eharmony Review (2024): Is It Worth Using?

Contributor

Fact Checked

Carley Prendergast Editor
Commissions we earn from partner links on this page do not affect our opinions or evaluations. Our editorial content is based on thorough research and guidance from the Forbes Health Advisory Board.

Our Verdict

eharmony claims to have helped over 2 million find love online, with 2.3 million messages sent among matches weekly.

And while there’s no guarantee of dating success, eharmony offers a proprietary compatibility matching and Personality Profile system to help increase your chances of finding love online. Let’s explore what this dating site has to offer.

Key Features

  • Personalized process: eharmony does the matchmaking for you. You’ll answer 80 compatibility test questions about your likes and dislikes, communication style and what motivates you for insight about your character to build your Personality Profile and what sort of person would be your ideal match.
  • Scoring system: Your quiz results generate an eharmony compatibility score from 60 to 140, based on your life goals, habits and interests. Your score will vary from match to match, depending on your mutual compatibility. According to eharmony, 100 is a good compatibility starting point for each match, and it encourages you to reach out to matches with a score of 100 or higher.
  • Success rate: Since the site’s beginning in 2000, eharmony claims that over 2 million people have fallen in love on the site in over 125 countries.

eharmony claims to be the first online dating app and site to use a proprietary matching system developed to match you with highly compatible singles. eharmony uses an 80-question compatibility quiz to match potential dates based on their compatibility. The compatibility questions contain a mix of questions, some of which are not obviously related to relationships.

eharmony doesn’t provide in-depth information about its proprietary quiz, such as whether it has been tested and validated, but they do reveal that it has been developed with the help of leading psychologists.

ProsCons
  • eharmony features a dedicated Trust & Safety team, available seven days per week, to create a safe dating platform and one that’s free of fake profiles, according to the company. You can flag anything that feels suspicious. 
  • Basic membership is free. You can view information about your matches at no charge. You’ll only pay when you’re ready to view your matches’ photos and send messages.
  • Cost of premium membership isn’t transparent. You have to create an account by providing your email, creating a password and taking the compatibility quiz to receive cost information about eharmony’s three types of premium plans.
  • Canceling requires multiple steps. If you’re in the middle of a subscription and wish to cancel your eharmony membership, you’ll have to contact Customer Care from the eharmony website to start the process.

eharmony at a Glance

  • Compatibility quiz: The service uses a proprietary compatibility quiz to create a Personality Profile and compatibility score to connect you with potential matches.
  • Memberships: It offers a free basic membership and three premium plan options based on six, 12 and 24 month membership timeframes.
  • Success rate: eharmony claims that over 2 million people have found love on its site in over 125 countries since 2000. The site advertises that it has millions of registered users.

How Does eharmony Work?

Everyone who joins eharmony begins with a free, basic membership, which includes unlimited matches and the ability to send/receive eharmony’s Smiles and Icebreakers. You can also respond to one message, browse anonymously and see who has visited your profile. Communication is done without the platform. As soon as you complete the compatibility quiz, you’ll receive matches right away.

Upgrading to a premium membership will give you full-feature access, which includes unlimited matches and messaging, enhanced search, and the ability to see all your matches’ photos.

Here For Real Love

You're ready to find your person. eharmony is here to make that happen.

How Much Does eharmony Cost?

eharmony offers one basic membership:

  • Basic: This membership is free. After completing eharmony’s Compatibility Quiz, you’ll be able to view primary profile information such as first name, age, occupation, a blurry photo and a little about your match, such as what he/she enjoys (such as travel, working with their hands, etc.) about unlimited matches and send and receive eharmony’s communications tools. These include: Smiles (a virtual smiley face), Icebreakers (eharmony’s imaging messaging game; you’ll be able to send your matches one of five images) and Greetings (responding to the first message at no charge). You can also browse anonymously and see who has recently visited your profile.You can view information about your matches at no charge.

eharmony also offers three Premium (paid) memberships:

  • Premium Light is eharmony’s six-month plan, which regularly costs $65.90 per month.
  • Premium Plus: This 12-month plan, regularly $45.90 per month. It’s what eharmony describes as its most popular plan.
  • Premium Extra: This 24-month plan regularly costs $35.90 a month.

Each of eharmony’s Premium plans are the same except for the length of membership. The longer the membership, the less you’ll pay per month. Regular prices are listed here, but sale prices/special offers may apply. Prices for individuals may vary.

With each the Premium Plus, Premium Extra and Premium Light, you have access to a detailed Personality Profile, which offers a deeper insight into your characteristics and personalized tips to help you understand how you stack up view unlimited photos, have access to unlimited messaging, see who has viewed you and have the ability to search for matches by distance.

The Fine Print

On eharmony, you must pay for a six, 12 or 24-month plan to use all of the features of the site. You can’t sign up for a one month membership. If you want to try it out, stick with a basic membership until you’re comfortable committing to a plan. You have to be at least 18 years old to use eharmony.

What Experts Say About eharmony

“From client feedback, eharmony is one of the best dating sites out there, particularly for people who are interested in a long-term, committed relationship,” says Carla Manly, Ph.D., a psychologist in Santa Rosa, California and author of Date Smart. Dr. Manly is a fan of eharmony’s Compatibility Quiz, which is based on the premise that the more compatible you are with a match, the more apt you are to have a good relationship. “Compatibility is a solid premise for successful dating. Research shows that opposites may attract, but they don’t hold,” Manly says.

When dating, Dr. Manly recommends looking for someone with common interests and goals, but most importantly, common values, such as family, religion or work. “You may have a lot in common, such as you both really like tennis, but if you have a mismatch of core values, such as you value family, but he values work over family, it can create a lot of conflict,” she says.

Still, online dating through eharmony or any online dating site can amplify the tendency to take a consumerist approach to relationships. “Online dating can set us up for failure in intimacy as we become hyper-fixated on meeting our own needs versus connecting authentically with the other,” says Chanel Dokun, a relationship expert trained in marriage and family therapy and author of Life Starts Now. With so many options to choose from, there’s a tendency to want to keep looking for someone potentially even better. “We’re constantly measuring and asking ourselves, ‘does this person tick all the boxes?’ Nobody fully ticks all of our boxes,” says Dokun.

Still, “online dating platforms like eharmony can be beneficial in providing us access to more prospective partners than we might be able to find locally, and they facilitate connections with like-hearted individuals who we might never have considered through other dating means,” says Dokun. For online dating success, she recommends allowing your eharmony compatible matches to be themselves, flaws and all, and to go in with an open mind as you spend time online with them, and then, eventually, in person.

That strategy worked for Dokun. In December 2009, she signed up for eharmony and met her now-husband. “He was one of the first guys I matched with,” she says. “We did have a lot in common,” she says. The couple got engaged after five months and married two years later. 10 years and two kids later, they’re going strong. “He felt like family from the first day. He was exactly who I had seen online.”

The Experience

On eharmony’s website, you’ll notice a Success Stories tab. Here, you can view couples who’ve met and either gotten engaged or married thanks to eharmony. One couple, who married in 2020, appreciated the platform’s “in-depth match preferences,” and felt that the ability to communicate on eharmony was a breeze. Some other couples credit eharmony for bringing them together because they wouldn’t have otherwise been introduced.

eharmony has a 3.7 out of 5 star rating on ConsumerAffairs based on 2,388 ratings. Some negative 1-star reviews on the site reflect the concern about fake profiles, expensive memberships and poor matches. Positive, 5-star reviews share success stories due to the platform and explain that while expensive, it’s worth the money.

Find Your Someone

Trusted by millions for over two decades, eharmony is committed to helping singles find love that lasts.

Join Free Today

Get Who Gets You

We understand it can be difficult to find a match with whom you share a similar background, goals, or beliefs, and regardless of who you may be looking for, eHarmony wants to help you find the love of your life.

Join For Free Today

On eHarmony's Website

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How much does eharmony cost?

The basic membership is free, with additional premium plans between $35.90 and $65.90 a month, though special promotions/discounts may apply.

How do you cancel eharmony?

You can turn off the auto-renewal feature, which will cease your subscription when the term has ended. You can find specific online and in-app cancellation instructions on eharmony’s support page.

Does eharmony have a religious affiliation?

No, eharmony isn’t associated with any religion and accepts all members of all religions and backgrounds. However, you can filter members based on religious criteria if religion is important to you in your matches.

Sources

References

Next Up In Dating

Information provided on Forbes Health is for educational purposes only. Your health and wellness is unique to you, and the products and services we review may not be right for your circumstances. We do not offer individual medical advice, diagnosis or treatment plans. For personal advice, please consult with a medical professional.

Forbes Health adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved or otherwise endorsed by our advertisers.