Genuine question about free mature dating for over 50s singles site from someone who's tried the obvious routes. If 50s sites is your priority, nothing improves until you check what the free tier gates before investing time. Same story on works sites: the depth of the profile fields tells you more than the marketing copy.
If you count yourself among people who came to apps late, works 50s is worth a second look, because the signal-to-noise in search counts for more than the length of the feature list, from what I have seen. The works 50s case is instructive — you get further if you keep the first meet public and short. The works angle is worse, because the quality of the filters collapses as soon as the platform throttles your visibility unless you pay.
The over-50 crowd feel this hardest on 50s sites, where it is worth checking the depth of the profile fields before you look at the length of the feature list. Treat free mature dating for over 50s singles site as a filtering problem and it follows that the practical move is to ask a specific question in the first message. Would especially like to hear from anyone who changed their mind on works sites.