AdultFriendFinder, like most adult dating sites, allows you to choose from a Standard (Free) or Gold membership

There’s also a very handy Standard Contacts upgrade which you can pay for, which allows free members to reply to your messages

As well as searching, you can also receive automated matches, which are produced based on the information you provide in your profile. If you prefer women of a certain age or ethnicity, for example, it will be more likely to match you with those women. This is a time saver and also allows you to view profiles which you might have missed.

As you explore the site you’ll see Gold members identified, which is useful because it shows you who will be able to reply to your messages. If you see a new member (who hasn’t upgraded) and you’d like to talk to them before anyone else, this upgrade is a real bonus.

AdultFriendFinder offers one of the most in depth searches we’ve seen, with dozens of options to help target people who suit your social, physical and sexual needs

Adult Friend Finder have really capitalized on their enormous members’ database by offering a variety of tools to allow members to contact one another and play together online as a prelude perhaps to meeting in person – these include the enormous chat rooms, which are broken down as follows:

• IMC – the Instant Messaging Chat network, allowing you to chat with other members using AdultFriendFinder’s built-in html-based or flash-based instant messaging tool. If a member has a webcam available, you may also chat using voice and/or video chat. You can filter the members in the chat room by gender (man, woman, couple, groups, TS/TV/TG), their age and whether or not they have a webcam and are currently broadcasting. You can also sort the results by age or distance. When we visited there were over 15,000 members chatting on the IMC!
• Adult Chat Rooms. Pick a chatroom by geographic location or by topic
• Interest Group Chat, allowing you to chat with other members who share a similar interest. When we visited there were over 138,000 interest groups on AdultFriendFinder, comprising over 2.5 million members and over 10 million discussions! You can browse the interest groups by region or topic, or simply search for a group by keyword.
• Live Model Chat powered by AdultFriendFinder’s sister site, Cams. The models come in all sorts of categories, but a private chat in this room will cost you! For a limited time, Gold Members receive $10-$25 of free credits for live nude model chat.

Being a standard member allows you only limited access, but will allow you to get a feel for the site and see what it’s like. All you need to do to become a standard member is fill out a short form, answering a few multiple choice questions about yourself and write a few lines about who you are and what you’re looking for in a playmate. Don’t spend too long on this, as you can easily update it later. Free standard membership is only intended to give you a feel for the site and nothing more.

In order to interact with other members, including e-mailing them, messaging them, and chatting to them over your webcam, you will need to upgrade to a premium-level Gold membership. The advantages of Gold membership are many and varied and will really let you get the most out of the site, but the main reason you’ll want to upgrade will be to initiate contact with other members or reply to other members who’ve contacted you. So Gold membership may be essential if you wish hook up with other members in the real world (off-line).