Feeld and Pure, compared on verification and consent controls
Two apps selling nearly the same proposition to overlapping audiences, both anchoring trust on a badge. The published numbers are their own; the design choices underneath differ more than the marketing does.
Both apps describe themselves, in almost the same words, as being for open-minded adults. Both have decided the thing between a new user and a bad experience is a verification badge. The pitch is nearly interchangeable, so this comparison runs on mechanics, not language. One constraint first: every adoption figure below came from the company it flatters, or a vendor selling to it.
The published position
The numbers, and who made them
Feeld’s comes from Veriff’s case study on the partnership, published in February 2026: about 38% of profiles verified in under a year, a 25% rise in what the study calls Feeld’s trust and safety score, and a fall in fake-profile support tickets about a month after launch. Pure’s comes from its own 10 June 2025 announcement — over 34% of UK users badged within the first weeks, after a liveness check with head turns and blinking, reviewed automatically against the profile photos.
Thirty-four and thirty-eight per cent are close enough to be the same answer: about a third of profiles on each carry a badge, two thirds do not.
The trust and safety score deserves a harder look. No definition is published, and a composite that rises 25% could reflect fewer fake-profile reports, faster handling, a changed weighting, or all three. A number nobody outside the company can interpret is marketing, not evidence. Feeld’s raw 38% is the more useful line, and flatters least.
Where the designs actually diverge
Feeld’s site states plainly that it will never rank profiles. Pure’s verification release says verified users are prioritised in discovery. Both are defensible; they are not the same product. Pure has turned verification into a distribution lever: it drives completion, and ranks unverified users down rather than merely leaving them unbadged. Feeld’s refusal leaves the badge as signal alone: better on principle, weaker as an incentive, and 38% is what that looks like.
The second divergence is in the inbox, and it is the more interesting one. Feeld’s nudity detection, per its site, is opt-in: switch it on and explicit images arrive blurred until tapped. Pure’s My Media Rules, announced on 12 August 2026, hands that decision to the recipient: allow all media, block explicit photos, or switch photos and video off entirely, globally or per conversation, with the choice offered the first time one lands.
Two theories of consent, both behind a settings screen. A classifier decides for you what counts as explicit and fails when it misjudges; a user-set rule survives a bad classifier but does nothing for the person who never configures it. The answer is both, and neither publishes accuracy figures for the automated half. Pure’s release cites Pew Research Center data putting unsolicited explicit messages or images at nearly 40% of online daters, and 57% among women aged 18 to 34.
What neither publishes
Retention is the biggest gap. A liveness video is among the most sensitive things a user hands an app, and neither says how long it keeps one. Feeld at least names its processor; Pure’s announcement names none.
The other gap is the category’s standing failure: no response times, no report outcomes, no appeal rates. We made the general case in our review of in-app safety toolkits: the features doing real work are unglamorous, and only the operator can measure them, which none does in public. Treat the audience claims the same way. Feeld’s site advertises 14 million-plus, footnoted as registered accounts as of February 2026 per Sensor Tower; Pure’s press room claims $100m in annual gross revenue for 2025 and 95% growth in registrations, not in revenue. Neither number counts active users, and neither answers the question that decides it for you: how many people are active near where you live.
The ledger
Verdict
If unwanted images are the problem, Pure’s controls are the more precise answer today — knowing the priority-visibility trade sits behind the badge. If you would rather not be sorted by an algorithm, weigh Feeld’s position, accepting that a badge with no ranking benefit is a weaker lever.
Either way the badge establishes that a live person matches the photos, and nothing else. The advice is unchanged: say plainly what you want before you meet, and meet somewhere public the first time. For adults, 18+ — this desk assesses how these products are built and moderated, not what anyone does with them.