1. C-date New Zealand review: overview

This site is first choice for people in New Zealand who are looking for a classier way to set up dates online. There are lots of ways in which you can express your sexual preferences to ensure that you meet like-minded people on the service. Women like C-date especially because of its classier approach and because it’s entirely free for them to use.

We have conducted a thorough review of the service to give you an idea of the advantages and disadvantages of using C-date in New Zealand.

2. C-date New Zealand Practical Test

The C-date New Zealand snapshot test is based on thorough usage and exploration of C-date. To come up with an all-round overview of the product we set up a profile on the platform and browsed through it like an everyday user (man seeks woman). Next we looked at all features on the site and kicked off first conversations.

On top of this, we checked C-date New Zealand’s online reputation, scouring through comment boards and forums to understand how ordinary users respond to the product.

C-date New Zealand at first glance

From the first view of C-date, some characteristics of the service are obvious. Firstly, that it is a website targeted at the casual segment of the market. Second, that it has a stylish and up market atmosphere and lastly that it focuses on helping you find people who are into the same sort of meet ups as you. The philosophy of the brand is encapsulated by the tag line on the front page ‘Casual Matchmaking with Class’. This is a catchy statement and shows and awareness of the fact that large numbers of people are looking for both these things.

Picture: Matchlist view in profile - C-date

Right at the beginning of the registration, the user is asked to choose the types of thing that he or she is seeking. Is it ’Flirting’ or ‘Chatting’, for example. This notion continues right through the product and you are requested, in different ways, to declare a) what type of dater you are and b) what type of adventure you are after.

Number of members in your area Test

To acquire an idea of the amount of members online, we carried out a matches count assessment. Dating websites come in a lot of diverse layouts, but the most meaningful matter for the customer is how many connections he or she has. How many people get in contact and how many people respond to communications. Our ‘reach’ test develops a value against this essential measure for every site we look at. C-date New Zealand did very comfortably in this test. There were a whole lot of members online and it looked like an ample distribution of users across the state.

What the profiles look like on C-date New Zealand

Generally the profiles on C-date were reasonable. There are a lot of profiles where you cannot see the pictures at first (this is an anonymity feature – see below for more details), but otherwise the profiles seemed reasonably well filled out and, while not supermodels, the women we saw were nice-looking

If you are looking to set up no-strings encounters with an aim to have a regular sex-friend with benefits, then this seemed like as good a place as any to do it. All the women we talked to seemed straightforward in their intentions and ‘professional’ in their approach.

Are there any fake profiles on C-date?

Scammers are a problem for all dating companies and the test is not whether they have fake users, but how many of them are out there. Our impression of C-date New Zealand was very reassuring in this regard. C-date runs a pretty decent procedure of profile checking and mostly the profiles appeared real.

3. Functions and profiles on C-date New Zealand

The emphasis in the C-date site is on customer preferences and discretion. There are loads of different ways to say what type of encounter or person you are looking for and to control who sees your information.

It’s not hard to set yourself up on C-date. The registration process is very quick and only asks for basic bits of information. Once in the product you also are requested to upload a photo (pretty essential if you want any chance of success) and give a few more details about your search and interests. After that you’re free to browse through your match list and get chatting to the women who catch your eye.

Photo Release

Photo Release on C-date allows you to stay in control of who looks at your pictures online and when. As you load pictures onto your profile, you can tick a box that means your photo will still remain hidden from view, except when you explicitly release it to a match you trust.

Picture: Picture upload box - C-date

My Erotic Type

To make it easy for customers to express themselves about their sexuality, the feature 'My Erotic Type' is part of the profile section. With this you can choose from a big array of images (bananas, flowers, handcuffs etc)and pick five to show to your matches.

Picture: Erotic Gallery view - C-date

Sexual Preferences

Given that C-date is hardly the place people go looking for the love of their lives, there’s no surprise that it concentrates on the sexual side of dating and provides its customers a lot of opportunities to state their sexual preferences. If you are into bondage or dressing up, you can say so in the Sexual Preferences section and then you'll get matched up with people who have made the same choices (if there are any available of course).

Picture: Sexual Preferences options page - C-date

4. C-date New Zealand Customer Service

Customer friendliness is a critical issue with dating sites. The degree to which dating sites address and solve the troubles and problems their customers have varies a lot from one site to another. How simple is it to get hold of customer services? How swiftly do they deal with customer concerns. Does the firm operate automatic renewal of subscriptions?

Reaching the Customer Care service at C-date AU

There is a full and through FAQ section on the C-date service that answers a lot of procedural questions on the site well. The response times when you e-mail customer services are acceptable (48 hours). There doesn't seem to be any phone service available, but this is fairly standard for dating services. Overall then a reasonable if not excellent level of customer support is available on C-date.

C-date New Zealand design

It's a site that has a design well matched to its purpose. It has a loungy feel inside the product and the concept is all about creating a mildly erotic feeling rather than having lots of explicit material. It's also an easy site to use and understand and doesn't overload its product with lots of features or toys.

Mobile use at C-date New Zealand

As yet there is no C-date app. However, you can use C-date on your normal mobile browser. It is mobile browser compatible and because of the relatively simple nature of the site, this functionality is more than adequate.

Does C-date New Zealand have fake users?

Scammers are a problem for all dating companies and the test is not whether they have fake users, but how many of them are out there. Our impression of C-date New Zealand was very reassuring in this regard. C-date runs a pretty decent procedure of profile checking and mostly the profiles appeared real. 

5. Is C-date New Zealand value for money?

The large majority of dating companies offer a - free of charge - introduction to their product, but to use the service properly and really make contact with other users you always have to pay for a Premium Account. C-date New Zealand is not an exception and to communicate with your matches, you are going to have to pay. We wouldn’t question the need for this. In the end, customers always have to pay if they want to use a decent service.

*these prices were current at the time of writing, but may change

We recommend you go for the six month subscription period. This is the cheapest monthly price package. It’s a considerable up front cost, but once done you’ll be able to relax and use the service well.