What PoF is and who uses it
Plenty of Fish is one of the oldest major dating platforms still in operation, launched in 2003 and acquired by Match Group in 2015. It built its user base primarily on being free when competitors charged, and that free tier remains the main reason it still has users. In some markets, particularly smaller cities in North America and the UK, it has a genuinely large user base.
The user base skews older than Tinder or Hinge, and more working-class than OkCupid. It's never been a destination for CNM users, the platform has consistently treated non-monogamy as outside its scope, but some CNM people use it simply because of its size in markets where other options are thin.
CNM features: there aren't any
PoF has no relationship type options beyond monogamous relationship structures. The profile setup asks "looking for": casual dating, serious relationship, marriage, friends, none of which map to CNM relationship structures. There is no field for noting an open relationship, existing partnership, or non-monogamous orientation.
CNM disclosure on PoF is entirely manual, you include it in your bio and hope people read it before messaging. Given the low profile-reading rates on platforms with low overall engagement, this is unreliable. The result is a high proportion of unwanted matches who had no idea you were non-monogamous.
This isn't an oversight. Match Group (which also owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Match) has explicitly added CNM features to OkCupid (relationship type options, linking partner profiles) while leaving PoF unchanged. The omission is deliberate: PoF's positioning targets a market that Match Group believes prefers conventional relationship framing.
Profile quality and engagement
PoF profiles are notoriously thin. The platform's design doesn't encourage detailed self-description, and the culture that has developed around it doesn't reward it either. In practice, many profiles consist of a photo or two and one or two sentences, which is a problem when CNM disclosure requires at minimum a clear statement in the bio.
Engagement rates are low relative to the nominal user base size. A large PoF user base in a given city doesn't necessarily translate to active users, many accounts are created and then abandoned, or used sporadically. Effective match rates for CNM-open people tend to be low.
Spam and safety
PoF has a well-documented problem with spam accounts and scam profiles that is worse than most comparable platforms. The verification requirements are minimal, and the free messaging means scammers have no cost barrier. CNM users are not specifically targeted, but the general signal-to-noise ratio is poor.
There is no photo verification, no video verification, and limited moderation. Safety features are below current industry standards.
When to use PoF
There is a narrow case for PoF: if you're in a smaller city or town where Feeld has fewer than ten daily active users and OkCupid isn't much better, and you've exhausted other options, PoF's larger raw user base in some regional markets might produce occasional connections.
Even then, Tinder is generally a better mainstream fallback in most markets, it has better UX, better spam controls, and a more active user base in most geographies. PoF's only remaining advantage over Tinder is the free messaging tier.
In most urban markets, PoF is not worth your time. The CNM-specific infrastructure is zero; the general quality is low; better options exist. It's included here because people ask about it and the honest answer, don't bother, is worth stating clearly.
Verdict
Plenty of Fish scores 3.0/10 for CNM use. The free messaging is a genuine feature, but it's not enough to compensate for no CNM infrastructure, low profile quality, poor engagement, and a significant spam problem. Use Feeld and OkCupid first. If those don't work in your market, try Hinge or Tinder before PoF.
Related: Tinder review · OkCupid review · Feeld review · Best dating apps for CNM