While dating at any age can be intimidating, finding and fostering a meaningful romantic connection can still be a deeply fulfilling experience. Whether you’re newly single after a longtime relationship or looking to get back out there after a dry spell, there’s no time like the present to join one of the best dating sites for singles over 50 and boost your chance of finding love.

You may feel apprehensive about reentering the world of dating, particularly now that it’s digital. That’s completely normal, but take heart in the fact that you’re not alone in your online quest for companionship. A 2019 study found that the vast amount of heterosexual couples now meet their significant others online¹. Plus, nearly 55 percent of queer folks reported using an online dating app, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center survey.

While app-based dating tends to cater to younger age groups², there’s a growing list of apps tailored for the needs of people over 50, according to psychotherapist Valentina Dragomir, founder of PsihoSensus Therapy. “While the dating apps for younger people offer different features such as matching people based on interests or friends of friends, the dating apps and sites for people over 50 focus more on compatibility and long-term relationships,” she says.

Below, you’ll find guidance from dating experts on how to make sure your profile stands out and what to look for in a dating app for seniors, plus the best senior dating sites and apps for people over 50.

Best dating sites and apps for people over 50, at a glance:

• Best for beginners: Plenty of Fish
• Best for mindful connections: Meet Mindful
• Best overall: OurTime
• Most user-friendly: SilverSingles
• Best for serious relationships: eharmony
• Best features: Match
• Best for women: Bumble
• Best for beginners: Coffee Meets Bagel
• Best affordable: OkCupid
• Best curated matches: Hinge

Tips for safe and successful online dating over 50

For people over 50, finding love in older age can pose unique challenges when it comes to the landscape of online dating. Most people in this age range who experience dating app burnout may not know how to best optimize their dating app profile as a tool, explains Orna Walters, dating and love coach at Creating Love on Purpose. As for the best way for someone to write a dating profile? Walters recommends thinking of your profile as marketing material: It should be curated over time to best represent what you’re looking for and your interests.

“You may not know if they’re your person after a first meet, so just go and have fun and be curious about them.” —Orna Walters, dating and love coach

Walters suggests joining at least two of the best dating sites for people over 50 if you want to meet single seniors: a large, popular database site, and then a smaller niche site (like Meet Mindful or Veggiedate, two options she says her clients have had luck with). “Meet in person at a public place and just sit for 60 to 90 minutes,” says Walters. “You may not know if they’re your person after a first meet, so just go and have fun and be curious about them.”

When it comes to looking for honest people on dating sites for over 50, Walters emphasizes that the best strategy is to “never invest your heart with someone you’ve never actually met in person,” and to assume that nothing is real until you meet in real life. (That means FaceTimes and Zooms don’t count, either!) After that, she says, use your best judgment just as you would with anyone else.

You’ll have the best experience dating over 50 if you keep an open mind. Walters also suggests non-traditional forms of dating sites, like MeetUp (where you can connect with people based on existing or new interests and hobbies you might have) as options for meeting single seniors.

The best dating sites and apps for people over 50

1. Plenty of Fish

Walters names Plenty of Fish as one of the most popular dating sites she recommends for clients over 50, as it has a large pool of people—so you’re most likely to meet real dates on here. It’s also one of the oldest dating sites, established in 2003, so you know it’s reputable and can be reliably considered one of the “larger” databases of singles you might want to join. POF offers both a desktop site as well as mobile apps for iOS and Android users.

Price: Free to sign up, premium membership ranges from $9 to $25 a month depending on subscription length

2. Meet Mindful

This site aims to connect people with the specific intention of mindful connection. If you’re into mindful living, this might be a good place for you to find like-minded dates. Walters names this site as one of her recommendations for “niche” dating sites. The one con to the niche aspect of this site is that users have mentioned you may need to live in a larger city for it to be successful or worth the money.

Price: $14/week or $30/month

3. OurTime

Like many dating apps, OurTime allows you to “like” individual profiles and send messages to other single folks, but it also has a special “Discovery” feature that allows you to find other singles. This app also only caters to folks over 50, so you won’t have to worry about only finding a limited number of people in your age group. (It is open to folks in heterosexual and queer relationships, too.)

Price: Free to sign up, premium membership is $90 for six months

4. SilverSingles

This exclusively over-50 community claims to add over 380,000 members each month, and takes a rigorous approach to finding and deleting fake profiles. It’s also extremely user-friendly, and offers one-on-one profile consultations if you’re not quite sure where to start.

However, you don’t have to use SilverSingles to seek out a serious relationship; you can also use the app to make new friends or date casually.

Price: Basic membership is free, premium membership is $25 a month for 12 months

5. eharmony

Eharmony is more expensive than other dating sites, but it may be worth your while. The company claims that someone falls in love every 14 minutes using the app (which is available on mobile or desktop).

This classic dating app also offers video dates and an easy-to-use interface that won’t waste your time. One down side? The site is open to everyone over the age of 18, so you will have to specify the age group you’re hoping for.

Price: Basic membership is free, premium light membership is $66 a month for six months

6. Match

You’ve likely heard of match.com, which has been helping people find love since 1995, and is available in 15 different languages and in 24 countries. It is open to a wide audience, but you can specify which age ranging you’re looking for, and you can pay for additional features like boosting your profile, attending local events, and Super Likes to show you really like a profile.

Price: Free to sign up, prices start at $23 a month for premium membership

7. Bumble

On Bumble, women make the first move, giving them control of when and with whom they have conversations. For heterosexual matches, once there’s a match, the woman has 24 hours to make the first move; in same-gender or non-binary matches, either person can make the first move, but the other person has 24 hours to respond. Bumble is open to anyone over 18 and also offers exclusive IRL events. (Bumble also offers Bumble BFF if you’re just looking to make some new friends.)

Price: Basic membership is free, premium plans start at $20/month

8. Coffee Meets Bagel

Instead of requiring you to scroll and swipe, Coffee Meets Bagel recommends a handful of matches to each user every day at noon. If you want to chat with one of your matches, you’ll be prompted with some icebreakers to get the conversation flowing, and the chat expires in seven days, so things are encouraged to progress to an in-person meet-up at that point.

Price: Basic membership is free, premium subscription is $35/month

9. OkCupid

Using a short questionnaire that you fill out with your interests and values, OKCupid will match you with the people likely to be most compatible. The dating app is inclusive, allowing for 22 gender and 13 orientation options, and you can filter your matches by age. Many of the features—such as seeing mutual likes and messaging—are free, so it’s a good option for people who want to try a dating app without a financial investment.

Price: Basic membership is free, paid subscriptions start at $10/month

10. Hinge

Hinge markets itself as the app that’s “designed to be deleted,” and uses a Nobel-Prize-winning algorithm to help users find love. You answer a few prompts when setting up your profile, and you can even set “dealbreakers,” and the app will filter out people who don’t match your preferences, so you aren’t wasting your time with incompatible matches. The app gives you eight free likes a day, which is a number that came out of research finding that any more than that often led to worse matches.

Price: Basic membership is free, paid subscriptions start at $15/week

What to look for in dating apps for seniors

Dragomir says you should make sure the dating app you choose features many single people in your age group, is easy to use, aligns with your goals, and prioritizes your safety and privacy above all else. Let’s talk a little more about each piece of criteria.

1. The app has lots of singles in your age group

“The last thing you want is to sign up for a dating app that doesn’t have a lot of active users. You’re more likely to find matches on an app with a large user base,” says Dragomir. Many dating sites include info about how many active users they have to offer, but you may have to do a little digging.

For example, two of eharmony’s biggest groups are reportedly between the ages of 30 to 44 and 55 to 64, so that’s a huge win over an app where the majority of users are in their 20s.

2. The app is easy to use

Ease of use is obviously a plus, but it’s worth noting here. There’s no point in making dating harder than it needs to be. So if one app seems fussy and the opposite of user-friendly, skip it. There are enough dating apps and sites for singles over 50 that you should be able to find something else that feels more intuitive.

3. The app aligns with your goals

“Make sure you choose an app that aligns with the type of relationship you’re looking for, as many dating apps and sites for people over 50 are designed with specific types of relationships in mind,” says Dragomir. For example, OurTime, SilverSingles, and eharmony all cater to people looking for long-term relationships.

4. The app is safe and secure

Dragomir also recommends being mindful of which sites are legitimate, and which sites may be phishing to steal your personal information. Make sure you’re on a legitimate page (ask someone for help, if need be), and don’t offer up information like your social security number or your bank account information. If your gut is telling you that something’s off, opt for a different app instead.