In an ideal porn buying environment every site would be perfect, would have lots of high quality content, frequent updates, and no one would ever try to shortchange you. There are many sites like that, however there are also some sites that might have a few problems.

On this page you will find some ways to help avoid some of those potential problems.

Always search for a review

Use a review site like this one to search for information about a site before you pay for it. The old saying "you can't judge a book by its cover" usually holds true; some sites might have awesome looking tour pages but might not be very good once you're inside. Others might look somewhat bland but become a favorite site.

Read the payment options

Some sites might offer only one price while others might offer a trial price, a recurring price, and a one-time price. Some points to consider:

• Trial prices: these are usually pretty cheap, but may limit your access to only a portion of the site or have download limits. They do offer you a very low-cost, low-risk way to preview the site. Be aware that if you do not cancel them in time, you will be charged a monthly recurring fee; in some rare instances that fee might be greater than if you had simply bought a monthly recurring membership without the trial. In those instances, the price should be clearly stated on the join form somewhere.

• Recurring price: this simply means that your membership is renewed for you automatically every month until you cancel it. You can always cancel your membership however some sites might require you to give them earlier notification than others, so be sure to read the terms.

• One-time price: as the name implies, you will only be charged one time for a membership to the site. If you are concerned about remembering to cancel your membership, or you are leery of a site charging you every month, this can be a good option. While it is typically the highest priced option, it might offer the best value if you intend to keep your membership a long time. Some sites offer very good price breaks if you join for 6 months or one year at a time using this option.

In general, we usually recommend joining under the "recurring price" option. This way you always get full access to the site instead of possibly only a preview, it gives you time to enjoy the site instead of a 3 day download marathon, and you get to see what kind of updates the site provides throughout the month.

Watch out for extra cost memberships

When you reach the join page some sites might offer you a membership to other sites but only for an additional cost - do not confuse this offer with more common free "bonus sites".

If you see an offer to join an extra site(s) with a little checkbox next to it, just make sure you deselect those boxes. That is all you need to do in order to decline the offer.

Most sites which have these offers will not have the box selected, but some will. Usually they will appear right above the join button, but sometimes they will be under it, so be sure to look at the entire page before clicking the join button. Again, it's nothing to worry about, simply deselect the option and you will not be charged.

Do not confuse these additional cost offers with "bonus sites" or "network pass" sites that might offer you access to several sites for one price. Those type of sites will never require you to pay for a second membership, they just offer you more sites for the same low cost.

Read the terms

The terms are usually some novel length mumbo-jumbo written by a lawyer that normal people have little interest in. However, as with any other online purchase, you would do well to at least scan over it quickly and see if there's anything worth noting about the billing or the cancellation process.

Sign up securely

When you are ready to join the site you must only enter your credit card information on a secure page. You should always take care to do this any time you enter your credit card information on any website, whether for a porn membership or for anything else!

Some sites might ask you to enter a username and passowrd or other information on a normal, unsecured page, and that is OK; this only applies to the page you enter your credit card number on.

There are two very easy ways to make sure you are on a secure page:

• Make sure the page url starts with https:// instead of only http://
• Look for the lock icon in the lower right side of your browser

Billing info

Your credit card will typically be billed very discreetly under a name such as "Internet Services Company" or "CCBill" or something like that. This is to help safeguard your privacy.