Operated by a company that was one of the first to launch an online dating site, ALT.com has an established presence on the internet and is the leader in fetish dating sites. As such, we conducted an evaluation of the site to determine how it performs today. This is our in-depth, ALT.com review.

— Pros and Cons of Alt.com—

Pros

• Established leader in the fetish dating industry
• Over 1.2 million users visit daily
• Large number of features
• Powerful search engine
• Mobile apps available

Cons

• Initial profile build can be lengthy
• Requires tweaking by the user to get the best user experience
• Free version has no outgoing communication functionality

— In-Depth Alt.com Review —

Not all online dating sites are intended for finding serious long-term relationships. Some focus more on our wilder sides. Such is the case with ALT.com.

Operated by the parent company of AdultFriendFinder, ALT.com is a niche dating site catering to alternative sexual relationships. Members can find other like minded members that share each other’s fetishes or fantasies. These can include BDSM, role play, swinging and a large variety of other kinky fetishes. The site is inclusive — there are categories for men, women, gay, lesbian, transgender and couples — anyone over 18 can join.

— Registration on Alt.com —

Registration starts on the ALT.com homepage. It is designed around a dark colored theme with a rotating carousel of mild bondage-related imagery. There, you enter whether you are a man, woman, transgender, couple or group along with your email. Then it is just a matter of clicking on the red “register now” button and waiting for a confirmation email to arrive. You then have to click on a link to confirm your email. Once that is done, you are officially registered on ALT. For our evaluation, this took under two minutes.

— Finding What You Are Looking For —

The registration process for ALT is very streamlined and fast. To get any use out of the site, however, it is imperative that members invest the time required to build a robust profile. This is done by logging into the site and selecting your profile page. There, you can answer a series of questionnaires. These ask questions regarding your personality and very intimate questions regarding your sexual likes and dislikes. The questions are multiple-choice, single-answer and open-ended. Make sure to dedicate at least thirty minutes to this task as the questions are numerous. Also, you want to make certain to answer as truthfully and as detailed as possible because this is the information the ALT uses to match you up with like-minded members.

Personally, we found some of the questions rather risque and they did make us blush more than once. However, for the demographic that ALT targets the questions would seem to be appropriate. It is the type of dating site where one must be open and honest about one’s sexual desires in order to get any use out of it.

ALT.com encourages its members to upload profile pictures and videos to help others evaluate their physical compatibility. Unlike other dating sites that prohibit nude or sexually compromising imagery, ALT has no limitations in that regard.

— Alt.com Functionality —

Once you’ve registered and completed your profile, members can begin to browse through all that ALT has to offer. In our opinion, the member page appears cluttered. It is not easy at first glance to determine what is available. This is because ALT offers a diverse set of features to its members. Unfortunately, their web design does not create an intuitive navigation experience.

The search function offered by ALT is one of the best that we have seen on any dating site. This is probably due to the fact that its members require a high level of precision in their searches in order to find members who share their kinks. The search function allows you to first break the search down to new members, VIP members, those who are presently online or those who live within a certain radius. Then you can break the search down further by gender, sexual orientation, age, eye color, hair color and length, ethnicity, body shape, and weight. Additional search parameters include length and girth of penis, circumcised, uncircumcised, breast size, and the presence of pubic hair. A truly broad scope of search parameters to say the least.

When you find a member that you are interested in you can send them a message which will appear in their inbox or you can send them a chat request if the user is online at that moment. More anonymous contact can be made by sending the user a digital “flower” that will appear on their notifications.

Other features on the site include fetish blogs, forums, porn videos, live cam show access and group pages. It is the presence of so many features that clutters up the page.

For those wanting mobile access to ALT, they do offer iPhone and Android apps.

— Filtering —

With a user base of over 35 million and with more than 1.2 million users visiting the site daily, it is easy to receive an overwhelmingly large number of messages and chat requests. For this reason, ALT allows its members to filter from whom they receive messages. Users can filter results by the same parameters that they use for search. Also, users can block specific members from communicating with them.

In our evaluation, we were flooded with communication requests. It did not become manageable until we activated the filtering protocols.

— Cost of Alt.com —

ALT offers both free and paid memberships. In our opinion, the free membership is practically useless. While it does allow you access to the site, it blocks all outgoing communication functionality. To initiate communication — or respond to other members — you must have a paid membership. Free members are also limited to only the most basic of search parameters.

There are two tiers of membership that ALT offers — “Gold” and “Silver.”

Silver membership is the lowest priced of the two. It opens all communication functions but still limits you on the number of search parameters that you can apply. Gold membership opens all communication and search functions and also gives your profile preferential positioning in the search results of other members.

Gold membership starts at $29.95 per month, with Silver starting at $19.95. Both can be lowered by paying for three months in advance to a monthly equivalent of $19.99 and $11.99 respectively.

— Customer Support —

We were pleased to find that ALT offers robust customer support. Online support is offered to free members via email. Gold and Silver members can make use of the toll-free telephone support.