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Site usability and features: 6,1/10
Security: 6,7/10
Profile information and graphics: 6,7/10
Partner finding potential: 5,5/10
Customer support: 5,7/10
Price: 5,5/10
Ashley Madison is built for affairs, but not just for married people. This good looking, modern site allows single people looking for love or just fun with a married partner to join and also has LGBT options. It’s well designed, modern and quite simple to use. It’s built around pictures (both public profile pics and private galleries) and active interaction. There are no finicky personality tests or complex matching algorithms. You know what you’re looking for, and they’re providing you the tools to find it. Ashley Madison is the top tier of married dating sites in terms of usability and popularity, and has recovered well from the 2015 info leak scandal that could have ended a lesser enterprise. The site now has massively beefed up security features, ensuring safety and anonymity for users of the site, who are located all over the world and come from all walks of life.
Signing up to Ashley Madison is exceptionally easy. You provide a username and, date of birth and email address and choose a password. Next is the optional picture upload, and of course users with photos get more interest. You can anonymise your photo or hide your face in it, which is a strong feature for an affairs dating site. You are then asked for a greeting - this can be a plain hello or even a cheesy chat up line - a little info about how you look, and a bio of up to 1200 words (though many choose to keep them shorter).
As Ashley Madison is a married dating site, a lot of people are there for casual encounters or online fun. Some want something serious, and another sector aren’t sure. As the site’s motto says, ‘Life is short.
Have an affair.’ You can search for other users to connect with through the ‘Discover’ feature, and narrow them down by location and age, as well as whether or not the have photos and private photos. Connecting is free for women, who can send messages, but men have to buy credits.
Profiles on Ashley Madison are simple; so simple in fact, you don’t even have to provide a name. Instead, they simply ask for a username. Probably not the one you use everywhere if you’re married and dating! Your bio is the heart of the profile, and can be as long or short as you like within the limit of 1200 words. Photos really help you find connections, so add those if at all possible (you can hide your identity ina couple of ways), and remember, other users may well be searching only for potential dates who have a private gallery, so a few more intimate or saucy pictures there may be a good idea if you want to find someone fast.
Men must pay for credits on Ashley Madison in order to use the site properly. If you want to chat, you’ve got to part with cash. Bundles of credits work out to between 21p and 47p per individual credit. You need a certain number of credits for each action, like sending a message or highlighting your profile, so eventually they run out and you have to buy more. You won’t get anywhere without them as a man, so better to pay for Ashley Madison as soon as you can!
Go through the left menu, then Settings, then Account to either deactivate your account (if you feel like you may want to retrieve it later) or delete it for good.
You can favourite people you like the look of without using any credits, saving their profiles to look at later. Maybe when you’ve sort of something totally irresistible and incredibly smart to say!
Same sex searches and matches are available on Ashley Madison, which is not always the case on sites like this.
You can send winks to users you’re crushing on for free. This flirty addition to the site allows you to let people know you’re interested as soon as you know yourself!
Profiles with pictures get four times the interest. It’s just a fact. With Ashley Madison you can hide your face or anonymise pics. You can also upload intimate, private galleries which you can share with those who are interested and request a ‘key’. You can also request access to the galleries of others.
What do you get if you pay for a premium account on Ashley Madison? Here are a few of the added benefits.
Men have to purchase credits to send messages. If you buy the biggest package of credits (1000) you will be able to send a massive 120 messages to members you want to make connections with.
For credits (so, money) you can buy the Travellingman or Travellingwoman feature. This lets you send up to 30 messages to users in locations you will soon be travelling to. This means you can arrange dates and hookups before your plane has even left the ground, whether you’re on a lads getaway or a business trip.
You can pay to boost your profile. For just 99 credits you’ll appear high up on everyone’s ‘Discover’ page, making it much more likely you’ll get noticed. Remember, you’ll be way more likely to get winks and messages if you’ve got a filled in profile and pictures!
Free account
Basic - 100
£47.00
Classic - 500
£26.00
Elite -1000
£21.00
Pros
Cons
Pros
Ashley Madison looks great, and it’s a really usable site. There are many active members, and it’s been going long enough that kinks have been ironed out (including security kinks). It’s got a diverse user base, which means whoever you are you’re likely to find someone suitable for your desires and expectations. The credits system is a little odd, but easy enough to get used to, and some of the perks (like Travelman) are truly excellent and thoughtful. The name is recognisable, but Ashley Madison will never appear on a credit card or bank statement. The site also uses user names instead of christian names, again to protect anonymity. If you’re looking for something extra-marital, then Ashley Madison on the first site that springs to mind, and it’s for good reason.
After being in a sexless and loveless marriage for 15 yrs. I tried Ashjey Madison. I met some nice gentlemen whom I talked and texted with before deciding on one man whose profile was just what attracted me to him. He treated me like a Princess in our NSA connection.
I'm 11-months into a relationship with my girlfriend that I found through AM. In past reviews I said that I made contact with three very real women and started a relationship with my girlfriend. We're still very happy.
Ashleymadison is still one of the better sites. I hooked up some nice looking ladies there. It’s not as good as it once was, maybe. Or I’m getting old. Some attractive women, but the price is a little high.
Oh yes! Liking AM a lot! After trying a whole lotta 'top' sites for affairs at first ive now managed to find two good ones in under a week. Between this one and nostringsaffair.com things are really looking up for me and my under used wedding tackle lol!
