So you’ve heard of Fling.com and you’re wondering if this is the site that will finally land you a date. It seems simple enough at first glance, but before you give the site your email address and credit card info, you just want to be sure. That’s why you’re here reading our Fling review!
Let me save you some time, this site could be better. A lot better. Compared to the best hookup site out there, this is how Fling fares:
Site Our Experience Our Rating Free Trial Link Experience Highlights Try AFF For Free Experience Highlights Try Fling
It’s impossible to ignore that online dating has had on modern society. Some three out of 10 Americans have tried dating apps, according to Pew Research data. It’s now more common to meet your spouse online than through friends, at the bar or anywhere else, according to a survey by wedding planning service The Knot.
“Dating apps have become increasingly popular in recent years, transforming the way people meet and interact with potential partners,” explains online marketing expert Ryan Jiang. “These digital platforms, such as Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, offer a convenient way to connect with others, promising the possibility of finding love or companionship at the swipe of a finger.
Forbes data suggests there are an estimated 2,500 dating apps to choose from in the United States, and a lot of Americans are trying their luck with lesser-known dating apps. Fling.com is one of these.
If you’ve already read any Fling.com reviews you’re probably still scratching your head and wondering what the truth is about this site. Most of the reviews out there were written by people who have never even used it, let alone paid for an actual subscription (the internet is full of reviews like that these days). That’s where this review is different. I actually took the time to sign up for both the free and paid versions of the site and spent a LOT of time using Fling.
Let me spill the tea, folks! I dove headfirst into the world of Fling.com, signing up for both the free and paid versions like a dating detective on a mission. I didn’t just dip my toes in; I cannonballed into the Fling pool. 💦
Most people use dating apps to find committed relationships, but dating apps can be used to find hook-ups as well. Pew Research data suggests 13% of women use dating apps to seek casual sex.
“With no strings attached and the must-have dating apps, young people are able to find casual partners and set up dates without having to even leave their bedrooms,” says dating writer Marina Benitez. “With the advancements in technology and the constant use of smartphones, dating apps have become the center of modern dating and a big propulsor of today’s hookup culture.”
Fling is one of those hookup sites that’s been around for a LONG time and kind of goes up and down in popularity from year-to-year. It can be really difficult to tell if a hookup site like this is worth using or just a giant waste of time. In our Fling review, we go well beyond any other review you’ll find online. Before I jump into what I found let’s talk a little bit about how I evaluated the site so you understand everything I went through:
Not all dating apps are likely to help you find a companion. In fact, most will waste your time and money. Only 53% of dating app users said they had a somewhat or very positive experience when questioned by Pew Research. The rest (we can assume) were in the same or worse position than when they started.
That’s why the Heart Insider team and I are constantly looking for new dating sites and apps to try. We’ve had a lot of success using the top options out there and have coached tons of singles to fantastic success using them. Without our experience trying out and evaluating hundreds of different dating apps it can be difficult to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Imagine this: me and my trusty Heart Insider team are like the Indiana Joneses of online dating. We’re always on the hunt for hidden treasures (in this case, dating apps) to share with you lovely folks. We’ve been around the dating block more times than we can count, and our mission is to help you navigate this digital dating jungle.
Since it takes several weeks to really tell if a site or app works it’s a pretty big investment of time and money but well worth it if we can share what we found with you.
As you might guess, this takes a LOT of time but it’s worth it to really understand how good or bad Fling is.
Let’s kick things off with a quick comparison and highlight of what we found in our review and how this site compares to the best hookup option for most guys right now:
Now, let’s cut to the chase and see how Fling stacks up against the competition. 🏆
So, how did I tackle this Fling review? Here’s the scoop:
As you can imagine, this process takes some time, but it’s all in the name of giving you the lowdown on whether Fling is worth your while.
Now, let’s step up the game and give you a quick side-by-side comparison of our findings and how Fling stacks up against one of the top hookup options for most guys:
Overall Our team rates each site objectively based on many hours of independent research, the features each site offers, and how it compares with other sites. The ratings are the opinion of our editors and their extensive experience. |
6 | 9.5 |
Quality of Women Our opinion of how attractive the typical woman is that uses this site and how easy they are to connect with compared to other sites. |
5 | 9 |
Popular How many people are using this site to actually meet people compared to other sites. |
6 | 10 |
Usability How easy is this site to use and how quickly can an average person begin meeting people compared to other sites. |
8 | 9 |
Privacy & Safety Does this site take proper precautions to safeguard its members, their identity, and their data. |
5 | 9 |
Effective Our opinion of how easily an average person will be able to achieve their dating goals with this site compared to other sites. |
5 | 9 |
Value Will the time and money spent using this site pay off for an average person based on the opinions and experience of our editors. |
5 | 10 |
My journey through Fling.com was, honestly, a bit meh. The initial excitement of landing on the site, greeted by enticing images of nearly-naked beauties on the homepage, soon fizzled out.
Here’s the scoop: While the homepage may tease you with captivating photos, the actual user experience didn’t quite live up to the hype. Fake profiles, especially the ones hogging the homepage, and a bunch of sketchy messages really put a damper on things.
There aren’t even a lot of users on the site, which means it’s either abandoned, populated by a bot that glitched, or a combination of both. Either way, with so few active users willing to interact with me (and I sent out a LOT of messages!), I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to get lucky here.
I waited weeks to get a response. I even kept my eye out for new users who might just be online for long enough to see my message. But no such luck. Not only did I waste $34 (the cost of a month-long membership), but I also got bored out of my mind hoping to meet new people. Overall, Fling.com was a dud. It’s either no longer active or I’m just one of its unluckiest users.
Some 64% of male dating app users say they’re depressed by the lack of messages they receive, according to Pew Research. It wouldn’t surprised if Fling.com users were among them.
My advice? Don’t use Fling.com. There are other better options out there for you.
Now, for those genuinely seeking to connect with women for some fun times, we’d have to say Fling left us wanting more. After testing and reviewing over 100 sites and apps, we found that AFF (AdultFriendFinder) offered the best results for most guys, as you can see from our rating above. We respect your time, and we want to steer you in the right direction, where you’re more likely to find success.
Take it from us, your time is precious, and we don’t want you wasting it on sites that don’t deliver. There are only a handful of platforms that actually hit the mark, and once you veer off that path, your chances of success take a nosedive.
Your time is valuable and you don’t want to spend it using sites that are not going to give you great results. There are only a couple sites that can actually deliver and once you get away from them your results tend to drop to almost zero.
To give you a more detailed look at how AFF works and how it performs for regular guys, you can also have a look at our Adult FriendFinder review. Check them out!
Alison B. – Sitejabber
“Been on there off and on 10 or so Years. Been to SEVERAL meets and parties! I’ve made tons of fun friends and have more fun clubbing and swinging with them then any other peer genre! Too many nasty old, fat, desperate mean with high expectations. True sex addicts and swingers love this site and it works well for them.”
Louis S. – SiteJabber
“AFF has been around for a long time and it is an established community with mostly real users. I have used it in the past and what can I say: I had a blast. Messaged a countless number of chicks but actually hooked up with two of them. My advise. Just send out messages that really work, nothing like hey Hun, What’s up?!… just be creative and don’t forget to stay active.”
Let’s play fair and look at the pros and cons of Fling.com, shall we?
Here is what you need to know about Fling.com from our review:
Alright, let’s peel back the curtain and take a peek behind the scenes at Fling.com. When I navigated to Fling.com for the first time, one of the things I noticed was their strange but catchy logo. It has blocky, jagged lettering. The ‘i’ in the title has a little flame for a dot. It feels somewhat prehistoric, like a logo for a caveman dating site, like something from the Flintstones. To top it off, there is a strange, maroon menu bar. It’s not the worst thing I have seen on a dating site, but it feels a bit confusing.
So, picture this: I land on Fling.com, and what catches my eye? Their logo, of all things. It’s a bit of an oddball, really. Blocky letters, a ‘dot’ on the ‘i’ that’s a tiny flame – it’s like the caveman version of a dating site logo, straight out of the Stone Age. And let’s not forget that maroon menu bar – not the most eye-catching choice, I must say. It’s a bit like trying to read a map in the dark.
With a name like Fling, I would expect a light and airy sort of logo and layout. And while you can’t judge a dating site by its cover, it can give you clues. Sites that have inconsistent marketing are often sketchy ones. And, now that I look at it a bit closer, the logo does seem a bit… low resolution.
ow, let’s talk turkey about what you’re really here for – finding a fling. AFF (that’s AdultFriendFinder, in case you missed it) has been setting the bar high for those in the know. Fling.com? Well, let’s just say it’s “okay,” but it’s nowhere near the best option out there.
The Hookup App Alternatives To Fling Dating Coaches Recommend Most
When guys can’t get any results online we usually see that they are using the wrong apps. Whether you’re looking for your first hookup or are more experienced there are a few apps that tend to give regular guys the best results. These are the ones that our dating coaches have seen guys consistently have the best results with:
Alright, now let’s tackle the elephant in the room. Fling.com boasts about its offerings, but when it comes to the number of members, it’s playing in the minor leagues. Members of fling.com, I’m talking to you! When it comes to finding a short-term fling with a woman you want to have the most options possible. AFF has over 60,000,000 active members and is big in most English-speaking countries. Fling just isn’t even close to that. It is probably 20 to 50 times smaller, which means you have 20 to 50 times more options with AFF.
Now, let’s address the burning question on everyone’s minds. Is Fling.com a legit option for the average Joe? Brace yourselves, normal guys. For smaller sites like Fling or big sites that completely focus on photos like Tinder, normal guys have it rough. The best-looking guys get almost all of the attention and normal guys get left out. With Adult FriendFinder it is actually a lot easier to get noticed. The app has a much higher concentration of women that are somewhat aged 30+ and looking for serious relationships.
During our Fling review, we found very questionable images even on their homepage. If you do a little Google searching you see those photos popping up all over the place. That usually means they are fake or models, neither of which is a good sign.
Do yourself a favor and check out AFF’s free trial and see what kind of REAL women are looking in your area. You will be glad you did over Fling.com.
Pew Research data suggests that only a third of dating app users have paid for premium services. Well, you’ll have to splash some cash if you’re thinking about using Fling.com seriously. Fling.com is many things, but, free is not one of them. The site, from the very beginning, was trying to get me to upgrade to a premium membership. They have all kinds of tiered memberships for different prices. But without paying at least something I couldn’t even click on a woman’s profile. This is one of the reasons this Fling review is very unfavorable.
There were a ton of messages popping up, too. They said enticing things like, “kyleeishotforgirls wants to see your pics. Contact her now!” But when I clicked on the box to send her a message, it just took me to Fling’s payment page. Another message said that someone had shared “explicit photos” with me. I couldn’t view them without paying. But explicit photos were one thing that was NOT in short supply on the website…
If you don’t want to waste any more time skip Fling’s dubious site and head over to our list of the top hookup sites out there. You actually have a good chance of meeting someone there.
Let’s be honest, most guys are hoping that their online dating will lead to something a little bit more risque than just winky emojis. Most guys would like to meet up in real life, and maybe see a little bit more than the standard profile picture reveals. But that doesn’t mean that they want to see everything right away. In fact, it can be a little bit gross.
That’s one of the other red flags I noticed when using Fling.com’s messaging system. The site has NSFW photos all over the place, from the original sign up page to the member search. And these aren’t classy, teasing women. These are totally adult photos that aren’t leaving anything to the imagination. Sites that have a lot of profiles like this are almost always on the sketchier end of the spectrum.
It also makes me question who these members actually are. I know that some people are more liberal about who they let see them in their birthday suit. But are there really so many women nearby to me who are willing to put it all out there on a public site?
When someone goes out of their way to assure you that they are definitely not a bad guy, it’s kind of a red flag. That’s when you want to look a little bit closer.
Well, Fling had a huge promotional ad on their website that said, “Committed to Authenticity! We don’t create fake accounts.” In their user agreement they elaborate: “Unlike many competitors, this Site does not contain any profiles created by the Service.” Well, that sounds pretty good. But is it true? I wanted to dig a little bit deeper.
There are, as I said, a ton of women in adult poses all over the site, who are supposedly in my area. One search yielded 32,357 nearby members. That’s a ton of people for a single dating site. That’s like the size of a small city. Can they all be real? It was hard to figure that out through traditional routes because, as I said above, I couldn’t message anyone without first paying (and I am not about to pay for a site before I can even verify if they have real members!).
So, instead of messaging members, I started to look to do reverse image searches on their profile pictures. I got a hit after just a minute of searching. One of the photos also came upon a site called “MilfPlay”. I began looking deeper into their fine print, and I think this is part of their scheme to not ‘create’ fake profiles, but still have them on their site.
In their terms and conditions they say that: “When you create a profile with Fling.com, your profile will be shared with other dating and ‘hook-up’ websites which contain members of the Site.” That’s strange. Wouldn’t that be sharing with potential competitors? Unless, of course, they are all in it together.
Another thing that is written in Fling’s fine print is that “The Site may cause pop-ups to display as a system notification on your screen…The system notifications may prompt you to initiate dialogue with other member(s) (who may or may not have upgraded to a paid account and may have varying login and activity levels).” This is a complicated way of saying that the site will send you fake messages from other profiles.
So let’s put this all together. They use inactive profiles from their own site and from other sites (and who is to say that those sites don’t create the profiles out of thin air to share with them?) to send fake messages to you so that you will upgrade to a higher member level and give them more money. Okay, technically they may be ‘real’ profiles, but that sounds pretty fake to me. Scam alert!
Another suspicious thing I noticed when I was researching for this Fling.com review is that they were constantly sending me messages (from other ‘profiles’) and giving me alerts that asked me to put up a profile picture or upload more content in general. Why would they be so eager to get a picture of my pretty mug? Well, again I found the answer hidden in the user agreement.
It says: “Any and all images uploaded to [the site] are subject to an irrevocable, unlimited, worldwide, fully-paid, royalty-free license from you to [the site] and such images may be used by [the site], without restriction, on the Service, in emails and as marketing materials.” Do you want people receiving a promotional email for Fling.com with your face on it? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
This site’s relationship with third-party sites is more than a Fling. They are serious about it. When I first signed up for an account, they had a little box at the bottom that I could click which said, “You Won! Click this box to claim your FREE tokens on Camsoda.com.” I have a feeling that everyone ‘wins’ that game. And once I logged onto the site, I saw all kinds of ads for cam sites, adult videos, and other links that would probably direct me to some virus-ridden site that wants to take my money.
This is par for the course with scam dating sites. They don’t just get money from their memberships (which are useless), but also from advertising sketchy sites and even selling your information to them. Don’t fall for it!
After spending months using and reviewing Fling we can’t recommend it as a top option, especially for men. While using the site we repeatedly found issues that made us question how useful it would be and had very poor results ourselves. We recommend that you avoid this site completely.
We’ve tested and reviewed over 100 different apps and sites this year to find out what works. If you want to actually get some results check out the hookup apps that actually deliver.
So, there you have it! Our updated Fling.com review that’s more informative and fun. We’ve given you the real lowdown on this site, complete with the pros, cons, and even a few giggles along the way. Remember, when it comes to finding the perfect dating app, it’s all about choosing the right one for your needs. We’ve thrown some options your way, so now it’s up to you to take the plunge and find that special connection. Happy dating, folks! 🚀
Here are some answers to the most commonly asked questions we receive regarding Fling.com:
Fling claims to be the “Worlds best free casual dating”. But this is far from the case. What Fling.com really is would better be described as a waste of time for more people.
Is it possible to have success? Sure. Is it likely? We don’t think so.
Fling is owned by Global Personals, LLC.
Depending on your concern, you can contact Fling through their customer service page: https://www.fling.com/members/info/customerservice
Yes, Fling.com is a real site. However, most of the profiles we encountered were suspicious.
After doing a full review of Fling we don’t think this is a legit site that you should be using. There are too many better alternatives out there that can actually help you get what you want.
Fling isn’t a scam but it also isn’t worth your time (as far as we saw). We saw what looked like a lot of fake profiles, even on the homepage, but we don’t think they are going to steal your credit card number or anything. You won’t get a lot of value from the site but they are not going to just steal from you.
If you are just using the site and not clicking on any spammy links people are sending you then you are probably safe on Fling. We wouldn’t recommend that you give them any personal info but we don’t have any reason to believe that you are in any danger based on our Fling review.
There are a few great sites out there that can actually help you meet people for casual fun. We go into great depth every year in our review of the best hookup apps and sites where we try, rank, and compare all the best options.
Fling is very similar to most other apps out there that you may have tried. There really isn’t anything new or special about it to be honest. You sign up using your email address and then can create a free profile.
What you can actually do with a free profile is very limited. You can do some basic searching but you can’t even look at anyone’s profiles. They constantly prompt you to pay for a membership to do anything worthwhile.
Yes, Fling.com has an app on Android.
Here are the pricing options for a paid Fling membership:
You can sign up for a free membership simply by clicking on the sign-up button on the Fling homepage. In our Fling review, we were unable to find any way to get free access to the full site without paying.
No. You need a paid Fling membership to send messages.
Canceling your Fling.com membership is actually a pretty big hassle. You are making a good decision to cancel, though.
To cancel you need to follow the following steps:
Below are the steps you should take to delete your Fling profile:
There are a couple of different message limits that you need to know about. If you are just doing a free trial on Fling you can’t send any messages. Therefore your message limit on Fling would be zero.
With a paid membership you can send as many messages as you want. You probably won’t get any replies but you can send away.
Fling search is pretty basic. With a free membership you can search using the following criteria:
As you can see, with the free search you can’t really do much. You need a paid membership to be able to do any searching that is useful. The Fling.com search on a paid account you can also search by:
If you found this review useful check out these other hookup sites:
XMeeting Review
BeNaughty Review
UberHorny Review
One Night Friend Review
Hinge Review
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Joe Elvin is an internationally known confidence and dating coach with nearly a decade of experience. He is the successful author of several dating and confidence books that have helped thousands of men find success. While traveling the world Joe consistently finds new and valuable ways to meet and attract women. Joe has a Bachelor’s Degree in Multimedia Journalism from Bournemouth University and he has been featured in many large publications including AskMen, TSB Magazine and The Good Men Project.
As one of the most prolific writers on Heart Insider, Joe has reviewed over a hundred dating apps. He is the site’s foremost authority when it comes to selecting what dating app works for whom. From an app’s mechanics to its algorithm to telltale signs that a dating app is a scam, Joe’s is able to expertly discern between dating apps that provide value and those that don’t.
For more than two decades, Tom has dated extensively and studied behavioral psychology as a way of understanding the complexities of human nature until he became an expert. After traveling as a touring musician and living in more than 15 countries, Tom has cross-referenced his experience in seduction, dating, and interpersonal dynamics with the ever-changing landscape of 21st-century dating. His work as a writer has appeared in 500+ publications (digital and print). Tom is also the author of several books (available on Amazon). In his free time, you can find Tom recording music and cooking the best Cincinnati-style chili you’ve ever had.
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