SkaDate is a community oriented dating software that is stuffed with features. It is offered as a hosted dating site or as standalone software. With the high price tag and little flexibility, you may want to think twice before purchasing it. Although it does come with some nice features so still worth a look.
SkaDate is filled with various features. It allows profile searches, saving searches, picture and video uploads and others. These features aren’t as flexible as they could have been. It’s also not possible to easily disable those features you do not need. So if you plan on running a site that doesn’t need events, you’ll be stuck with them anyway. This means that your server resources will be spent on something you don’t even use.
The extensive feature list is good but what would be even better is a well organized control panel. It takes forever to find something in there. Any basic website management activities such as changing menu items, managing profile questions, changing information content, changing watermarks on user photos and other simple actions can be done through the control panel. Front-end side of the website is quite easy to use but could be more user friendly.
SkaDate offers various template designs for you to choose from. They do look almost the same though so if you would like your site to look unique, you’ll probably need to spend some time on customizing templates. Control panel looks a bit old and could use some improvements especially in the design area.
If you opt in for their managed solution, you won’t have any access to the script’s source code so any changes will be impossible. If you purchase standalone version, you’ll be able to modify it but it may prove to be challenging as the code is not very efficient and takes a big learning curve.
SkaDate offers technical support like most other companies. What makes them different is that you have to pay separately for support.
SkaDate dating software is available as a managed solution for $125/month with a $295 setup fee, and as standalone solution for $795. Keep in mind that you will still need to pay separately for support if you decide to purchase their standalone product. They also offer a lot of other non-related products that they’re trying to get you to buy during the ordering process.
The pricing seems a bit on the higher side, particularly if one is to look at the monthly fees to be paid for management and support. Aside that fact there’s very little flexibility and high degree of learning the code and structure of the script if you plan on customizing it. Technical support is also not so “supportive” after the purchase.
One Response
Jeremy
January 14, 2010 @ 10:45 am 1Skadate has a very buggy script, and they are dishonest. I say this having fallen to them as a customer. I purchased the script to have on my own hosting and had skadate install it. They stated they needed to have Shell Access for the install.
What they needed shell access for was to sabatoge the normal settings of the independent hosting company I was using over theirs, so it would appear that their script did not work on that host, and I would be forced to enter a monthly contract for hosting with them.
I say this with knowledge as I later moved to another host on my own, and simply uploaded the zip myself, without any shell access, and guess what? It worked!
Fortunately, I had a very good hosting company that alerted me to the sabatoge right after the install, as all of my sites went whacky–I hosted several sites on one account, and when Skadate screwed with the Shell settings, they through off ALL of my sites.
Maybe if I had one site I would not have been tripped to this dirty trick of theirs, but it backfired on them. My USA host fixed the sabatoge, and guess what? The skadate script worked fine. If that wasn’t enough, the handful of support items I submitted to skadate on my paid support tickets, were incompetently handled.
They always seemed not to know how to figure it out, it must have had something to do with egads, my independent hosting company, but of course it would all be fixed if I paid skadate to host me! Fortunately I was able to search online on my own, and figure out and solve the mysterious problems they said they couldn’t figure out, and I am no techie! They did solve a couple of little things, but the major support item I needed and wanted—guess what? They tried to find a way to make me pay more money for this item to be fixed. And that has been their tactic—try to milk you for all kinds of money once they have you as a customer.
Then if that wasn’t bad enough, recently skadate has shut down their forum as a move to remove any searchable help reference to their software and force you to pay they for support. And they have the gall to almost double the price of the support that I found to be next to worthless, but worthless it seemed intentionally to move me to have them host my site and make monthly money off of me.
Their former support had been around $50 a month, and now they have the gall to charge $95 a month for support. I mean what kind of software do you purchase that then demands you pay them $95 a month for any kind of support? I mean who of us here who are real citizens of the USA would pay microsoft $95 a month for support on Word or Excel, or any pricey software? And who made sure to shut down access to their user forum?
I continue to find bugs, and quite frankly, I am just going to scrap their script and use something like joomla, which is free and reliable, has an open, longstanding user forum, and can be trusted. Simply do not buy skadate dating software; if they were honest and trustworthy, I would say yes. But I have found them to be dishonest, and when paid for support, poorly responsive or not at all.
The forum moderator can see my ip is a real us ip, but for my protection from skadate sabatoging my site before I switch it over to another software, I have of course used a different name than they know me as their customer—as they sabatoged my site when I was brand new to them and on good standing! So what will they try to do when they read my unhappy comments. But what I have to say is completely true.
I am very disappointed with them, because they could have had good business being honest, but instead they want to bully money out of customers and not give standard support. That’s my truthful experience as well as my opinion on my real experience with them. I found their software a money trap to bleed you for more, and in this economy, who needs that!
Leave a reply