When most people first hear about the dating site AfroRomance, many assume that it is focused on the African-American community. In reality, this site is what is known as a multi-ethnic dating site. In order to develop a better idea of how multi-ethnic dating sites function, in particular, AfroRomance, we conducted the following review.

AfroRomance Review Results Popularity - 71

Value - 77

Features - 70

Quality of Members - 79

Safety - 81

Customer Satisfaction - 80 76 Final Word on AfroRomance We found AfroRomance to be truly focused on the concept of being a multi-ethnic dating site. More importantly, the membership reflects it. There is not one single ethnicity that predominates on the site. The community is multi-cultural and open-minded along with being very welcoming. As far as the technical aspect is concerned, however, AfroRomance does not stand out in any way. Its features are standard and the fact that it does not offer video chat and that it does not have a mobile app places it behind the majority of its contemporaries. Nevertheless, we would rate AfroRomance as ABOVE AVERAGE quite simply because, within its niche, it is able to deliver results. As other sites enter its area of specialty, however, if it does not improve technologically, it may begin to fall behind.

— Pros and Cons —

Pros

Truly multi-ethnic

Clean design, intuitive desktop interface

Over 900,000 active members

Includes access to an informative dating and relationship blog

Cons

Lack of mobile apps

Communication features require a paid membership

— In-Depth AfroRomance Review —

AfroRomance was launched in 2003. Since then, it has cultivated a user base that is varied not only in ethnicity but also in purpose. AfroRomance encourages people of all ethnicities to join — African-American, White, Asian, Hispanic, etc. The overarching purpose of the site is to provide a platform to those individuals who want to experience dating outside of their own ethnicity.

AfroRomance does not place any limit on the type of relationship that their members seek. The site presents itself as being friendly to those seeking long-term, casual and platonic relationships. It is also structured to accommodate those seeking straight or same-sex partners.

— What Differentiates It From Other Sites —

The majority of general audience dating sites offer ethnicity as a category that can be used to filter searches. In that regard, AfroRomance does not offer anything exclusive in its matchmaking platform. Where the site differentiates itself is in marketing optics. All AfroRomance ads focus on the multi-ethnic angle. This results in attracting a user base that is actively interested in dating a person of an ethnicity different to their own. That means that even though the platform is not unique, the mindset of the members is. This creates an environment that will be more conducive to finding a match.

—Registration Process —

AfroRomance uses a two-stage registration process. The first step takes seconds and only requires new users to enter the desired gender and ethnicity of the partner that they are seeking. Upon doing that, new users are immediately redirected to a listing of local member profiles. This gives you an idea of the number of active users that the site has in your area. These profiles, however, are condensed versions of the full profiles that you can have access to when you finish the second step of the registration process.

This second step involves you having to provide additional information about yourself. Your gender, ethnicity, and a valid email are mandatory. You must also disclose the type of relationship that you are seeking. Your choices are: friends, penpals, casual dating, long-term or marriage. You can upload a profile picture at this stage. Even though uploading an image is optional, your profile will not appear in default search results if you do not upload one.

You are also given the option to expand your profile by responding to behavioral and personality questions. These include how you spend your days off, what your hobbies are, etc. There are further questions that probe deeper into your outlook on relationships and life in general. These include your future plans, whether you have or want kids, career development, etc. The majority of these questions limit your response to the options that are presented to you from drop-down menus. A few questions allow you to select multiple responses. There is an open-text ‘about me’ section which allows you to say something about yourself in your own words. During our testing, we found that the most interesting part of the profiles presented to you in search results — apart from the profile picture, of course — where the free-text snippets.

— User Experience —

The membership area has a clean and easy to navigate user interface. AfroRomance offers search, messaging and chat features. Additionally, the site also has a blog with a large trove of articles offering articles on interracial dating advice, romance, dating tips and other topics.

One point of contention for us with AfroRoamnce was that it is accessible only through a web browser. To get the full user experience you are limited to your desktop or laptop. The lack of mobile apps means that if you want to access the site from a smartphone you must use your mobile browser. Our testers found this type of mobile experience to be horrible. During searches the site caused the mobile browsers to freeze on repeated occasions.

— Effectiveness —

The search engine on AfroRomance is powered by criteria-based filtering. This means that users provide the input for how the site qualifies the search results that it returns. There are no proprietary matchmaking algorithms.

Normally, the results obtained from these simplified matchmaking search engines are less than stellar. In the case of AfroRomance, however, our testers found that the quality of the search results was better than expected. The majority contained profiles of other members that indeed matched the expectations of those conducting the search. This was likely due to the fact that the membership base for AfroRomance consists of approximately 900,000 people. While large, it is still manageable enough to return decent results without the need of a complex algorithm.

The chat and messaging features are so generic that suffice it to say, if you have used other dating sites or simply participated in any sort of internet-based platform in the last 20 years, you will find the AfroRomance features familiar.

— Cost —

AfroRomance offers a free version that is very limited. In our testing we found the free version to be useless for anything beyond getting a cursory idea of what the site has to offer.

In order to send or respond to messages, as well as to conduct advanced searches — a paid membership is required. A one-month membership has a cost of $19.95. You also have the option of paying $39.50 for a three-month membership, or $69.95 for a six-month membership.