2024 OnlyCougars Review: Our Months Spent Using The App
These days, it seems like there’s a new dating website cropping up every day. Whatever your age, marital status, or interest, there’s probably a website out there catering exactly for that. The only question is, are they any good? That’s what I’ll be discussing in this OnlyCougars review.
All too often, the answer to that question is no. A decent number of hookup sites are outright scams — we’ve reviewed a lot of them — and the ones that are left often aren’t worth your time. So, how do you sort through them all to find the ones that are worthwhile?
The short answer is: Let us do it for you. We’ve scoured the best — and the worst — hookup sites the internet has to offer, all wrapped up in one convenient recommendation. This time, it’s Only Cougars getting the full treatment.
It’s really tough to meet cougars these days. So many older women have given up on the usual crowded single spots due to ongoing social distancing preferences or just being tired of it. A lot of them ONLY look online for men and you need to be where they can find you. Otherwise, you’re really limiting yourself!
After a couple of days, I’ll go back and fill out a profile, then test out the free version of the site for a couple of weeks. Once I’m finished or if there isn’t much to do with a free account, I’ll set up a subscription so I can access the paid features.
My end goal is to set up as many dates as I can. I’ll message and try to get to know women, just like I would on my personal account. After about a month, I’ll take my experience and turn it into an informed recommendation — letting you know whether the site is worth signing up for or if you should stick to the tried-and-tested hookup sites instead.
The Full Only Cougars Review
The best place to start is with an overview of the site. I like to compare new websites to AFF (which you can try free here) since it’s consistently the more reliable cougar hookup website I’ve used, especially for guys that aren’t super good-looking. This makes it easy for us to do a quick comparison for you.
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|---|---|---|
| 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. |
2 | 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. |
2 | 9 |
| Popular How many people are using this site to actually meet people compared to other sites. |
1 | 9 |
| Usability How easy is this site to use and how quickly can an average person begin meeting people compared to other sites. |
5 | 10 |
| Privacy & Safety Does this site take proper precautions to safeguard its members, their identity, and their data. |
1 | 10 |
| Effective Our opinion of how easily an average person will be able to achieve their dating goals with this site compared to other sites. |
1 | 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. |
1 | 10 |
We were pretty disappointed in this site. As we will go into more detail below, we doubt that many guys are going to have ANY success using it.
Compared to AFF, it was pretty brutal.
The premise of OnlyCougars isn’t new or particularly rare. Good news for those who love them, cougars are here to stay and OnlyCougars is one of many websites catering to men who want to find them. So, what makes OnlyCougars stand out above the rest? Well, not much, unfortunately.
OnlyCougars has some very familiar fine print
It seems like I can’t turn around lately without finding a hookup site that uses fantasy profiles. In case you’re lucky enough not to have encountered them, fantasy profiles, or entertainment profiles, are what websites call deliberately fake profiles. These profiles are generated by the website — sometimes by hiring writers and others automatically run by bots — to fill out profiles and message users in order to make the website look more active.
This is all spelled out in the terms and conditions, so it isn’t technically a scam, but it’s easy to miss if you don’t carefully scour the terms and conditions of every website.
The problem here — and on a lot of similar websites — is that fantasy profiles are all the site has to offer. I scrolled past literally hundreds of women on Only Cougars and couldn’t find a single profile without the telltale “Love Stars” icon. While there may have been a few real women somewhere — I remain skeptical, but can’t claim to have checked every single profile on the site — the sheer number of fake profiles makes it impossible to find them.
OnlyCougars has some decent core features
Admittedly, I did enjoy some features of Only Cougars. Apps and websites that let you “swipe” or rate potential matches have been around forever, but it’s a solid mechanic for a reason. If you’re just here to have some fun, their “Hot / Not” feature is entertaining and has the handy function of notifying you when you have a match.
The site also offers its fair share of entertainment in the form of amateur videos and live webcams, which is pretty standard for the more explicit hookup sites. Ultimately, though, most of us are on dating sites because we want to find women to talk to and potentially hook up with, which means there’s no amount of entertainment that will make up for a lack of real women.
OnlyCougars really wants your credit card details
If the lack of real women was my only concern about Only Cougars, I’d say it was a bit useless but not actively harmful. What sent up a bunch of red flags for me was how hard the site tries to get your credit card details.
The first thing you’ll see when you enter your email address is a page asking for your payment information. I’ve encountered this on other sites and it’s never a good sign. Only Cougars claims that it only wants the information for verification purposes, but there are other ways to verify users beyond asking them for sensitive information before they’ve even had a chance to look at the site or create a profile.
If you can manage to bypass this page without entering your details — and it is possible, but not easy — the site takes you directly to a landing page, with key information like your username, profile and biographical information already pre-filled (in other words, made up). This makes me think that, even if I had managed to find some genuine profiles on the website, they could have ended up being just as fake as my initial profile was.
Another red flag was how hard it is to log into the site. The only option on the front page is to create a new account, not to log into an existing one — to do that, I needed to go to a completely different website and enter my login information there. I already wasn’t a fan of handing out my credit card information sight unseen and not knowing what website would be using that information made me even warier.
Forget OnlyCougars.com and try AFF instead
Only Cougars was full of red flags from start to finish. It was difficult to navigate, impossible to use without entering my credit card information and after all of that, every single profile I found was fake. Safe to say, I don’t recommend Only Cougars to anyone.
While so many sites out there are outright fake and downright scammy, not all of them are terrible. For meeting cougars for either dates or flings, we’ve consistently found that AFF delivers almost every time.
AFF is one of the top cougar dating sites out there. They’ve been around for years and they have over 50 million members. The women on the site are real (unlike in OnlyCougars) and they’re all looking for a connection–whether it’s just a casual hookup or genuine romance. Despite being a niche site, AFF manages to attract a variety of women who are open to dating younger men. You’ll even find some women who are looking for men their age.
To make connections even easier to come by, you can also receive a notification whenever a cougar nearby checks out your profile. This is what makes AFF such a useful site for meeting older women, and it also helps that they have a free trial!
Pros and Cons we found while reviewing OnlyCougars
It was difficult to find a lot to like about Only Cougars, but I tried.
- Straightforward messaging system
- “Hot or Not” feature is fun to use
- Ability to match with interested users
- No real women
- Constant attempts to get users' credit card details
- Hard to use search function
Despite being professionally made, the fantasy profiles were still off
After looking through hundreds of profiles on OnlyCougars trying to find one real women, all I found were bots and site-generated profiles. Some of these seemed realistic enough and some of them were just bizarre.
Since it’s all — by the site’s own admission —for entertainment purposes, it’s not like it really matters, but I do have to wonder who they think they’re fooling with their string of unintelligible run-on sentences.
Other profiles were better crafted — as in, they sounded like they could actually belong to real women — but in the end, every single one had the “love stars” symbol that denotes a fake profile. So in the end, some of the profiles were good, others were bad, but they were all fake.
OnlyCougars Isn’t Very Good For Regular Guys But Dating Experts Recommend These
You can probaly tell by now that you need to find a better app to use. The biggest mistake normal guys make is picking the wrong app from the start. This often leads to terrible results when they would be seeing some real success on another app. You should try these recommended apps first:
| Site | Our Experience | Our Rating | Free Trial Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Hookup Site Cougars  | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try AFF For Free |
Best For Relationships  | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try eHarmony |
Decent For Younger Guys  | Cougar Life Highlights
| 8 | Try Cougar Life |
A good design wasted on a bad site
The design of Only Cougars isn’t bad — it’s simple, clean and fairly easy to navigate. The search function is a little buggy at times, which can be annoying, but it’s far from the site’s biggest flaw.
Overall, the site design was just okay. It’s still lacking compared to other, more legitimate dating sites, like Cougar Life, but it’s minimal enough to avoid getting in its own way, which is better than most low quality sites.
A straightforward messaging system
The messaging system on Only Cougars was pretty straightforward. The site uses chat-style message replies — which feels more modern and simple to use than a more old-fashioned email-style inbox — and it’s easy to send messages directly from user’s profiles.
I didn’t get the usual flood of fake messages here, which can be a good sign. Unfortunately, in this case it seemed more like a sign of a site without much life in it. Even the fake profiles weren’t much good for a chat, fizzling out after a message or two.
I messaged over 50 profiles and got a grand total of two responses. Given that these were all site-generated entertainment profiles designed for the sole purpose of chatting with members — the only profiles I could find — it was a surprisingly disappointing result.
What can you do with a free Only Cougars membership?
There’s very little you can do with a free OnlyCougars.com membership. Free users can sign up to the site, create a profile and view a limited number of user profiles. You’ll need to upgrade to a VIP membership in order to search for users, send messages, use the “matches” and “hot or not” functions or watch videos or live webcams. Some features of the site, including sending virtual gifts, boosting the visibility of your profile and participating in live chats, require tokens or extra payments on top of a VIP membership.
Explicit ads wherever you go
The more legit hookup sites tend not to feature advertisements. The presence of paid ads on a site can tell you a lot about it and the kind of ads can tell you even more. Only Cougars has banner ads on nearly every page that will take you to some … pretty questionable websites. Click at your own risk.
Membership pricing
Only Cougars uses a token system to unlock features like sending virtual gifts, making your profile visible and notifying other users when you’re online.
- 50 tokens $9.95
- 100 tokens $14.95
- 200 tokens $19.99
OnlyCougars Review: Frequently Asked Questions
Need some quick answers? Here are the frequently asked questions about OnlyCougars.
What is OnlyCougars?
OnlyCougars is a dating and hookup site aimed at single and married men looking for more mature women. Their terms and conditions say that the site is “for entertainment purposes only”, which is a term common in sites that use fictional profiles.
Who actually owns OnlyCougars.com?
OnlyCougars.com is owned by OnlyCougars Blog™.
How can I contact Only Cougars?
Only Cougars has a contact form where you can send in your concerns: https://onlycougars.com/blog/contact-us/
Is OnlyCougars real?
Yes, OnlyCougars is a real site. However, the site is full of “fantasy profiles”, so it’s next to impossible to talk to anyone real on the site.
Is OnlyCougars.com legit?
No, OnlyCougars.com doesn’t seem legit. Before you create an account, the site asks for your credit card information. That’s extremely sketchy.
Is Only Cougars a scam or fake?
It’s very probable that Only Cougars is a scam. At best, it’s still a waste of time.
Is OnlyCougars safe?
No, OnlyCougars is not safe. They insist on getting your credit card information before you can use their “free” trial.
What are OnlyCougars.com alternatives?
For some legit alternatives to X, check out our review of the best hookup apps and websites.
How does Only Cougars work?
Only Cougars is a site that uses fictional profiles (“fantasy profiles”) to entice users to send messages, which cost tokens. But to even create an account, you need to hand over your credit card information.
Is there an OnlyCougars app?
No, OnlyCougars doesn’t have an app.
How much does OnlyCougars.com cost?
OnlyCougars.com claims to use your credit card details for free verification. To access more paid features, you can buy tokens.
- 50 tokens $9.95
- 100 tokens $14.95
- 200 tokens $19.99
How can you use Only Cougars for free?
You can only really use Only Cougars if you pay for tokens to send messages to their fictional profiles.
Can you send messages for free on OnlyCougars?
No, you need to buy tokens to send messages on OnlyCougars.
How do you cancel your OnlyCougars.com account?
To cancel your OnlyCougars membership, click on “settings” and then “cancel your VIP membership.” This can be done by filling out a form on the website or by contacting customer service directly. You can also email [email protected] using the email address you used to create an account to ask them to cancel your membership.
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