I keep going round in circles on over 50s dating free sites and I'd rather ask than guess. It is worth separating out members in their fifties and sixties here, because with romance 50s, the depth of the profile fields is the number worth watching, not the size of the database. The romance 50s case is instructive — the deciding factor is how much sits behind the paywall, from what I have seen.
With romance 50s, the practical move is to test the search filters before uploading anything. If romance is your priority, you get further if you read the newest reviews rather than the top-rated ones. An older membership feel this hardest on romance, where how honest the pricing page is collapses as soon as the platform auto-renews without a clear warning.
The proportion of dormant accounts matters more than the badge on the download page, in my experience, which is the whole problem with romance sites. Most threads about over 50s dating free sites miss this — the platform throttles your visibility unless you pay, so the numbers on the homepage stop meaning much. Happy to be told I'm asking the wrong question about romance sites.