What Is One Night Friend?
Online dating isn’t easy, and most dating sites seem more focused on serious relationships. But sometimes, you just need a little fun on short notice, and that’s exactly what this site is for. It claims to have many members living near you, looking for hookups fast, even as soon as that same night. You might be wondering whether One Night Friend is real, or just a scam. And you can find out by reading the rest of this review.
As well as the legitimacy of other users, we’ve also investigated to let you know how much it’ll cost to use the site, and what the best features are. We’ve read the terms and conditions, so you don’t have to, and we’ll alert you to any cause for concern. We’ll then explain our OneNightFriend rating in the conclusion.
Pros
Very affordable one-day and one-week trials.
Premium is free for women.
See members from their partner sites (more variety to choose from).
Creating an account is free and speedy.
Cons
Men need to pay for Full Membership which is expensive.
Not many users.
Limited to the US only.
Some messages get deleted if you don’t subscribe and view them within 1 hour.
There’s a One Night Friend app available but only as an APK.
Login Process
The homepage urges you to sign up for free, and it’ll be easy and fast – it should take less than 5 minutes. There’s only one way to join. First, you’ll complete “I am a man/woman looking for men/women”, and your age. Enter your location by entering your city or postal code, which must be located in the United States. Your email address is next and create a password. You must then verify your email address.
This is done by clicking a link that’ll be sent to your inbox and entering the activation code. You’ll be greeted with a popup to add a profile picture. Male profiles can skip this step, but women must add a photo to start browsing. The reason for this is that female users get a premium account for free, while men need to pay for it. So, they ‘pay’ for that perk with a compulsory photo, while no perks for men = no photo requirement.
Profile Completion
Profiles are quite simple on OneNightFriend, so it won’t take too long to fully complete yours. Add photos if you didn’t already do so during registration, which could get you up to 5x more messages. You can also add a status, which is an update about your mood, what you’re looking for, or anything you’d like to share.
There’s a section called Looking For, which has the gender you’re seeking, your preferred age range, and their location. When you first join, these are set to the default settings of any city in the USA and 18-78, but you can edit these to suit your preferences more accurately.
The final section is Additional info, and this has shorter questions about your appearance and lifestyle. The appearance questions are about your:
Eye and hair color
Piercings or Tattoos
Height
Weight
The lifestyle questions ask about:
Religion
Whether you have children
Income
Education level
Whether you smoke or drink
User Account Quality
OneNightFriend has quite a small number of users, meaning you’ll see the same few faces repeatedly. You’ll also find that many members are actually from partner sites, which will be indicated on their profile. So, the actual user base must be quite small, although they’ve solved this with integration with other sites. Female profiles are required to have pictures, so they all do. Men on the other hand don’t, and as such most of their profiles lack photo material.
Dating Features
Like Gallery
If browsing through pages of beautiful profile pictures has worn you out, you can switch over to the Like Gallery. This page will show you people near you, one profile at a time. Their profile picture, username, age, and distance from you will be visible. You can either click the X if you’re not interested in them, the heart icon to Like them, or the chat bubble icon to send them a message if you’re a Full Member.
You’re able to like or pass on members with a free account, and you also get 5 free messages per day to use in the Like Gallery. To use these, click on the ‘Get Exclusive’ banner at the bottom of the picture. An interesting note here, none of the messages we sent using these freebies got any replies. Is this another tactic to get you to buy a subscription? If you could chat for free, you wouldn’t need premium.
You can also scroll down to see the rest of their profile, including their status and some profile details. If they’re not a OneNightFriend member, you can also see which partner site they’re from, for example, we saw women from cougarlust.com and ebonyflirt.com.
Flirtcasts
Any way to communicate for free is appreciated on dating sites that charge you to send messages. To that end, OneNightFriend offers Flirtcasts that you can send once every 12 hours. These are prewritten messages that you can send as a broadcast to multiple members, chosen at random, at once. The messages are flirty and fun and are a good way to start a conversation. Some examples of the Flirtcasts are:
Are you set on finding someone? Then why waste time when you can start a chat with me?
Should I wait until next time for you to invite me to chat, or can we chat now?
Greetings! How much time does it usually take for you to develop a crush on somebody?
Do you think we'd make a good match if I'm generous and polite with women?
The only downside is… why would you want to send flirty messages to a random group of members? Most of us have preferences, so would probably want to have a say in who we’re messaging.
Promote My Account
Another interesting feature is the Promote My Account feature which you can find in your settings, which promises to help you find matches even while you’re offline. You can only use this if you’ve got at least one photo uploaded to your profile. Activating this feature will allow the site to send messages, like other profiles, and add them to your favorites list on your behalf.
While the idea of getting more matches is enticing, this is another one that has us asking… why would we want to hand over control to the website, to match with random people? What if your matches are too old, too young, or not your type? It sounds good in theory but in practice, it’s an odd feature.
Safe Mode
Safe Mode controls what kind of users can contact you. The default setting has you browsing on Basic Safe Mode, which means that all members except for ‘suspicious’ members can contact you. It’s unclear how a person gets marked as suspicious, but presumably, it means they’ve been reported once or more. You can also turn Safe Mode off, which allows you to be contacted by any other member.
Finally, there’s also Full Safe Mode, which only allows verified members to contact you. This is a more secure way of browsing because it limits your interactions to only verified real people. This can provide you with a sense of comfort, knowing that you’re much less likely to encounter a scammer or catfish.
Safety Tips
You’ll find a Safety Tips document in your settings which contains advice and resources to help keep you as safe as possible in your online dating adventures. This includes advice during the chatting stage, such as never sending anyone money or giving them personal information about your location and movements until you’re ready to. There’s advice on best practices when meeting in person, like telling your friends where you’ll be and meeting in public.
There’s even advice on sexual health, like practicing safe sex and making sure that all encounters are consensual. Finally, there are resources to contact organizations that can help in various situations, like Planned Parenthood, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, and the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Satisfaction Guarantee
OneNightFriend offers a free trial for 3 days on any Partner site if you don’t meet someone after subscribing for 3 months. This is subject to several conditions:
Have 2 photos and a FULLY complete profile.
Visit the site at least 3x a week.
Chat with a minimum of 5 potential matches and use Flirtcasts.
Actively search and browse for a match within 50 miles of your location.
Never meet any user in real life.
If you meet all those conditions and can prove it, you can email support@onenightfriend.com to request your trial. This is a LOT of hassle, and the reward is comparatively quite small. At the end of 3 months of actively pursuing a date, would you still have the energy to properly use the trial? In dollar terms, this is essentially a $3 consolation prize for ‘wasting’ $80 on your subscription.
One Night Friend App
There is an app available, but not on the App Store or Google Play, you’ll need to download it as an APK. However, we wouldn’t recommend doing this. It’s not mentioned or linked on the website, and APK files are only safe to download from official sources. So, this may be a One Night Friend fake app, or it could be harmful to your device.
Prices & Costs
It’s free to create a One Night Friend account and browse through singles, like others, and add people to your favorites list. You can send a limited number of Flirtcasts as well. But if you’re male and want to send or reply to messages, you’ll need to buy a subscription to become a Full Member.
Full Membership
The Full Membership comes with several perks:
Send and receive unlimited messages.
View full-size photos.
See what other members are ‘Looking for’.
Premium customer support.
Share photos and videos in chat.
Women get Full Memberships for free. Men must purchase it, it's available for different time periods:
1 Month: $59.99
3 Months: $79.99 (Works out to $26.67 per month)
This is relatively expensive compared to similar dating sites. The subscription will automatically renew at the end of the period you chose, and you’ll be charged again. You can deactivate this in your settings, and you must do this at least 3 days before the end of the period.
Full Membership Trial
If you’re not sure you want to commit for a full 1-3 months, you can test the Full Membership for a shorter length of time. These trials will automatically renew as a monthly subscription at the end, so if you decide it’s not for you make sure to deactivate this ASAP. These are very budget-friendly:
1 Day Trial: $0.99
1 Week Trial: $5.99
Premium Benefits Add-ons
When you’ve got a Full Membership, you can purchase some addons for an extra cost. There are three tiers:
Chataholic has the following perks:
Appear at the top in Messenger.
Appear higher in search results.
Read Receipts.
While Extra Benefits has these perks:
Premium Support (this is also included in the Full Membership – it’s unclear what the difference is).
Browse Incognito.
Clear your history automatically.
The highest tier, Premium Dater, has all the above perks in one.
These are available as a 28-day package and will auto renew at the end of the 4 weeks. They cost:
Chataholic: $0.54 per day ($14.99 for the full term).
Extra Benefits: $0.54 per day ($14.99 for the full term).
Premium Dater: $0.89 per day ($24.99 for the full term).
How Safe Is OneNightFriend.com?
Use Of Your Photos And Other Information
You grant the company the right to use your image and name in their marketing material when you sign up and add photos and other information to your account. This could mean creating duplicate profiles for you on partner sites or featuring your picture and name in their ads. You’ll need to opt in to having duplicate accounts on partner sites, which you can do in your settings.
You have no right to claim or receive royalties or payments if they use your photo in their marketing. We’ve seen this clause on a few dating sites, so it’s not unusual or particularly alarming, but it’s good to know if you’re very privacy-conscious or need discretion. You can opt out of this by contacting the site at support@onenightfriend.com.
Verify Account
Members can verify themselves on OneNightFriend in two ways. First, by entering a confirmation code that was either texted to you or obtained on a voice call. The second option is to call the website’s toll-free number. You’ll need to give them your User ID, which you can find on the verification and settings pages.
This will prove that you’re a real person with a mobile phone and that you’re in the US or have a US number. However, this does nothing to verify that you’re using your own photos. Scammers and catfish (people using fake photos) can slip through the cracks.
Fake/Staff Profiles
Our test profile got a ton of attention, profile visits, and messages, before having a photo or any information added. This is usually a warning sign that a site uses fake accounts to drive engagement. It’s also unusual to suddenly get profile visits and messages as soon as you log on, which also happened while testing. Some other One Night Friend reviews online mention fake profiles as a serious problem.
We found, nestled in the Terms of Use, the following clause: “We reserve the right to create profiles which are maintained and managed by our employees (“Staff Profiles”)”. This is meant to be for the purposes of testing the site. So, some portion of the users are fake, and we don’t know if it’s 1% or 100%, because there’s no sign or symbol to indicate which accounts are Staff Profiles.
Report and Block
One way to keep yourself safe is by reporting and blocking other users who are suspicious or abusive. You can do this from the person’s profile or the messaging page. You can block a user, which will stop any more messages from being exchanged between you and them. It will also prevent them from viewing your profile or contacting you in any way.
It’s also advisable to report them. When you do this, you’ll need to give a reason. You can either write why you’ve reported them or pick a reason from a list, which includes that they’re a scammer, underage, or being offensive, among others. The moderation team will investigate and if necessary, take action against the user.
Final Thoughts
This is a pretty basic dating site, with a good number of features focused on safety but very few focused on fun or dating. And the features that exist for dating, like the Flirtcasts and Promote My Account, seem like they would drive subscription purchases more than help singles find matches. One big positive is that you can send 5 free messages per day using the Like Gallery.
Women get Full Memberships for free while men need to pay for them, which is annoying but understandable, it’s a model that is relatively common on dating sites. There are trials available for cheap, but the full subscription is pricy for what you’re getting. The Satisfaction Guarantee is more effort than it’s worth. The OneNightFriend delete account process is lengthy and complicated (see our FAQs for a step-by-step guide).
With the Staff Profiles, your chances of finding a ‘Friend’ for ‘One Night’ of fun seem pretty slim. For these reasons, we’d rate onenightfriend.com 4/10. If you insist, we’d strongly recommend doing the 1-day or 1-week trial before purchasing a Full Membership, but you may be better off trying a different dating site with more real users and better features.
FAQ
What Is One Night Friend?
It is a hookup and casual dating site to help you find someone like-minded to have some fun with.
Is One Night Friend Legit?
It seems to be mostly legit, because real people can create profiles and if they buy subscriptions, chat with each other. It’s a real dating site but always be wary of fake accounts and Staff profiles.
How To Cancel One Night Friend Subscription?
It’s easy and fast – simply go to your Settings and find the OneNightFriend deactivate auto-renewal button. It’ll be in the section on the left, under Membership details. It’ll also be automatically canceled when you delete your account.
Is OneNightFriend A Scam?
It’s another dating site with an unspecified number of fake accounts run by site employees, seemingly designed to mislead you into thinking you’re talking to real people. However, technically they do inform users of the fake accounts, so we’ll leave it up to you to answer that question for yourself.
How To Deactivate One Night Friend Account?
It’s a lengthy process:
Go to your Settings and click Remove Account.
Enter your password.
Select “Remove my profile, contacts, and personal information completely” and click Continue.
Select a reason.
Select “Yes, I want to remove my account”.
Enter your email address.
Check your emails for the cancellation code.
Log into your account again and go to settings.
Click Remove Account (again).
Enter your password (again).
Enter your cancellation code.
This will deactivate your account. If you want to reactivate it, you can just log in again.
How To Delete One Night Friend Account?
If you want to delete your data, there’s no easy way to do it. You can try emailing support@onenightfriend.com to request or demand that OneNightFriend delete your information. You can also remove your photo and change your email address to a burner Gmail account before deactivating the account.
