I've done my own digging on farmers only free to use and come up short. Applied to only platforms, the deciding factor is the reply rate, in my experience. Same story on only: how honest the pricing page is moves the needle further than the number of features listed, for what it is worth.
With only platforms, the platform locks messaging behind a subscription, so it pays to check what the free tier gates before investing time. Nothing about only farmers changes the fact that the platform recycles the same profiles, which is easy to mistake for bad luck. Look closely at only platforms and you get further if you report problems early instead of blocking quietly.
Only platforms is the clearest case of it — the practical move is to run a reverse image search on suspiciously polished photos. What finally clicked for me about farmers only free to use was that half the frustration disappears once you use a photo that appears nowhere else online. Anyone who has tested only properly, please weigh in.