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.
3 Responses
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!
Nelly Colle
November 15, 2011 @ 09:11 am 2I’m seriously unhappy that I decided to go ahead and purchase SkaDate EVEN AFTER reading all these terrible ratings. I am not one to be deterred by random disgruntled customer/black pr… thought since the “pre-sale” customer service was so good that I’d go ahead and buy it. anyway long story short – a day into buying the product i’ve already come across a hurdle. installation didn’t go through all the way (they blamed it on the hosting company – although i know from past experience and a quick call to my hosting company that it wasn’t a problem with hosting). they are so quick and dismissive once teh sale was done. Now i’m scrambling for help in the forum – trying to figure out all this problem with my site crashing randomly. I have NO CLUE and no help certainly… and the best part… when i ask for help through the support system – i get offered the wonderful $95/month plan to pay for support… YEAH RIGHT!! i pay for a product i cannot even customize even though they say it can be! moment you step into the backend to customize css, everything falls apart and no documentation to help us out! This is beyond illegal to scam customers into buying a bugged-out software, with very little to no support (and limited “unique” templates) and then have them scurrying to pay more just to fix YOUR software… we are the customers, we shouldn’t be fixing your errors. So if you cannot guarantee a bug-free product – then DON’T charge us for support!!!! I SINCERELY learned my lesson (although it cost me a grand $400 USD). Never buy from a company with real bad PR… there’s truth behind it (after all it cannot all be “fake comments”) and by the way, before you step on this message board telling me to come forward. I’d be glad to.. except i dont’ plan on releasing my personal information on the web. simply contact me (I’m unfortunately still stuck being your customer til I find a more reliable software). So reply back to me if you have a remedy for this ridiculous situation!
Jaded
December 23, 2011 @ 03:18 am 3I purchased Skadate right around June 2011. I am a completely non-techie person. I wanted some modifications done. What I had in mind was just something basic. Skadate insisted and recommended that I went with SOD Technologies (whom they are now using for their 24/7 support – scary!). Well, long story short, after losing loads of hair and what remained turned grey, SOD T finally delivered the completed product a month later than promised. I trusted their initial quote and made marketing campaigns to launch the site – HUGE lesson learned. SOD T has extremely limited familiarity with Skadate template. I had to email them the demo link which can easily be found on Skadate website to show them what the original template skin looked like (since they made a mess of everything and had to reverse engineer) and they were shocked and pleased that it existed. Really?! That gave me great confidence that everything was going to work out just fine. Not.
Anyway, a few months into it now, I can tell you that I totally REGRET modifying the site. Sod T had made the scripts SUPER HEAVY according to the host company I used (again Skadate’s recommendation). If 3-5 people log in simultaneously, the site slows or hangs! Skadate and Arvixe (host company) agreed that 3-5 people is quite heavy for shared hosting. I felt deceived. So, for all of you out there who are on a BUDGET, take note – shared hosting won’t cut it! Shared hosting ($3/4 per months as advertised) is only sufficient to get you through the “set up” phase – meaning only “you” logging in and customising your site. Once the site goes life and you have any kind of traffic, expect poor performance on your site. Chat features will come to a halt, almost. I had to upgrade and transfer to VPS (just this week – more problems of course!) hosting for the site to run efficiently. So for anyone out there who thinks this can be a small budget project/investment, do think twice.
As for bugs, yes. Loads. Every few weeks I find a bug. Contact support and they will tell you to upgrade. Great. And since I had my site modified, it’s now a more complicated upgrade. I am not a techie so I can’t do it myself. And if you ask support to help upgrade because there is a bug in the version you bought – there’s a fee. And if you modified your site, the fee is higher. However, if you beg (like I did) then they will help you, but don’t expect a quick turnaround. But if you think about it, you bought a software and there are a few bugs in it but now you are asked to pay more to fix the bug?! If you bought a DVD player and there’s something wrong with it due to manufacturer’s error, you wouldn’t want to pay more to fix it, would you??
Now that I stumbled upon this review, and read about the SSH access request (here and another review site) – which they did ask me for it (just this week while I forced to switch host & upgrade to VPS) and I innocently gave them every log in details and password (!!!!!), I must now ask my hosting company to make sure they didn’t screw with anything else because I do plan to host other sides on the VPS account!
If I had to do it again, NEVER. But if someone holds a gun to my head and ask me to start a dating website, I’d say sure, use Skadate, but don’t modify and you better be a programmer who can fix problems yourself. Otherwise it’ll end up costing you some pennies! Don’t be fooled by the $350 price tag!
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