I was dating 3 other women at that time, all which I met online. When we became exclusive, I closed my account and stopped dating the other women.

 

I decided to go back online about 3-4 weeks ago and was not getting almost any initial messages from anyone. I was wondering if the dynamics of online dating had changed within the relatively short time period I was dating my ex. I decided to add one picture to my online profile and made it my cover photo. Things began to pick up immediately. I was getting about 1-2 initial messages per day after that change then it slowed to a crawl again. I then decided to delete a couple of my pictures and add a really nice head shot of me with a great smile. I did nothing to my written profile. Now things are booming again for me now and I am about 2 -3 days behind in responding to messages.

 

I think this is a good example of how important photos are for OLD. It is just how it is. Again, it does not have to be a professional photo but a professional and very natural photo helps as well as the type of photo you use. I am not saying that all it takes is a good photo but good photos obviously help a lot.