eHarmony.com is one of the biggest and deepest online dating websites in the world. eHarmony is geared towards singles that are looking to date seriously and find serious relationships and even marriage eventually. eHarmony claims to be responsible for over five hundred new marriages every day because of the website and its’ features.
eHarmony has a long history going back to the early days of the Internet and that is why it has become one of the most trusted names in online dating. As a website, it has continued to develop and advance to suit the needs of its users and overall membership.
eHarmony uses algorithms and specific scientific methods in order to match members with each other in terms of like-minded personal qualities and characteristics. eHarmony assesses female and male users based on their overall compatibility and what they’re looking for in a marriage partner.
Unlike many other online dating website, eHarmony has the funds and the infrastructure to have their own scientific laboratories known as eHarmony Labs which is a research facility on dating and relationships. This research facility helps make the algorithms and science behind matching the millions of members who use eHarmony every day.
In addition, eHarmony publishes dating advice in a different website known as eHarmony Advice in order to give tips to singles who are struggling in the dating game. eHarmony launched over sixteen years ago in August of 2000 when it was one of the first online dating sites to launch in early days of the Internet along with its main competitor, Match.com. The company was founded in Pasadena, California and now has its company headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
eHarmony has quite a reach worldwide with a member base that includes users from over one hundred and fifty countries total. In addition to Los Angeles, California in the United States, eHarmony.com has offices, which oversee operations in other key countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. eHarmony has not gone public yet and remains privately held by a few shareholders. A few of the major investors in the company include equity firms such as Sequoia Capital and Technology Cross Ventures.
eHarmony Review
Background
The founder of eHarmony.com is Dr. Neil Clark Warren who is a clinical psychologist dealing with dating, relationship issues and has been the author of many books dealing with relationships and marriages. Along with his son-in-law, Greg Forgatch, the two men founded eHarmony in 2000.
After having multiple decades of experience working with couples going through marriage therapy and having seen the fallout from many unhappy divorces, Dr. Warren decided to work towards a system, which would allow couples who had similar characteristics and personality traits to be able to find each other and start dating.
He believed that couples that were similar in many respects were more likely to stick together and have healthier relationships and marriages than those couples that had big differences between them. After working in the late 1990s with researchers in the field of dating. Dr. Warren devised the eHarmony.com matching system, which has been very successful with its results ever since the site launched back in 2000.
Individual investors came together to give a few million dollars during the site’s founding in order to give eHarmony.com the capital it needed to get started. After the website demonstrated that it could function and gain new members, more venture capitalists and firms would go ahead and give large amounts of capital especially in 2004 when Sequoia Capital and other big firms got involved in helping eHarmony.com.
As eHarmony developed, it was able to implement a subscription model for paid users that helped contribute to keeping the website afloat over the past couple of years. eHarmony now posts over a $1 billion in total revenue and its’ profits continue to grow every year.
Since the company launched back in 2000, eHarmony.com has went from only a couple of thousand members in the United States to over 35 million members in over one hundred and fifty countries. In every year of its’ existence, the company has shown exponential growth in both membership and revenue.
The eHarmony questionnaire has become a mainstay in the matching system and is used by about fifteen thousand people per day who are new to the website. eHarmony only comes second to Match.com in terms of the amount of people using online dating in the U.S. market as a total percentage. Match.com has about twenty-five percent of the total U.S. market when compared to eHarmony.com has about fifteen percent total.
Part of the reason why eHarmony has become so successful is just how good the matching system is and how much the large amount of testing helps them to find a compatible partner after setting up a profile.
eHarmony is still going through changes after these past sixteen years of existence is still working on fool-proofing the auto-renewal system for members and making sure that members who want to leave are able to cancel their memberships without any problems.
eHarmony is still trying to improve upon itself by adding more members each year, retaining old members who haven’t found love yet, and finding responsible advertisers who are not pushy or too flashy on the website.
Since eHarmony is one of the oldest online dating websites, it currently faces challenges from OKCupid and Plenty of Fish while adapting to the growth of new mobile applications dealing with dating such as Tinder and Bumble. Long-time founder and CEO, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, recently stepped down as CEO of eHarmony.com and was replaced by Grant Langston in July of 2016.
Mr. Langston is a former vice president of brand marketing who may be able to move the company forward in terms of competing with other online dating behemoths and to better improve the company’s advertising platform.
However, unlike other online dating competitors, eHarmony.com’s matching system remains a force to be reckoned with and retains its’ consistent popularity ever since it was revealed back in the website’s early days.
Main Features
- Detailed profile
Regardless of whether or not you’re a free or paid member when you sign-up for eHarmony.com, every user is obligated in creating their own profile when they first start their time on the website.
The profile is quite in-depth and you have to be original, truthful, and detailed in your answers in order to get the best results when it comes to matching. The compatibility system that eHarmony.com utilizes relies on all of its users in being honest and straightforward when it comes to answering the important questions posed to them.
- Compatibility matching
When you make a concentrated effort in creating a detailed profile that demonstrates that you have certain characteristics and qualities that would like to have in a partner, the compatibility system of eHarmony does the rest by only showing you the profiles of other users who have similar needs, wants, desires, and would be a good match for you.
As a user of eHarmony, you won’t have to waste any time searching for various profiles with people who are fundamentally different from you. Instead, 99% of all other eHarmony will not appear to you in your search results since they must meet a certain standard of compatibility based on the ‘Matching Model’ employed by eHarmony.
- Relationship questionnaire
The ‘Relationship Questionnaire’ that all members are asked to fill out is extensive and time consuming but the results help you to create your preferences and compatibility measurements when it comes to other members. eHarmony believes that it is much easier for their members to find a compatible match after filling out the relationship questionnaire and letting the matching system do its job afterwards.
These questions also help to form your very own ‘personality profile’ which shows other members who you are, what you’re looking for, where you come from, and how do you see your future, etc.
- Personality profile
In order to create a ‘Personality Profile’, there are a number of different topics that have to be filled out in order for it to be completed. You have to give your name, gender, and the kind of relationship that you’re looking for on eHarmony.
You’ll be asked to give a ‘self-description’, which involves talking about your weight, height, eye color, hair color, and other physical characteristics. You will also have to be more personal by filling in information about your religious beliefs, your racial / ethnic background along with your current career path and salary range.
In order to get a better sense of your personality, you’ll have to create some ‘About Me’ statements such as “I like to help others when I have the opportunity” or “I think it’s best to live in a clean apartment rather than a messy one.” In order to describe yourself, you will fill out a section about self-descriptive words that fit your personality. You’ll rate which words like ‘extroverted’ or ‘conscientious’ most or least describe you to others.
Lastly, you’ll have to rate the feelings you experience and how often or how rare you experience them such as ‘happiness’ or ‘anger.’
- Rate the preferences
In order to assess your compatibility for relationships, you’ll be asked to rate your preferences by stating if you agree, disagree, or stay neutral when it comes to statements like “it’s important for me to be emotionally open with my significant other” or “I like to stay in touch with my partner every day in some form.”
You can also choose to state which qualities, either physical or emotional, which you would like to see in a potential partner. You can rate the importance of these statements about a partner from most to least important as well.
You will also have to mark ‘true’ or ‘false’ regarding questions about your overall personality and character. On the personality profile, you can also highlight those hobbies and interests of yours, which you care the most about and also detail which ones are of less importance to you and don’t care too much about. Some examples of popular hobbies and interests would include biking, running, dancing, reading, writing, learning new languages, etc.
Your ‘Living Skills’ will also play a role in creating your profile by detailing how you live with others and what priorities you have when it comes to meeting new people, sharing with others, and resolving problems should they arise. How you communicate with others, whether its’ direct or indirect will also factor into the compatibility system of eHarmony.com’s decision regarding your potential relationship matches.
Other necessary information includes finding out whether you have certain habits like drinking, smoking, gambling, etc. and how often do you like to partake in their activities. You’ll also be asked to reflect on statements that may reflect on how other people see you. For example, you may be asked to agree or disagree on the statement, “I am a fun person to be around.”
- Daily matches
After entering in all of that information, you’ll finally be ready to submit your ‘personality profile’ for finalization. Then, you’ll be able to receive the matches found in the system that you will be compatible with for a potential relationship.
You will be able to receive new matches on a daily basis from eHarmony due to sheer amount of members on the website. It’s entirely accessible to all members that they can review their matches and look at their profiles as well as their pictures to see if you would like to get to know them better.
When the profile is finished and you have answered all the questions you’ll need to in order to get some compatible matches, you can then upload some profile pictures of you that will appeal to other members of the site.
With good pictures showing you clearly along with some of your hobbies, and interests, it’s likely that you’ll increase the amount of visitors you get and the chance for other members to respond to you if you decide to send them a message.
In order to protect your privacy, only the members who you have matched with can see your profile pictures and send you a message back. It’s important to make your profile as detailed as possible with reliable answers to questions as well as good pictures in order to make it easier for the ‘Compatibility Matching System’ of eHarmony.com to do its’ magic and work properly for you to find some long-term relationship prospects.
Additional Features
In addition to the popular main features that all users of eHarmony.com can access with any kind of membership regardless if its free or paid, the additional features that this website offers are only available to paying members. While these additional features cost money, they may be worth it based on what they can offer the individual user of eHarmony who is looking for an extra boost in terms of better matches and more visibility to others.
- Premium personality
The first additional feature that some members may find appealing is the ‘Premium Personality’ profile, which is an extended version of the regular profile with fifteen additional options to describe aspects of your personality to other members.
You can get this option for about $20 per month with options of one month, three months, six months, and twelve months for a subscription period. Some of these personality aspects include social awareness, emotional intuition, and inquisitiveness.
eHarmony laboratories interviewed over ten thousand people and studied their behavioral patterns and character traits in order to develop this particular feature.
- RelyID
Another additional feature is the ‘RelyID’, which allows for verification of your name, address, and age in order to make other members more trustful of your overall profile. They verify this information alongside other websites where you have memberships on.
For this service, it costs about $6 for the entire subscription period, which can be one, three, six, or even twelve months.
- Secure call
The eHarmony secure call is also offered by the website as a means to have a secure and private way to communicate with another member without revealing your private phone number to them.
By having this option, you can talk over the phone and get to know the person better without revealing this private number that you may not want a stranger to get access to.
Your real number when it’s from home, a mobile device, or from work will be masked when you call the other eHarmony member to start a conversation. You can receive and make calls at any time with this particular feature.
The cost of this feature is about $8 for one month and then decreases to be about $6 a month for subscription periods of three, six, and twelve months. It’s important to remember that you will be billed for the three, six, or twelve months in one bulk charge, which could be $18, $36, and $72 total.
- eH+
There’s also eH+ is a special service, which is unique to eHarmony along with access to your own personal counselor who can give both dating and relationship advice. Your counselor can do a number of things for you because of this eH+ service.
They can update your profile, manage the matches you have and see if they are compatible with you as well as keeping up with your communications with other users. The counselor will check your prospective matches and see if they are interested in you before they write a positive response back to that user.
This is a special service for an eHarmony.com user to have and it costs a premium price to go along with it. It’s going to cost $5,000 total for a one-year subscription due to the personalized nature of this service.
- eHarmony access
eHarmony Access is another prominent additional feature, which is quite popular with users of all backgrounds. After the subscription period ends for your membership, you can decide to keep some paid features along with some benefits that go along with it.
eHarmony Access is still in the development phases and hasn’t been made available yet to all members of the website. You can view pictures, receive matches, and send ‘icebreaker’ messages to other members.
These are some of the features that you can have even after your paid subscription expires. After cancelling the full paid membership, you will pay less money per month in order to retain some of these extra features.
Subscription plans like eHarmony Access are usually billed to you in single installments but if you have a twelve-month membership, you’ll be able to separate the payments into three installments.
- Datebook
The last feature that is additional and would be useful to eHarmony users is called ‘Datebook.’ If you have an iPhone, it can sync with your calendar in there to keep track of when, at what time, and where your dates will be.
You can add the names of users to your contacts if you so choose to. After you have the date with the person, you can rate them on a scale and indicate whether or not you would be interested in seeing them again in the future.
The ‘Datebook’ feature is integrated with the social networking application called ‘Foursquare’ which can give you good recommendations on bars and restaurants to take your dates to for dinner and/or drinks.
The best part of this additional feature is that even if your date is not an eHarmony member and you met her elsewhere, you can still log the date in your schedule and keep track of the time and date. ‘Datebook’ is a unique feature found on eHarmony.com which has not been replicated elsewhere as of yet.
How to Pay
eHarmony accepts all kinds of credit cards including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. You will also have the option to use debit cards, which have the Visa or MasterCard logo on them.
If you can’t pay by either credit or debit card, you can use PayPal or Bill Me Later, which are very reliable systems used globally for payments. Whether you’re in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, or Canada, subscription prices for members are going to be very similar even with the differences in the exchange rate.
Mobile Applications
In order to compete directly with competitors such as Match.com, eHarmony has invested in a full mobile application that is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, and other smartphones and tablet devices.
With the official mobile application, you can have the same access to the main website and the main features without losing anything in the process. The only difference is that the layout and design of the mobile device is much simpler and easier to navigate. The usability of the mobile site is basically the same as the main site.
On the mobile application, you can register and sign-up for eHarmony and then be able to take the relationship questionnaires which will help you create the personalized profile. You’ll also be able to see new matches, who visited your profile recently, and send icebreakers along with messages to other users.
You’ll have access to eHarmony mail if you choose to use that service and you can be able to update your profile from time to time. Photos can be uploaded for your profile on your mobile device and you can save those matches and favorite them for when you want to contact them at a later date.
Like the main site, the mobile site can also be used for the additional features that you have to pay for. Some examples of these additional features accessible on the mobile application include the ‘Secure Call’ function to ensure the privacy of your mobile number, RelyID for verification of your personal profile, and you can create a ‘premium’ version of the personality profile on the mobile site if you want to get more in-depth about your characteristics, traits, and personal habits.
Overall, the mobile version of eHarmony is simple, easy-to-use while including all of the important features that are commonly found on the main version of the website.
eHarmony Costs
Compared to many other online dating websites, eHarmony.com is more expensive when it comes to its’ different payment plans but the site also claims to offer more for your money depending on which plan you choose to use.
The match compatibility system is more extensive in terms of in-depth questions and answers. Prices can change every now and then so it’s important to check eHarmony.com for the latest price plans before you decide to subscribe to one.
There are currently three types of membership plans that are offered to eHarmony.com users and they vary both by price and the features that are available:
- Basic plan $20-$60/month
The basic plan is the cheapest option with the least amount of total features but still comes with the most important aspects of a full membership.
As a ‘Basic Plan’ subscriber, you can still view photos of your matches and upload photos of your own to your profile. You can request photos from your matches if you can’t see any on their profile, and you can also view their profile to see what their personality may be like.
The ability to communicate with your matches is possible as long as you send a request to them to gain their approval and mutual interest.
Lastly, you’ll be able to receive message requests and accept the ones whom you are interested in getting to know better.
The subscription prices of the ‘Basic Plan’ membership depend upon on how many months you want to subscribe and pay for. You can pay for one month at about $60, three months for $40, and six months for $30, and one year for $20 per month.
It’s important to keep in mind that you will have to pay more any membership with one bulk payment. For example, you will be billed once for a three-month membership with a charge to your credit or debit card for $120 total.
If you can afford the bulk payment, the one-year membership is the cheapest option per month but you will have to pay for the whole membership period at the beginning.
- Total Connect plan $24-$45
The 2nd kind of plan that you can subscribe to is the ‘Total Connect’ plan. It’s a step up from the ‘Basic Plan’ because it includes all of those features offered in that plan as well as some other features, which are more advanced and in-depth.
You can get those special features like the premium personality profile, the Secure Call function, the RelyID, which will allow you to connect with many other members of eHarmony.com more easily.
The smallest amount of time that you can devote to a ‘Total Connect’ plan membership is three amounts at a price of $45 per month. There are also two other options of paying $34 per month for a total of six months or paying $24 per month for a total of one year.
Similar to the ‘Basic Plan’, you have to pay for your chosen membership plan in one bulk payment at the beginning of the subscription period. It’s important to note that there are not too many differences between the ‘Basic Plan’ and the ‘Total Connect’ plan and that’s why the price isn’t that much different between them.
- Premier plan $42
The last plan that is offered is called the ‘Premier Plan’, which is the most expensive option but the most inclusive in terms of offering special features for the subscriber.
This plan comes with the special guarantee offered by eHarmony.com, which ensures that if you haven’t found someone special after six months or more of an eHarmony membership then the company will offer another membership period of up to twelve months for free.
With this plan, you can gain full access to seeing your matches’ profiles, sending them messages and receiving them as well as being able to contact them offline. You can upload photos of your own and see your matches’ pictures too.
Uniquely, you can pause your account for up to three months without paying any money and then start it up again as if no time has passed in the meantime with the same amount of time remaining in the overall membership.
The Premier Plan comes with a really special feature unique to eHarmony called the ‘personal consultation’ where you’ll get a professional to give you advice about your profile and give you feedback as well regarding your pictures, and overall appeal to other users. It’s a $100 value when you get a consultation but is included within the ‘Premier Plan’ membership.
You can also call the eHarmony customer support team at any time regarding your premium membership and how you can personalize your profile more to get more matches and visitors.
Like the two other plans of ‘Basic’ and ‘Total Connect’, you’ll also have full access to features like ‘Secure Check’ where you can requesting a background check on the information provided by your matches along with ‘RelyID’ and ‘SecureCall’ to give you a much better user experience.
The ‘Premier Plan’ is expensive but it offers the most bang for your buck at $42 per month for one year total. The only option for the ‘Premier Plan’ is a one-year membership commitment and you’ll have to pay for the twelve months in one billing installment at the beginning of the membership period.
If you have the money and the desire to have the most in-depth experience on eHarmony, the ‘Premier Plan’ would be for you.
Free vs. Paid Membership
Free membership includes the following features:
- Create a detailed profile
Add name, relationship type, physical appearance, personal characteristics, about you section, self description, rate your feelings, relationship orientation, qualities, personality, interests, and living skills, communication style, attitudes, opinions, and matching information.
- Reviewing your matches profiles
Paid membership includes all of the above mentioned plus the following:
- Communicating with members
- Premium paid features
Search For Members By
- Matching Model
- Match Settings (religion, ethnicity, distance, children, smoking and drinking).
Relationships You Can Search For
- Dating
- Long-Term
- Marriage
Your Relationship Status
- Single
- Divorced
- Widowed
Relationship Types Allowed
- Straight
Positive and Negative Aspects
Over the past fifteen years, eHarmony.com has built up its reputation in the online dating world as being a reliable and accurate judge for its members who are looking to find like-minded users to have dates and begin a relationship with.
Positives:
eHarmony has been able to hold on to its many positives over the years and has built a good amount of trust up with the millions of its users who rely on the site for their personal needs.
- In-depth matching system
Some of the positive features of the website include the fact that the matching system that eHarmony uses is very in-depth and is able to paint a pretty accurate portrait of a user’s personality and character traits.
The algorithm which eHarmony uses is based on twenty-nine different aspects, which can be useful in predicting the longevity and overall success of a relationship. The matching system also examines ten different areas of one’s personality that are important in being satisfied, happy, and content with a long-term relationship and/or marriage.
- Ideal for serious relationships
Compared to OKCupid and Plenty of Fish, which focus more on casual dating, eHarmony.com is perfect for those people who are looking specifically for a long-term relationship and even marriage if they are so lucky.
- No endless searching
Lastly, you don’t need to search endlessly through lists of members because eHarmony only shows you those users who have matched with already and are interested in your profile, getting to know you better.
- Personal consultant
eHarmony also gives you the option to have a personal consultant who can help you build a better profile, use better pictures, and screen better for potential matches.
- Secure communication
On top of that, there’s also features to the website like ‘Secure Call’, ‘RelyID’, and ‘Secure Check.’
Negatives:
There’s no perfect online dating website out there and eHarmony is no exception to this rule.
- Expensive
For the average person, it may be too expensive to purchase a paid membership plan, which can go for about $24 to $40 per month depending upon the plan you choose. If you are looking for a cheap or free option when it comes to an online dating website, eHarmony.com may not be for you.
It’s also important to remember that most of the great features that eHarmony has to offer are only available to paid members although you can purchase a few additional features individually per month if you so choose to.
- Can’t do your own search
Some people may see it as a negative in the fact that you can’t view all of the profiles in eHarmony.com and have a wider range of choice. Instead, you may be constrained by the fact that you can only view profiles that have been deemed as compatible to you and who have been matched with you.
- Can’t communicate with paid members
Perhaps most notably, if you’re a free member of eHarmony, you can’t communicate with paid members of the website. The only exception is once per month when eHarmony has a free communication weekend. Free users may see it as a major disadvantage when they can’t communicate with most of the other users on this particular online dating site.
Popularity and Accolades
Despite its’ few flaws, eHarmony remains hugely successful in the online dating world. eHarmony has about fifty million members total in the more than one hundred and fifty countries it is used in.
There’s also now Canadian and British versions of the website along with eHarmony Espanol for those Spanish-speaking singles who want to meet other bilingual users and who come from similar cultural backgrounds.
eHarmony has won many awards from dating reviews sites over the past couple of years in categories such as ‘Single’s Choice’, ‘Match System’, and ‘Innovation.’ The compatibility matching system that eHarmony has used for over fifteen years ago has had many thousands of success stories with new relationships, new couples, and new marriages forming from a chance matching of two people on their website.
How To Delete eHarmony Account?
It can be hard to let go of certain things in life and this fact even extends to online dating websites. One of the most successful online dating websites out there, eHarmony, can be especially tough when it comes to leaving the website after having spent a lot of time or money there.
However, it may be for the best though if you’re ready to move on after having gotten a number of serious relationships out of your membership or even getting married to a fellow user of the website.
It is also possible that you want to delete eHarmony account because you haven’t been very successful in your online dating life and you’re ready to take a break from it for the time being.
When you’re ready to delete your eHarmony account, you’ll need to log in to your account and go to the ‘settings’ page. After that, you should click on ‘billing’ to turn off the ‘automatic renewal’ option for your membership so you won’t be charged money for the next billing period.
In the ‘billing’ page of the website, there’s also a ‘close account’ option, which is the same as deleting your account.
After you go through with closing the account, your username, password, and profile information will be completely gone.
Please be aware that you will not be able to create an account with the same user information if you would like to rejoin the eHarmony community. Remember to consider what you’re doing and to be sure of your decision before you go ahead and delete the account permanently.
If you want to try out another dating site, check out our Zoosk review here.
Conclusion
eHarmony has been a mainstay of the online dating world since the early days of its’ founding. Over sixteen years, it has built up a great reputation and thousands of success stories that help to keep it popular with millions of users around the world.
eHarmony doesn’t stay content with staying the same though and continues to innovate by introducing new features that are tried and tested to be popular with its users. Perhaps most noteworthy to eHarmony.com is its’ matching system which has been very highly regarded for successfully matching like-minded people with similar characteristics and personalities.
eHarmony’s philosophy is that men and women who are similar to each other in many facets of life are likelier to have good relationships together and have happy marriages. While eHarmony faces increased competition today with newer dating sites like OKCupid and Plenty of Fish along with popular mobile applications like Tinder and Bumble, eHarmony has carved out a niche with its’ emphasis on people getting together to form serious relationships and marriages. If eHarmony keeps up its formula of success and innovation, it will be around for fifteen more years or longer.
Have you ever signed up for eHarmony.com? If yes, how was your experience with this popular dating site? Did this site help you find a long-term relationship? I would love to hear your thoughts and advice.
