I Joined SaucyDates to See If It Lives Up to Its Name

Dating for keeps is a high-stakes gambit, and let’s be honest: It isn’t always very fun. Sometimes serious dating can feel like interviewing for the most selective job of your life, and it’s just too much pressure. 

If you need a break from the stress of serious dating, you might go looking for a place that’s flirty, casual, and just plain fun. Enter SaucyDates.

I first heard of SaucyDates years ago when I interviewed the founder, David Minns, and learned about his mission to make casual dating less sketchy and more fun.

SaucyDates is a sex-positive site where singles can meet for some no-strings-attached flirtatious action. I created a test account on the website, and hopefully my experience can shed some light on whether SaucyDates is the right place to meet your next short-term hookup.

Getting Started on SaucyDates

No one wants to take an hour just to set up a profile on a hookup site (save that energy for eharmony, people!), and the team at SaucyDates knows this. That’s why their profile creation process is simple, logical, and took me six minutes flat to complete.

All I needed was an email address and a working camera for the verification part. The questions were easy to breeze through, and soon I was ready to get saucy.

Step 1: Signing Up With the Basic Settings

The signup process was super straightforward. I put in my email, then I was prompted to decide if I wanted to receive email notifications about messages I’d received. They’d also email me dating advice, the prompt said. 

I passed on the advice, but said yes to the email notifications about messages.

I hate having to keep checking my different accounts on different apps (I delete and redownload Instagram like every other week), so I thought this was a super clever feature to prevent doomscrolling on the site. If there’s any action, I’ll get alerted.

After my notification settings were ready to go, I added my gender identity, age, and sexual orientation. My location was determined automatically based on my device’s IP address. 

Then, it was time to fill out my preferences.

Step 2: Filling out the Profile

SaucyDates profiles have the perfect blend of compatibility-clarifying prompts and simplicity. The profiles are completely multiple-choice, making it super easy to both fill out my profile quickly and skim other profiles to gauge shared interests.

Profiles on SaucyDates are perfectly tailored to the dating goals of their users: They’re focused on sexual compatibility and dating expectations. 

Instead of religious beliefs and drinking habits, SaucyDates asked me to describe my kinks and sexual interests. I said I was looking to “chat.” Personally, that’s a bit more my speed. 

The profiles consist of multiple-choice question answers, but I wasn’t limited to binary options. Most users I saw picked multiple answers to each question, like Ray, who said he’s a “confident, stocky, kind, adventurous business-owner,” or Ryan, who said he’s looking for a relationship that’s both “casual” and “monogamous.”

I was prompted to share:

One thing that makes SaucyDates stand out is how it is inclusive of both queerness and kink. Not many dating sites include options like intersex, pangender, and demisexual in the registration, but SaucyDates does. 

I liked the flexibility and variety in the sexual orientation and gender identity options. SaucyDates welcomes all stripes of nonbinary, transgender, polyamorous daters.

And I have the option to link my SaucyDates profile to a different site through their Swap Niche feature, which basically means expanding to reach other dating pools. I like the idea of having the same profile on multiple sites, and the best part is all the messages come to me on one site. Less work for me!

Step 3: Live Photo Verification

I was most impressed by SaucyDates’ live photo verification feature. Fake profiles are a huge concern for online daters, and it’s a hard thing to police, particularly for smaller niche sites.

But when I set up a profile on SaucyDates, I was prompted to verify my profile by taking several live photos.

I was asked to blink several times on camera, and SaucyDates used this footage to detect that I am indeed a real person. 

I found the live photo verification to be quick and easy. My verification was approved in moments, and I appreciated knowing that many of the profiles I came across had gone through verification, too.

Once my profile went live, a blurry, pixelated picture of my photo verification stayed in the bottom right corner of my profile. 

Only VIP members or people I’ve chatted with can see my verification photo.

Still, I get that some privacy-minded people don’t want to put their photos on hookup sites at all. That can make the live photo verification a tough sell.

I would say heightened security is going to be better for the overall experience. For me, avoiding scammers is worth putting my likeness online.

Free Browsing

With my profile created and verified, it was time to start browsing. This was where I started running into some issues. Few of the profiles I came across had a profile photo, and while some were verified, a lot still weren’t.

For some people, that might not be a huge deal. Maybe you don’t care what someone looks like if they’re into the same kinks. Maybe you’d rather preserve your anonymity and call it a day. 

But for most people trying to find a quick fling (and, let’s be honest, for all of us daters to some extent), looks are the most important part.

Fortunately, I can filter profiles by their photos or activity status. That makes it easier to find people who have a complete profile and are more likely to respond quickly. 

I’ll say again: SaucyDates isn’t the place for hemming and hawing. It’s for meeting up fast, ideally, within a few days. Some guys asked me out in their first message.

I tried to match the fast-paced energy to talk to as many people as quickly as I could.

If I saw a profile I particularly liked, I marked them as Hot. Then that person would get a notification in their messages that I’m interested in them. This move is a bit more forward than liking a profile on Tinder.

My Messaging Experience

While I was a bit disappointed by the profiles I saw, I was impressed by the messaging experience on SaucyDates. 

Within the first 10 minutes that my profile was up, I received five messages. They didn’t seem automated or inauthentic. They all read as real people who were really interested in me.

People on SaucyDates are direct about their intentions. They’re quick to message and start talking dirty. For singles who know what they want, that kind of directness might be refreshing.

Some of the messages in my inbox were simply notifications that someone had marked me as hot (thanks!). Some users, like Ryan from Daytona Beach, simply said “Good evening.” Some asked if I’d like to grab dinner.

A few were more sexually charged. One user asked for nudes (though notably, he didn’t send them unsolicited), and I received a few more messages with similar levels of spice. Nothing too aggressive or creepy, but certainly for adults only. 

Personally, I prefer to ease into that kind of talk, but they don’t call it SaucyDates for nothing.

Messages are organized in the order they come in, with the name, age, and location of the person clearly marked. That streamlined organization makes it easy to keep track of who I’m talking to and prioritize the people I like.

I received messages from all over the place. Some suitors were 3,000 miles away. If you’re down to form a long-distance crush, this might be a good site for you.

The Swap Niche Feature

Plenty of people have profiles on multiple dating sites. One site might not have everything you’re looking for, after all. 

But juggling profiles can make it difficult to keep track of likes and messages, and it can take a lot of time. You’ll spread yourself thin.

But SaucyDates users are in luck: Everyone on the SaucyDates site can add profiles to its sister sites. The messages come in via SaucyDates, and it’s an opportunity to browse profiles on multiple niche spaces all on one platform.

The Swap Niche feature offers access to networks for trans dating, serious dating, and even small penis dating (yep, that’s an option), all within the same platform. 

With a VIP membership, I could access all 16 partner sites. The layouts were basically identical, but the profiles were all new.

FLIRT Messages

SaucyDates is all about getting to the point, and FLIRT messages are a good example of that. 

I could write a standard message I’d like to send to potential connections, and SaucyDates would automatically send the greeting to all profiles that matched my date criteria.

I’ll admit I found SaucyDates’ profile and setup a bit vanilla, but the FLIRT Messages added some creativity and excitement. I thought long and hard about what icebreaker I wanted to use. 

My friend’s opener is always “What’s your least favorite song?” and that gets a lot of impassioned answers. I’ve seen a lot of people asking about pineapple on pizza or plans for the weekend. I wanted to stand out and talk about something that interested me. 

So I went with “Hi, where do you stand in the pirates vs. ninjas debate?” I’ve got to do something to stand out from all the “how are yous” out there!

If I want a bit more control over who gets which message, I can manually turn off FLIRTs. But for busy people with no energy to waste on finding profiles and crafting messages, they’re a great way to establish connections and get over the hump of messaging.

Of course, I can’t be sure, but it seemed to me that some of my messages were more likely to be automated FLIRT messages.

Ron, aged 58 from Albuquerque, wrote: “Hey beautiful, how are you? Have you ever been to the Southwest?” which makes sense as a general opener for someone from the area.

Ted, aged 30 from Colombia, went with a more direct approach. His message said, “I’m pretty much always dtf let me know if you are as well and maybe we can set up a time to do it.” 

While it’s possible he wrote that invite just for me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s casting a wide net with that line.

What I Like So Far

I like that all of the profiles on SaucyDates are simple, with clear information on sexual and relationship compatibility. This makes it easy to find like-minded users and prevents the inevitable swiping fatigue that comes with reading lengthy profiles.

I like the easy signup process. All the information that’s important for a hookup – gender preferences, kinks, age range — is quick to input.

I like that I didn’t have to come up with a witty bio or answer any prompts.

I actually like that I can sync my SaucyDates profile with other dating platforms. Dating profiles are hard to juggle, and this streamlines the experience.

I like that I can receive updates automatically through my email. No need to constantly refresh the site. I just wait for a notification in my inbox.

And I really really like that SaucyDates requests live photo verification to prove users aren’t uploading fake pics.

What I Don’t Like so Far

I don’t like how bare-bones the profiles are (which is the other side of the coin of a quick signup). Few profiles had photos, and that makes it hard to judge physical attraction.

I really don’t like that my location is fixed based on my IP address. This can be a real pain if I travel somewhere and want to find dates. I work remotely, so I’m not bound to my city. I can expand the search mile radius to browse other areas, but I can’t change my location.

I don’t like that so many users seemed to skip adding photos, but this is an anonymous sex site, so that pretty much comes with the territory.

Paid Membership: What It Costs & Is It Worth It?

Unlike some sites I’ve tried, the free version of SaucyDates actually works pretty well. I can view and send messages (though I did get cut off after 10 messages), and I had access to all the filters I wanted.

For most people – especially women – I think the free version will suffice. But having set my preferences as a bisexual woman, I saw almost no female dating profiles on the site. While that might just mean that the women who are there are straight, I think it’s more likely to mean that men outnumber women on SaucyDates pretty significantly. 

There definitely is a benefit to using the paid version (aka VIP Membership) offered on SaucyDates. As a VIP, I could see live photos even before messaging with someone, so I knew for sure they matched their profile.

The VIP profile also appears at the top of search results, and I have access to all 16 of the dating sites available to sync with my SaucyDates profile. If you plan on exploring any particular dating niches, VIP might be worth it.

Here’s the complete price breakdown, subject to vary by location:

If you plan to be really active on SaucyDates, going for a paid membership might be worth your money. But for those looking for a one-off fling, you should be perfectly capable of finding a connection with the free version and saving your cash for the Uber.

Safety Features

Safety is crucial on hookup sites in particular. Many people will meet with a match on a hookup site for the first time in private, knowing few personal details about each other. 

This is inherently pretty risky behavior that makes online vetting all the more important. I always want to be 100% confident that my connections are, at the very least, who they say they are online. 

SaucyDates had robust security measures that put my mind at ease. 

I could tell right away that SaucyDates takes online security seriously. The photo verification made me feel a lot more confident that my matches were genuine, even with limited profiles.

While photo verification is strongly encouraged — I couldn’t even figure out how to finish my profile without going through the verification process — not every profile is verified. 

So if you use SaucyDates, try to stick to verified profiles. And my pro tip is to schedule a video call before you meet up if you can. I’m not your mother, but please stay safe out there!

Who SaucyDates Is Best For

Best for: Singles looking for quick, casual connections. Anyone comfortable being direct about their sexual interests. 

Not for: People seeking long-term romance or those who want to see super detailed profiles.

Inclusiveness Rating: 10/10! The platform is queer-friendly, trans-friendly, and poly-friendly. All kinksters are welcome as long as they are over 18 and have a valid email address.

Age Demographics: All ages can join, but I’d say the majority of profiles I saw were in the 30 to 45 range.

Final Thoughts

Singles looking for something casual could do a lot worse than SaucyDates. I’d say it’s a low-stress hookup site with a solid free membership and many profiles you can trust.

I was impressed with the safety features and VIP upgrades, and the messages were just the right amount of saucy and polite for me. I wish more guys would’ve had the cojones to update their profiles with a photo, but overall I think the quality is about what’s expected on a niche hookup site.

SaucyDates is no eharmony (and it’s not trying to be), but it is a safe and inclusive place for singles to find sex, conversation, or even friendship online.