Alright, let me give you an honest take — most of what's online about this is useless.
Pricing models are all over the place. Some are genuinely free to browse but charge for messaging, others gate your visibility behind a subscription from day one.
The mainstream options — Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid, Facebook Dating — exist but they're moderated heavily and built around relationships, not this type of use.
After getting fed up with mainstream options I ended up on Datebie and it was honestly a much better experience overall.
Hope that helps narrow things down a bit.